I work from home in the U.K. with 50Mbps downstream connection. Slow by these standards and I don’t think I have ever found the broadband speed a limitation.
For me ‘always on’ and low latency are important.
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
#22That’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…pretty reasonable? Those top ten spots will always be filled by nations with highly concentrated, relatively wealthy populations. 5-10 years ago, the US was in a much worse place comparatively.
Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index
#23I often see people commenting on the poor quality of America’s internet compared to European countries, but how much of that is due to the physical size of America? I imagine it’s much more difficult to build out a larger network especially when many parts of America are not very populated.
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 network owners to mutualise (they have to allow third parties to deploy the "last mile" so that people can pick any ISP within three months of a new local). Infrastructure and commercial operations are legally separate. I think the US would benefit from something like this on a federal level, at the risk of being called communism.
Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index
#24I often see people commenting on the poor quality of America’s internet compared to European countries, but how much of that is due to the physical size of America? I imagine it’s much more difficult to build out a larger network especially when many parts of America are not very populated.
I live in a semi-rural area, on a dirt road off the highway with 15-20 other neighbors on our half-mile stretch of street. Until Starlink hit, the best internet we could get was 500kbps unmetered, and maybe 4mbps metered if you were lucky . It was genuinely that bad.
I think you're highlighting the huge challenge of American broadband. Every dirt road off every highway that has a dozen or two homes needs broadband -- that is an immense amount of infrastructure that's needed.
Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking at the countries above the USA... They all mostly have one thing in common, their populace lives almost entirely within a few primary concentrated areas. It is much easier to build out the infrastructure to only support a handful of major cities which certainly helps raise the average. edit: I want to make it clear that I think the fact that I can get gigabit internet in a town of 300k smack in the center of…
This is the usual argument against doing large infrastructure in the USA, and I think it’s kind of missing the point: the USA also has much larger financial and physical resources than those countries. We also have counterarguments: we have a universal electrical network. We built a large railroad network across the entire country. We have an interstate highway system reaching every continental state (and with “inter…
Railroads, highways, and power/cable lines all go hand in hand. It's an amazing network and they were all built a long time ago with little improvement. The problem is shoveling money to other "universal" slush funds while ignoring actual infrastructure for decades. ISPs should have been a utility and they should treat it like Texas treats its grid. Have a company that manages the actual lines, and have multiple providers that can compete and sell data on it.
Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index
#26That's extremely good for a country the size of the US that can hardly compete with the likes of Singapore or Hongkong.
Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index
#27That’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…
Wired broadband in rural America has historically never been socially efficient and is mostly a patronage-based subsidy scheme. I say this as a nominal beneficiary of subsidized rural broadband.
That said, with the advent of starlink, reasonably high-speed internet in rural areas is now socially efficient, or getting there rapidly. I’m currently using starlink at my rural house and it’s great. It’s obviously still subsidized by venture capital, but there’s a very plausible route for it to continue with no subsidies whatsoever (unlike rural wired broadband).
Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking at the countries above the USA... They all mostly have one thing in common, their populace lives almost entirely within a few primary concentrated areas. It is much easier to build out the infrastructure to only support a handful of major cities which certainly helps raise the average. edit: I want to make it clear that I think the fact that I can get gigabit internet in a town of 300k smack in the center of…
This is the usual argument against doing large infrastructure in the USA, and I think it’s kind of missing the point: the USA also has much larger financial and physical resources than those countries. We also have counterarguments: we have a universal electrical network. We built a large railroad network across the entire country. We have an interstate highway system reaching every continental state (and with “inter…
> USA also has much larger financial and physical resources than those countries
Certainly not on a per-capita basis, as far as Norway and Luxembourg are concerned.
Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index
#29I 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 down and 2Mbps up. On a good day those might be 12 and 3. It goes down frequently enough that I have a wifi power switch hooked up so I can toggle the PoE and reset the router that never seems to recover on its own.
I work remotely of course, and video is highly pixelated and voice frequently cuts out and stutters. Thankfully I don't work on _huge_ git repos.
Netflix and Youtube adaptive streaming is good enough that their content works well. Streaming from Plex is terrible though, I need to set it to the lowest streaming setting to view anything.
My next best option is "Hughesnet" which is satellite and gives you 10gbp transfer for $40/m the most you can get is 50gbp transfer at $130. No unlimited option. I'll eat 10gb in a day.
I'm dreaming of fiber, and have signed up for Starlink which.. hopefully is a little bit faster and stable than what I've got if it ever arrives.
Re: United States Broadband speed ranks 12th according to SpeedTest Global Index
#30I often see people commenting on the poor quality of America’s internet compared to European countries, but how much of that is due to the physical size of America? I imagine it’s much more difficult to build out a larger network especially when many parts of America are not very populated.
I can attest you can find bad internet in small cities just the same as in rural places.
Sure, size is a factor, but it's not the only factor, nor is it the main factor. The main problem is monopolies.