Comparative broadband speeds - US loses again

Recently Google Labs added the Ookla Speedtest data set to their wonderful Public Data Explorer so I just had to try it out.

Here's my first graph:

These are not bogus statistics. These graphs show the average of all the millions of actual speedtests run in the respective countries over the past 4 months.

The apologists for the US's poor showing usually start by pointing out that the US has much lower population density than South Korea, Sweden or Bulgaria. Of course that doesn't hold water if you compare Seoul, Stockholm and Sofia to New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. In Seoul, Stockholm and Sofia consumers can get 100/100 Mbps Internet access at affordable prices (e.g. $13/month in Stockholm) while such service isn't even offered to consumers in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago.

 

Comments

[Eric Nordström]

A quick check at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density

..even lists the US as having a 50% higher population density than Sweden.

[Usb Web Camera]

Comparative broadband speeds South Korea almost 4 times faster than US. Oh mgd didn't expect such a big gap