US Internet speeds won't catch up with Japan in 100 years

bealtine

Internet speeds of users nationwide shows that the United States has not made significant improvements in deploying high-speed broadband networks in the past year, and at the if the average US Internet speed continues to improve only at the same rate it did from 2007 to 2008, the country won't catch up with Japan's current download speed for another 100 years, according findings released by the Communications Workers of America's (CWA's) Speed Matters campaign.

The report also shows that the US continues to lag behind other industrial nations and currently is ranked 15th in the percentage of residents who have broadband access.

More than 230,000 people took the campaign’s speed survey on their home computers and found that we’re not downloading or uploading much faster than a year ago.

The 2008 median real-time download speed in the U.S. is a mere 2.3 megabits per second. This represents a gain of only 0.4 mbps over last year’s median download speed. It compares to an average download speed in Japan of 63 mbps, the survey reveals.

US also trails South Korea at 49 mbps, Finland at 21 mbps, France at 17 mbps, and Canada at 7.6 mbps, and the median upload speed was just 435 kilobits per second (kbps), far too slow for patient monitoring or to transmit large files such as medical records.

"We need high-speed Internet for our homes, schools, hospitals, and workplaces," the authors of the report recommend. "Speed defines what is possible on the Internet. It determines whether we will have the 21st century networks we need to create the jobs of the future, develop our economy, and support innovations in telemedicine, education, public safety, and public services to improve our lives and communities."

Blaster99

If 2.3Mbps is alright in the States, I guess it'll work for us too. As frustrating as it is.

paulm17781

What's our average these days? We've gotten a lot of higher speed packages in the last couple of months.

watty

The problem here is actually getting broadband. If you ignore Ice, Clearwire, EDGE/3G/HSDPA and ripwave, most peoples speeds / service is good once they get it.

The at least 40% of eircom DSL are on only 1Mbps, presumably because that's fine for their usage. A proportion of those would not be able to get faster. I don't know how many. Notice the DSL upgrades did not include 1Mbps users.

Fogmatic

Catch up with Japan? My connection speed's going backwards; up to 16mbps earlier this year, now max. 12, and sometimes 4.6, when it's there at all (yes, I'm finally going to complain formally to Eircom as detailed elsewhere; have been too busy troubleshooting the connection!).

But (having failed to download the document linked to), I'm a bit confused as to whether the above quotation refers to download speed, connection speed or a mixture. Unless I've got it wrong, I gather that downloads happen much slower than whatever connection speed is achieved?

It all makes the wirelessly transmitted broadband I hope to get in a few months (up to 2Mbps, both ways) sound quite good compared with most results through Eircom's phone lines. Hopefully, these local wireless schemes will cover more and more areas.

watty

There is "Package" speed you are sold.
Due to Contention the actual download speed is 40% to 90% of this. On DSL the Modem may "sync" at a connection "speed" that is your package speed, but never actually transfer data at this speed due to resent packets caused by packet loss or contention. Other systems don't work quite this way.

In the UK many users NEVER see more than 25% or 33% of the sold package speed. This is being investigated, I don't know what the DSL sync speed in these cases is. So while it's easier to get DSL in UK, UK DSL or Cable may not be as good as the Cable or DSL the priviledged in Ireland who actually get DSL or Cable often see lower contention.

p2p2p

In relation to US speeds, New York City will have poor speeds for a very long time to come. I read an article stating the BB companies WILL NOT service sky scrapers as it's just to much trouble. Most of them are old at this stage and drilling through concrete floors (up to 100 of them) is not worth their while. BB in the suburbs however will catch up much faster.

paulm17781

p2p2p wrote: »

In relation to US speeds, New York City will have poor speeds for a very long time to come. I read an article stating the BB companies WILL NOT service sky scrapers as it's just to much trouble. Most of them are old at this stage and drilling through concrete floors (up to 100 of them) is not worth their while. BB in the suburbs however will catch up much faster.

Surely the buildings have ducts where fibre / Cat5 can be run?