USA pays more for slow Internet

By Hum
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Grand Master

Hum

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When it comes to Internet speeds, the U.S. lags behind much of the developed world.

That's one of the conclusions from a new report by the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation, which looked at the cost and speed of Internet access in two dozen cities around the world.

Clocking in at the top of the list was Seoul, South Korea, where Internet users can get ultra-fast connections of roughly 1000 megabits per second for just $30 a month. The same speeds can be found in Hong Kong and Tokyo for $37 and $39 per month, respectively.

 For comparison's sake, the average U.S. connection speed stood at 9.8 megabits per second as of late last year, according to Akamai Technologies.

Residents of New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. can get 500-megabit connections thanks to Verizon (VZ, Tech30), though they come at a cost of $300 a month.

There are a few cities in the U.S. where you can find 1000-megabit connections. Chattanooga, Tenn., and Lafayette, La. have community-owned fiber networks, and Google (GOOGL, Tech30) has deployed a fiber network in Kansas City. High-speed Internet users in Chattanooga and Kansas City pay $70, while in Lafayette, it's $110.

The problem with fiber networks is that they're hugely expensive to install and maintain, requiring operators to lay new wiring underground and link it to individual homes. Many smaller countries with higher population density have faster average speeds than the United States.

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Ian S.

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My connection speed is 70 Gbps,but in reality downloads take longer. I pay around 60-70 bucks a moth w/ Family tier cable TV. I am on Xfinity and do not have their "Voice" services (home phone).

Grand Master

+Eternal Tempest MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

So what, if they want to use the internet then they will pay whatever the price; it really doesn't matter.

 

*If* that speed option is even available to you where you live, then you move on to pricing. 

Grand Master

+LogicalApex MVC

Posted
  • MVC
Posted

Internet speeds and costs are not fairly spelled out I find...

 

I would very much be interested in stats showing how close to advertised speeds do consumers get across the world. As OOKLA data suggests that even these "high speed" countries consumers are getting far less than their advertised speeds (and ISPs tend to lie to OOKLA by ensuring its traffic is handled faster to gum up speed tests results). It does nothing if you can buy a 1Gbps pipe for $25/m when you realistically only have access to a fraction of this speed.

 

Verizon advertises me as getting 75Mbps down and guarantee that I'll get that speed consistently.

 

My connection speed is 70 Gbps,but in reality downloads take longer. I pay around 60-70 bucks a moth w/ Family tier cable TV. I am on Xfinity and do not have their "Voice" services (home phone).

I'm sure that was a typo and you meant 70Mbps. DOCISS isn't capable of delivering speeds of 70Gbps down so no cable provider can offer such speeds anywhere in the world.

Grand Master

Krome

Posted
Posted

My connection speed is 70 Gbps,but in reality downloads take longer. I pay around 60-70 bucks a moth w/ Family tier cable TV. I am on Xfinity and do not have their "Voice" services (home phone).

 

 

70 gbps?!

Lies.  Google is only capable of giving 1Gbps to it's fiber-optic customers.  There's no consumer hardware that has advertise to give consumer 70Gbps yet.  1Gbps is fricken dam fast!  I don't know what planet you live on bud.  But I have not heard of a 70Gbps for consumer yet. :)

 

Grand Master

trag3dy

Posted
Posted

Internet speeds and costs are not fairly spelled out I find...

 

I would very much be interested in stats showing how close to advertised speeds do consumers get across the world. As OOKLA data suggests that even these "high speed" countries consumers are getting far less than their advertised speeds (and ISPs tend to lie to OOKLA by ensuring its traffic is handled faster to gum up speed tests results). It does nothing if you can buy a 1Gbps pipe for $25/m when you realistically only have access to a fraction of this speed.

 

Verizon advertises me as getting 75Mbps down and guarantee that I'll get that speed consistently.

 

I'm sure that was a typo and you meant 70Mbps. DOCISS isn't capable of delivering speeds of 70Gbps down so no cable provider can offer such speeds anywhere in the world.

 

You have to take into consideration how they're using it as well. For your average day to day users they're probably never gonna get anywhere near capping out a 1000mb line. 

Grand Master

Denis W. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

So you want the government to step in and force these companies to roll out infrastructure, using their own money?

 

Sounds viable....

 

It's a problem perpetuated by the status quo. Using the example from north of the border, the government (regulator) wants more competition. To do so, you open up the market for smaller players... who end up buying chunks of 'time' from the incumbent providers. I imagine the situation in the US is that the smaller providers can't roll out infrastructure to cover such a large area - problem is even worse in Canada with the larger area and lower population density. Occasionally the government tries to force the incumbents to not charge stupidly high prices on the wholesale customers (small providers) or throw bandwidth caps on them but there's only so much the government can do to a private corporation, even one operating as an oligopoly. 

 

Our only real solution is to vote with our wallets and go for the smaller providers, but not many consumers are aware that these smaller providers operate as wholesale resellers with a limited cap of customers they can put on their account, and are always at the mercy of said large providers when costs change.

 

Comparisons are frequently made between the US and Canada to other countries boasting better broadband and wireless infrastructure at cheaper prices but always discounting the relative sizes of these countries. I'd kill to have cheap Internet at blazing speeds but I imagine us in North America aren't willing to give up our houses built on large lots of land for that luxury ;)

Guest

Posted
Posted

16 Mbps for 10 EUR in Macedonia, 30 EUR for 50 Mbps. 12 Mbps for free in Sweden. All unlimited without throttling.

 

It is super weird how developed countries such as the US have so crappy internet connections, expensive contracts with stupid traffic limits. -_-

 

EDIT: Damn, I am 1337!

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