US net access speed is slow compared to some other countries

[Lanya]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2007-06-25-net-speeds_N.htm

[]The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second ? a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits).
[]

[Amianthus]

All those people who don't want to switch away from modems is driving down our average.

Plus, we continue to have an "area" problem - it's easier to bring high speed lines to densely packed populations, the population in the US tends to be too spread out.

So, Lanya, what's your connection speed?

[kimba1]

I thought that might be true
I`ve notice quite a few sites are extremely dificult to load and steaming video is simply a head ache to bother with.
and i thought I had a fairly decent broadband connection.
It just didn`t make sense for me to get the biggest plan to aviod these problems.
shouldn`t all these sites be usable at mid dsl speeds?
barring traffic of course
it must be like nirvana to surf in japan though.
I wonder if wireless in faster there?
here it`s abit sluggish

[Lanya]

Ami--
My connection speed, going by the little glowing monitors icon, says 100.0 mbps.   I don't know what that means.  It seems fast enough to me; anything seems fast after using dial-up.

[Amianthus]

My connection speed, going by the little glowing monitors icon, says 100.0 mbps.   I don't know what that means.  It seems fast enough to me; anything seems fast after using dial-up.

That's your connection speed to your cable / dsl modem. I can assure you that you're not getting 100Mbps to the 'net. Unless you've had a sudden upswelling in your income that we haven't heard about.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Plus, we continue to have an "area" problem - it's easier to bring high speed lines to densely packed populations, the population in the US tends to be too spread out.


Canada is more spread out than the US, and has five times the average speed. What's up with that?

[Amianthus]

Canada is more spread out than the US, and has five times the average speed. What's up with that?

Not in reality.

Something like 90% of the Canadian population lives within 50 miles of the US border (factoid from an old girlfriend of mine from Toronto). They have a lot of land, but their people are not spread through the land, they are clumped on their southern border.

[Amianthus]

Something like 90% of the Canadian population lives within 50 miles of the US border (factoid from an old girlfriend of mine from Toronto).

According to the CIA World Factbook:

approximately 90% of the population is concentrated within 160 km of the US border

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/ca.html

160 km is 96 mi. So the figure I initially gave is off a bit. Regardless, the population of Canada tends to clump along the southern border, throwing density calculation way off.

[Amianthus]

Looked up some more numbers. The majority of Canada's population lives on 2.2% of it's land area. So, running the "adjusted" numbers yields a population density for the majority of Canadians of roughly 283 / mi². Texas has a population density of ~80 / mi². Ohio is our 9th most densly populated state, with a density of 277 / mi². So our most densly populated states are on par with Canada's "real" population density. And I'm sure our most densly populated states have a larger percentage of people with high-speed access.

[Amianthus]

Forgot to mention why I threw Texas in there - it's at the average for the US in terms of population density.

[Lanya]

My connection speed, going by the little glowing monitors icon, says 100.0 mbps.   I don't know what that means.  It seems fast enough to me; anything seems fast after using dial-up.

That's your connection speed to your cable / dsl modem. I can assure you that you're not getting 100Mbps to the 'net. Unless you've had a sudden upswelling in your income that we haven't heard about.

LOL
No. No increase at all in income, well, except for the annual Social Security cost of living increase. That's it.   

[Amianthus]

LOL
No. No increase at all in income, well, except for the annual Social Security cost of living increase. That's it.   

You're probably on cable modem, right?

So more than likely you're getting about 3Mbps.

[kimba1]

by cnet
http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html

I`m getting
1083 kpbs

I`m thinking I should find out whats my options now.

[Amianthus]

I`m getting
1083 kpbs

I'm getting 8Mbps.

BTW, in my posts to Lanya, change all the Kbps to Mbps...

I had a scale issue earlier...

[Lanya]

Well, using the link Kimba posted, I'm getting about 367 kbps.  I'm a step up from dial-up.