Friday, October 31, 2008

Speed DOES matter

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) have been strong supporters of universal Internet access in the United States. These last two years, they have taken that message online, especially in an effort to try to demonstrate what the true picture is of the speeds that people have to deal with across our land.

According to the CWA, between May 2007 and May 2008, over 230,000 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have found their Web site to take the Internet speed test and to measure how fast their computers can upload and download data. Unfortunately, the results show how far the United States lags other countries in speeds. And that’s not good…

But why should we care? Speed matters because it defines the applications that you can effectively run on the Internet from your home, business, government or institution. The United States – the very country that invented the Internet – have now fallen to a world rank of 15th in the percent of the population subscribing to broadband. This is according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development survey (OECD). Canada, France, and South Korea all have faster Internet connections. In Japan you can download an entire movie or educational course in two minutes, but it could take you two hours or more in the United States. And that’s if you’re lucky. And as for cost? Citizens in Japan often pay the same as we do and sometimes lower for their Internet connections of profoundly faster speed.

Take the CWA’s speed test and test your computer access and download speeds. Last year, the United States had a median download speed of 2.35 Mbps. North Carolina had a median download speed of 2.93 Mbps. On page 40 of the CWA August 2008 Speed Matters Report, you can find the page for North Carolina. Our median upload speed is 369 kbps. So in that regard, our ranking among the states is 11th, up from 16th in 2007.

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