back to article Four of the top 10 places in the world for internet are, er, in the US

Akamai’s state of the internet survey is the most comprehensive global snapshot of internet performance you’ll find. So if your country (or state) is falling behind, you can see how. These days, the survey even comes with its own app. The just-published summary for Q4 2015 shows a 23 per cent year-on-year gain in connection …

  1. joeldillon

    If by 'the US' you mean 'the eastern US' and specifically the smallest and most concentrated parts of it. I suspect London or Berlin would be way up there if they were broken out as separate elements too!

    1. NoneSuch Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Four US States?

      State of denial.

      State of ignorance.

      State of flux.

      Poor state of affairs.

  2. Peter Simpson 1
    Alert

    Massachusetts?

    Not all of it, Shirley? There are towns (one of which is probably Shirley) in my fine state which don't have broadband. Mostly in the more rural parts. I would not say Massachusetts is anywhere close to the level of Korea, where my son had 100Mb/s symmetrical, for $10/mo, though.

    I pay $70/mo for 30Mb/s down, 15Mb/s up, form Comcast and FIOS, my other option, offers 50 down for the same price. I'm considering switching, mostly because Comcast seems committed to usage fees, while Verizon hasn't mentioned them yet. I have connections for both at my house.

    Service from Comcast IS reliable. Have had almost uninterrupted service for almost 25 years at this location. $70/mo, though, I consider a bit steep.

    1. Yugguy

      Re: Massachusetts?

      In his house at Ryleh dead Cthulhu lies enjoying speedy internet connectivity.

      1. Old Handle

        Re: Massachusetts?

        Nah, R'lyeh is way out in the Pacific. He probably has terrible connectivity. Maybe that's why he sends dreams and not email.

    2. GX5000

      Re: Massachusetts?

      Wow that's awful

      Rogers, Ontario Canada, $55 CDN for 65dn 10up and argued no cap.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Massachusetts?

      I pay $70/mo for 30Mb/s down, 15Mb/s up, form Comcast and FIOS, my other option, offers 50 down for the same price.

      Crumbs, I hope that involves some TV packages or something. I pay ~$85/mo for symmetrical 1000Mbps.

      1. Peter Simpson 1
        Thumb Up

        Re: Massachusetts?

        Nope. Internet only. Told you it was a bit steep. And from what I can tell, that's Comcast's standard monthly rate, +/- $10

        I'm 25 miles southwest of Boston, outside 128, just inside 495. So, pretty much prime suburban position, and if there's going to be fast networking, it's going to be here.

        FIOS offers 50Mbps for the same cost, but I'd be happy with 25Mbps at $35/mo. Call it a buck a Megabit and I'd be over the moon.

      2. Justacog

        Re: Massachusetts?

        No, thanks to most cities having one internet provider or maybe two the prices are outrageous. if a city does have more than one provider it usually is not two cable providers but a mix of DSL and Cable. New York city does have two cable providers but they split the city in half so they do not compete with each other.

        I pay 45 a month for my DSL 40Mb/s down, 10Mbs up connection because I refuse to pay Comcast 75 bucks for a 55Mb/s connection. I am lucky live in Portland Oregon, we have a Cable, DSl and WIMAX providers so prices have started to drop.

        And many cities in the U.S. have a cap on how much you can download before they start charging you extra for going over their cap. Comcast allows you to download 300 GB a month in many markets and charges and additional 10 bucks for every 50 GB over the cap.

        1. Sherrie Ludwig

          Re: Massachusetts?

          Rural Illinois. We pay $42/mo. for (deep breath) 1.75Mpbs down, POINT5Mbps up, on a good day. That is after lodging a complaint with the FCC (you should have seen it before). Oh, we were told we COULD get real cable internet IF we paid $3000 to get the local monopoly cable service to run the cable past our house, and THEN paid for their monthly service. (we declined, with thanks).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Speed equality matters. My fast connection is literally worth more, if all my neighbors/county/countrymen also have a fast connection.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And I note that all four of those places are small areas with high population densities. Maryland and Delaware are both near DC, which as the nation's capital is going to get a lot of attention from Congress about its infrastructure. As for Massachusetts, MIT and Boston provide two good incentives to plunk down.

    1. Eddy Ito

      Yes but of the entire list only Indonesia is actually impressive in size having a land area of roughly one fifth that of the US. Japan ranks a distant but quite respectable second area wise being slightly larger than Germany and about the size of Montana.

      The rest are all tiny in comparison as taken all together they are less than half the size of Japan and even then South Korea accounts for 60%.

      In all you've got two good sized countries, one small country and a collection of rather tiny locations only one of which, Singapore, actually counts as its own country and not a dependent state or special administrative region.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I'm guessing Indonesia's broadband infrastructure was largely paid for by the government?

  5. MaxRock
    WTF?

    And those states account for 0.66 of the (land) area of the lower 48 states and 4.5% of the population of the US. Go best internet in the world!

  6. teknopaul

    lies damn lies and statistics

    What does Peak mean in that graph?

    We have 300MB/s on offer in Barcelona Spain (buggers don't stop phoning to tell me about it).

    I'll need to upgrade a few routers and wait for a whole new generation of Raspberry PIs before I bother to upgrade from my current 100MB/s; which is strangely not on that graph.

    If its some kind of average its still a useless number. You want to know how fast, latency, how much it costs, and how reliable it is to determine "Best Internet".

    :P

  7. Eric Olson
    FAIL

    I don't want to pile on...

    But like the previous commentards, to focus on four states and DC is folly. Three of the states border DC and tend to be the suburbs for the politicians and employees of the government. All of those states range from above to well above average for percentage of the population that lives in an urban area (83% in Delaware to 92% in Mass., with the national average being 81%), so like was pointed out, would be like saying residents of the UK can't complain about bandwidth because it's so great in London. So if you do look at the country as a whole, the US is behind such places as the Czech Republic, tied with Belgium, and a just a fraction of a Mbps ahead of the UK.

    I would like to point out to the commentard that inferred the DC ranking was due to investment by the federal government, that is likely not the case (but I won't completely discount it). While the federal government has created some enticements and grants to help with broadband expansion, they are mostly targeted at underserved or unserved parts of the nation, which these days is much of the nation's interior that isn't near a major city. Of course, that isn't to say that the city itself didn't use some of the budget they get from the government to build out the network or entice providers.

    Rather than resorting to these kinds of articles, perhaps it would be more useful to explore the reasons why Americans and other readers routinely complain about their bandwidth options. Thumbing your nose at them because they live outside of those highly connected states isn't all that productive, unless the purpose is to just serve up ads regardless of content quality.

    1. Mark 85
      Meh

      Re: I don't want to pile on...

      Perhaps Akamai knows something that the rest of us don't... like maybe the US is going to break up into 50 separate countries and one fetid cesspool (DC)?

      But seriously, why didn't they break Japan down by prefecture? or Blighty by city? I'm sure there's fast spots and slow spots in every country.

      And while I'm on the rant/soapbox, is there anyone who would move to those States (and DC) just for the internet?

      Meh...

    2. Charles 9

      Re: I don't want to pile on...

      "I would like to point out to the commentard that inferred the DC ranking was due to investment by the federal government, that is likely not the case (but I won't completely discount it)."

      You're ignoring the special case that this is Washington, DC, the nation's capital. This place is practically packed with military contractors and lobby networks, especially around key areas like around the Capitol and along Embassy Row. If the government doesn't roll out the broadband (for its own purposes), then those aforesaid businesses will be calling for serious bandwidth to keep in touch, both with constituents and with Congresspeople. That's why Verizon made sure to make Washington FiOS territory. Plus there's the matter of the Pentagon and related military facilities in nearby Arlington, and the military these days is going to be data-hungry.

      1. Eric Olson

        Re: I don't want to pile on...

        You're ignoring the special case that this is Washington, DC, the nation's capital.

        This is true... the concentration of the businesses (or government doing business as) would in of itself be enticing to a provider or twelve to set up shop. I guess I was more referring to steps taking by the government to treat DC citizens to better broadband access than their neighbors in other states, which I doubt happened. I'm saying there probably was no direct investment by the government for the city of DC or on behalf of the people of DC.

        Many of those government employees, politicians, lobbyists, etc., reside outside of DC, usually in in VA or MD. The Beltway refers to the entire area surrounding DC. The cell towers are there because of the number of people who commute in; the same goes for the fiber. The residents of DC are just collateral winners, assuming they can afford it. DC proper actually has a higher poverty rate than every state except Mississippi, even with a per capital income that is higher than any state. Those would argue against a business investing in infrastructure if the city was, say, located in Alabama.

      2. Mark 85

        Re: I don't want to pile on...

        You're ignoring the special case that this is Washington, DC, the nation's capital. This place is practically packed with military contractors and lobby networks,

        There's also a special case for Maryland... Fort Meade.

    3. bob, mon!
      Headmaster

      Re: I don't want to pile on...

      Just want to point out that Massachusetts, at 27,336sq.km and 6.745M people, and Maryland, at 32,133sq.km and 5.976M people, are both comparable in size but more rural than Belgium at 30,528sq.km and 11.2M people.

      Granted, Belgium wasn't in the top10,but then it only houses the EU and NATO.

  8. Florida1920
    Headmaster

    Does anyone actually live in Delaware?

    Maryland-DC: Not surprising, nation's capital region. Massachusetts? Not surprising either. Before there was Silicon Valley there was Route 128 outside Boston. Rumor has it they eat a lot of beans in Boston. They'll get you moving in a hurry!

  9. earl grey
    Flame

    whinging about ....

    ODFO

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FIOS

    That's tilting the numbers in the states with good penetration - and in the area around DC where there are a ton of government contractors, FIOS covers them well and they can afford to pay for its higher tiers so they can work from home once in a while - like when the train gets shut down to fix electrical issues, or a terrorist attack in Europe causes security precautions to be amped up and companies urge their employees to work from home to avoid commuting delays.

  11. Dr. Ellen
    Flame

    Pale Grey

    What IS this nonsense about pale grey typefaces on graphs (as in this article), and in other places? Why should I have to magnify the screen and squint just because some wally thinks it's elegant?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Pale Grey

      I've been wondering the same thing. Why not give us an embiggen button so we can actually read the damn graph? If we can't read it, we've just killed a bunch of electrons needlessly.

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