Good news people!
The average global download speed has increased from 3.27Mbps (in 2008) to 5.92Mbps (in 2010).
Upload speed? 794Kbps to 1.77Mbps.
So much win! Article goes on to say:
As a result of the higher speeds and greater access, 48 countries, or 66 percent of those studied, now meet the necessary requirements to tap into the major services available on the Internet today. Those services include social networking, low-definition video streaming, basic video-conferencing, small file sharing, instant messaging, e-mail, and Web browsing.
That is awesome. But then there is this:
Among the individual countries examined in the study, South Korea topped the charts with the highest broadband quality in the world. South Koreans enjoy an average download speed of 33.5Mbps, a gain of 55 percent from last year, and an average upload speed of 17Mbps, a leap of 430 percent from 2009. As this point, the country also is the beneficiary of 100 percent broadband penetration.
Hong Kong, Japan, and Iceland were also among the countries with the best broadband access. The United States ranked 15th, tying with Canada, France, and Latvia.
Latvia??
Sorry, but when I hear ‘Latvia’ all I think about is the ‘Seinfeld’ episode called ‘The Conversion’ where George decided to become a member of the Latvian Orthodox Church.
I realize it’s not easy to bring the kinds of speeds to the USA as they have in South Korea. SK is a country with a population of nearly 50 million people in a country the size of Minnesota. The infrastructure is easier to build within that framework.
But we’re still not where we should be. I have my own views about why that is, but I’d be interested in hearing what others have to say.
[Image from cod_gabriel, striatic]
Stephen Bateman says
I have a sneaky suspicion that there will be a correlation between internet speed and educational performance and possibly economic performance in the next 20 years.
If a whole nation can get things done 8% faster on the internet than another nation…well, it’ll start to show.
Matt Phelps says
I’m not sure what tactics (if any) South Korea used, but I personally believe the problem in the US is corporate greed. My ISP charges $65/month for a 3.0/0.5 mbps connection (rated speed, actual is up to 2.4/0.4, interestingly enough the same as AT&T’s 3G here, but the 3G is more reliable). But it’s a public company, so their main concern is looking out for stockholders. They mostly cover rural areas with no other choices for high speed internet, so they only really have competition from internet by satellite companies. But I don’t know of anyone who has that and doesn’t go over the bandwidth limit, which then drops the speed down to dial-up.
I’d have to agree with Stephen. The country that can get to information the fastest will probably have better education rankings. And it’s common knowledge by now that the faster internet connections draw more businesses than the slower connections. I’ve personally seen large companies go with one city over another simply because of the internet speed/quality/price.
BenJPickett says
One of the big things that prevents growth in the US isn’t the greedy corporations, it’s the government involvement within those corporations both on a national and local. I don’t mean lobbying or anything like that and while I’m sure that happens a lot, it’s that companies are assigned territories and regions. They have a no compete clause with other companies meaning that they are all entitled to a customer base. And while I’m all for everyone getting a shot at business this hurts our countries growth in several fields. First and foremost is because they don’t have to work for their customers, instead they prove that they can support customers and then customers are handed to them on a silver platter without the customers consent. They don’t have to earn customers, offer competing services, higher speeds, better rates, or anything many would see as real value. Right now in most of the US you have a choice between Cable or DSL and most people make that decision based on what they get bundled with the TV, whose got the biggest and best sports package?
If they got rid of the territories and put everyone in the same arena, gave them real competition and then let them duke it out, we would see real growth and real benefit. They would find the customers that want the 100/100 speeds instead of assuming we won’t ever want anything that fast. Customer service would improve, rates would go down, subscribers would go up (at least for the companies that take care of their customers, offer the services we want at a price we can afford), and after a couple of years as people (both the companies and customers) started figuring things out there would be eventual growth both in the overall US capable speeds and coverage area, and the customers could actually be happy with the services they are paying for.