U.S. Lags in Internet Connection Speeds

The Idaho Statesman published the article below sans any citations. The link to the press release from the Communication Workers of America is at their web site; the link to the study is at http://speedmatters.org. This does not place the U.S. or Idaho in a very flattering light.

Study shows Idaho lags behind the U.S. in Internet connection speed
Cynthia Sewell - Idaho Statesman
Edition Date: 08/12/08

Idaho is one of the slowest states in the nation for Internet connection speed and the U.S. as a whole lags behind other advanced nations, according to a nationwide study.

The Speed Test, which measures the last-mile speed of a user’s Internet connection, shows that the median real-time download speed in the U.S. is 2.3 megabits per second (mbps).

The five slowest states are Alaska (0.8 mbps), North Dakota (1.2 mbps), Idaho, Montana and Wyoming (1.3 mbps each).

The five fastest states are Rhode Island (6.8 mbps), Delaware (6.7 mbps), New Jersey (5.8 mbps), Virginia (5.0 mbps) and Massachusetts (4.6 mbps).

The average download speed in Japan is 63 mbps, in South Korea is 49 mbps and in France is 17 mbps. That means the same multimedia file that takes four minutes to download in South Korea would take nearly an hour and a half to download in the U.S.

At the present rate — with a gain of only four-tenths of one megabit per second over last year — it will take the U.S. more than 100 years to catch up with current Internet speeds in Japan.

The national report is based on aggregated data from nearly 230,000 Internet users who took the online Speed Matters Speed Test (www.speedmatters.org), a project of the Communications Workers of America.

“We are the only industrialized nation without a national policy to promote universal, high-speed Internet access ‹ and it shows,” said Larry Cohen, president Communications Workers of America, in a press release.

“Most of our Speed Test users logged on with broadband connections such as DSL, cable modem or fiber. People with dial-up connections didn’t take the test because it took them too long, so even these dismal statistics paint a rosier-than-reality picture of connection speeds across the country.”

Recent studies show about 15 percent of Americans still use dial-up to connect to the Internet.

The Communication Workers of America (mind you they are an interest group and TechBoise editors have not reviewed any of these) recommend several policies to improve the speed of broadband in America:

• Pass S. 1492, the Broadband Data Improvement Act (Sens. Craig and Crapo are not sponsors of this bill)
• Public-private partnerships, like those in Ohio and Kentucky, that bring together state and local governments, telecommunications companies, schools and libraries to create state broadband maps and technology plans to stimulate demand for and adoption of high-speed broadband access.
• Reform of the Universal Service Fund (which worked to put a phone in every home in rural and lower-income communities) to support build-out of broadband infrastructure to underserved communities.
• Tax and loan incentives.

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