http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/fastest-us-internet-provider-comcast.ars
Comcast fastest fish in shallow US broadband pond
Who's the fastest ISP in the US? According to well-known Internet metrics firm Ookla (which runs the Speedtest.net and Pingtest.net websites), it's Comcast, with an average speed of 16.23Mbps.
In the US, Comcast was followed by Charter and then by Cablevision; indeed, all of the top players are cable companies. Verizon comes in ninth, despite its FiOS deployments, in part due to its DSL lines.
For the country as a whole, the average download speed is 9.87Mbps. This sounds fairly decent, but it actually puts the US in 27th place internationally. South Korea has a 31.4Mbps average, while Latvia has 24.1Mbps and the Netherlands clocks in at 22.7Mbps. Even the Republic of Moldova has 22Mbps average download speeds.
And when it comes to ISP comparisons, Comcast's 16Mbps looks paltry alongside some others like South Korea's Hanaro Telecom (41Mbps), Korea Telecom (35Mbps), and Krnic (28Mbps).
Ookla drew the data from its own database of 1.5 billion speed tests (and it's making the raw data available to researchers who want it), but the results do suffer from selection bias; this isn't a random sample.
For an example of the problems, consider Moldova. Sure, the Internet is fast, but penetration is low. Only 5.6 out of every 100 Moldavians have broadband, compared to 26 out of 100 US residents (this according to the United Nations). Speeds may be fast in the capital, but broadband is not as widely deployed elsewhere.
Still, one wonders why no US city in Illinois tops 20.8Mbps while eight cities in Latvia (including a major city like Riga) can do so. Or why Seoul, South Korea gets 31.7Mbps and blows away every single city in both California and New York.
People have long complained that other broadband metrics rely on "advertised" ISP speeds, speeds which may be more marketing talk than reality. The virtue of the Ookla data, despite its methodological issues, is that it shows us that other countries can in fact hit much higher speeds in comparable urban settings.
Mission not accomplished
Many other studies, all with different methodologies, suggest a similar conclusion: US broadband might be good, but the world shows us that it could be better. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski agrees. In a speech this week (PDF), he appeared to take an unusually partisan dig at those who "said 'Mission accomplished' when it comes to broadband in America. Nothing more to do. I fundamentally disagree."
"According to multiple studies, the US is not in the top 10 globally when it comes to broadband speeds and penetration. We’ve got work to do," he added.
"An important study ranked the US 40th out of 40 industrial countries in 'the rate of change in innovative capacity.' We’ve got work to do. Consumers in Japan and France are paying less for broadband and getting faster connections. We’ve got work to do. Ninety-three million Americans—35 percent of our citizens—have not adopted broadband. We’ve got work to do."
