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United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

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Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

#101

Post by miah_ »

dublinben wrote: post #71
miah_ wrote: post #29

I live in rural Michigan. My nearest "big city" has a estimated population of 2800. No big ISP has run anything our direction. We are just now getting municipal gas run in our area, our house has been on propane since it was built in the 90's. My current internet connection is provided by wifi access points strung across neighbors roofs that terminates into a T-Mobile data connection somewhere. I get on average 8Mbps…

>I live in rural Michigan ... I work remotely of course Why? Wouldn't reliable broadband access be a primary consideration for someone working from home?

Consider that I moved here from Alameda, CA where I also only had DSL. I have yet to see "reliable broadband access" anywhere I've lived in the US (5 states).

Even though we have "choice" its generally: Comcast Cable or DSL (some other "subpar" option).

I detest Comcast and wish our country had actual ISP competition. And Comcast isn't available at my address either.

Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

#102

Post by [deleted] »

0-_-0 wrote: post #55
Arubis wrote: post #22

That’s…not terrible? Getting broadband in rural America is rough, and the permissive atmosphere for monopolistic behavior by ISPs is maddening. Pricing for internet access is way worse than in East Asia or western and central Europe. Some folks can’t get real broadband at all, and they’re disproportionally lower down on the socioeconomic spectrum. That’s not fair. These issues are real. But overall, 12th sounds…prett…

>Those top ten spots will always be filled by nations with highly concentrated, relatively wealthy populations. Romania, Thailand and Chile is top 10...

[deleted]

Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

#103

Post by clairity »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #99
clairity wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

note that we don’t need 50mbps (and certainly not 200) for most homes/families either. 25mbps comfortably supports 3 1080p streams with room left over for web, email, and other apps.

Even ideal, uninterrupted deliveries don't happen in a steady stream. Data arrives in bursts. I've seen 25Mbit connections choke on far less. God help anyone with a 25Mbit/down cable connection who tries sync their media to the cloud. That Real life also commonly includes gaming. Steam updates alone max'd out our 500Mb connection.

i've been sharing 25mbps with another person and the occasional guest for the past couple years, often including multiple video streams at a time. there have been some relatively rare upstream buffering issues (as most issues are with wifi), but overall, it's been just fine.

gaming doesn't seem like a good case for making a general bandwidth argument. sure, if you want to spend your money on bandwidth for it, go to town, but the general populace doesn't 'need' it. video at least is used for communication, education, and other non-recreational purposes.

Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

#104

Post by Karrot_Kream »

clairity wrote: post #82
chadash wrote: post #31

1 Singapore 262.20 2 Hong Kong (SAR) 254.40 3 Monaco 242.89 4 Switzerland 222.00 5 Thailand 221.00 6 Romania 217.91 7 South Korea 216.67 8 Denmark 216.13 9 Chile 209.83 10 France 201.61 11 Hungary 201.55 12 United States 199.00 First of all, Singapore, Hong Kong and Monaco really can't be compared to the US. Two of them are wealthy city-states and Monaco is very small (and wealthy). Once you get to #4 Switzerland, th…

note that we don’t need 50mbps (and certainly not 200) for most homes/families either. 25mbps comfortably supports 3 1080p streams with room left over for web, email, and other apps.

It's not about the 50 mbps download bandwidth here. It's a combination of bandwidth, latency, and variance in latency on both the upload and download links. Usually residential 50 mbps is a peak download bandwidth of 50 mbps with pretty high variance latency. 50 mbps symmetric with low latency would be fantastic among 3 individuals, but when realistic speeds are 30/5 mbps down/up with bursts of high latency, you're in for a frustrating time.

Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

#105

Post by Karrot_Kream »

sumtechguy wrote: post #64
Bayart wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's a point that intuitively makes sense, I'm not too sure of its true relevance. The US is just too rich for size to be an excuse. At least it can't be the only reason. It may be anecdotal, but all the complaints I've ever seen about broadband/fibre in the US have been in relation to local monopolies and the general fragmentation of the nation-wide network. In most EU countries, we have laws that force networ…

I think the issue is that the problem is being generalized into a 'one size fits all' sort of problem. When the issue is a bunch of items. Rural is an issue. But so is duopolies. So is poor competition. In the year 2000 I could pick from 20-30 different ISPs. Now I can pick from basically 3. Woe unto you if those 3 decide it is going to cost you 20k just to do a hook up or just say 'not available' even though all of…

That's because the government forced Bell/AT&T phone lines to be leasable by other companies. Cable and fiber lines are _not_ required to have that kind of competition, which is why Comcast often delivers the only high-speed connection in a suburban area and can price gouge you.

Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

#106

Post by mrguyorama »

vel0city wrote: post #86
mrguyorama wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Finally, when Texas' grid has issues with big events which knocks out power, it captures national headlines for months on end. When California has blackouts, its just California being California Meanwhile, the other 48 states, including a tiny island and a giant tundra wasteland larger than Texas have no problem keeping their power on in adverse weather.

I have family in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and other states. They've definitely lost power in major snowstorms before, sometimes for multiple days. I've lost power from hurricanes and other kinds of weather events elsewhere. Losing power from big weather events isn't an incredibly uncommon thing. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/over-1-million-lose-pow... https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/death-toll-ri…

The differentiating factor is that most states at least attempt to prepare and design for the understood risks, unlike Texas. I'm not saying other states do not lose power in extreme weather events, but the weather that hit Texas was closer to a ten year event than a hundred year event

Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

#107

Post by SteveGerencser »

throwawayboise wrote: post #63
SteveGerencser wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prepaid for Starlink 4 or 5 months ago and just waiting for my turn to get it. We did talk about setting up a community point to point system but the 'old guys' that run the area are more interested in getting (forcing) more people on to 'city' water than anything actually useful because city water fees are the only thing keeping this town alive.

If good broadband is so important to you why did to move to an area where it's not available?

Because I also have a wife that wanted to live in the country? Where people live is rarely about 1 single thing, it's a compromise between all the needs and wants. For us, living in the country on a small farm checked an awful lot of boxes. And we were "told" that there was decent internet here - 25Mb was normal. After moving we found out that 2 or 3 was normal and TDS just flat lies about their offers.

Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

#108

Post by SteveGerencser »

worker767424 wrote: post #97
SteveGerencser wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We moved to a small rural community where a T1 isn't even available. I can get a 3Mb DSL connection or satellite. I have both because I need to redundancy. I did call to see what it would cost to have 'real' internet brought out here. They were happy to bring out a fiber line from the nearest town to serve our area. But it was going to cost me around $5k/mo with a 3 year contract for a 10Mb dedicated line. It's cheap…

> a T1 isn't even available. I can get a 3Mb DSL connection 3Mbps DSL is faster than a T1. That speed also suggests you're 3-4 miles from a CO, so it's not that rural. 3 miles might even make a fiber run possible if you're willing to pay.

Right, but it doesn't go up and down like a jackhammer when the weather is rainy, windy, sunny, hot, cold, or dry. And yes, we are 3.1 miles from a CO and the nearest fiber drop is 14 miles from here. The service guys are at the CO resetting equipment to get me back online so often I know them all by name and they know what the problem most likely is when my address comes up on a service ticket.

Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

#109

Post by vel0city »

mrguyorama wrote: post #106
vel0city wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have family in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and other states. They've definitely lost power in major snowstorms before, sometimes for multiple days. I've lost power from hurricanes and other kinds of weather events elsewhere. Losing power from big weather events isn't an incredibly uncommon thing. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/over-1-million-lose-pow... https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/death-toll-ri…

The differentiating factor is that most states at least attempt to prepare and design for the understood risks, unlike Texas. I'm not saying other states do not lose power in extreme weather events, but the weather that hit Texas was closer to a ten year event than a hundred year event

You literally stated:

> have no problem keeping their power on in adverse weather.

It sure reads like other states have no problem keeping their power on and not other states sometimes do lose power as well but hey at least they're trying. And besides, hurricanes hit the East Coast pretty dang often and yet still hundreds of thousands of people will lose power. Sure sounds like they're not trying hard enough if they should have no problem keeping the power on.

Also, as someone who has lived in Texas for 30 years, this storm was absolutely not a ten year event. It may become one with the changing climate, but I have never experienced an ice storm quite as extreme. The major winter storm that happened ten years before was still not close to the one this year. For the one ten years prior, most pools didn't freeze over. Even with the pumps running on my pool, I had nearly an inch of ice form. I've never seen it get that cold in Texas.

Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index

#110

Post by [deleted] »

none2123 wrote: post #76
Aromasin wrote: post #72

What I find interesting about this is how embarrassingly low the United Kingdom is considering its history as a telecom power house. In my eyes, and maybe I'm reading this data wrong, it really showcases the devastating impact the privatization of our services has had on our country. We have basically stagnated on speeds since the early 2000's. I still have the same speeds I had 10 years ago (100Mb/S with no opportun…

What provider are you with that is stuck at 100Mb? and what's the countryside speed/provider? I have had gigabit in the rural homes and the flat in London that covers the last 6 years, before that is was Virgin media. We actually have ~40%(1) of the country now on gigabit capable infrastructure many of those can choose between gigabit from multiple different first mile infrastructure providers. The government project…

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