US Broadband Speed 15 Years Behind South Korea at Current Rate of Growth

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US Broadband Speed 15 Years Behind South Korea at Current Rate of Growth

By CircleID Reporter
August 26, 2009, 12:21 am PDT Views: 5,976 Comments: 1

According to research by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), from 2007 to 2009, the average download Internet speed in the United States has increased by only 1.6 megabits per second (mbps), from 3.5 mbps in 2007 to 5.1 mbps in 2009. At this rate, CWA says it will take the U.S. 15 years to catch up with current Internet speeds in South Korea, the country with the fastest average Internet connections. “People in Japan can upload a high-definition video in 12 minutes, compared to a grueling 2.5 hours at the US average upload speed,” says the report.

By CircleID Reporter

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Comments

Got Latency? David Svendsen – Sep 10, 2009 3:29 AM

The “research” that is cited in this article was in no way scientific. It was a survey based on end-user reports of how long it took to download files.
It should go without saying, but apparently I have to here anyway, download speed and bandwidth are not the same thing. Look at the size of Korea vs. the United States. No amount of increased bandwidth may have helped many of the respondents in the U.S. get their files any faster. There was no factoring for latency or bandwidth delay product in the tests. No factoring for users on a home wireless connection and how that can affect throughput.
The article cited is a political press release from a labor union calling for more government funding of broadband access. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but CircleID should not have headlined this as a reliable independent study on broadband saturation in the U.S.

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