The Communications Workers of America recently released a survey of national broadband speeds and penetration and, perhaps not surprisingly,
Alaska was ranked dead last in Internet speed. The average download speed across the state was a miserly 0.8 megabits per second (mbps), barely fast enough to stream a
YouTube video without hiccups. By comparison, the fastest average speeds in the rest of the United States were found in Rhode Island, where a speedy 6.8 mbps is the norm, which lets you download a song in less than 10 seconds
Of course, these speeds
pale in comparison with other nations. Japanese surfers get average download speeds of 63 mbps, and even the French get 17 mbps. However, American averages are pulled down due to the 15 percent of the population still connecting via ancient dial-up networks. [Source:
Communications Workers of America, via
Great Falls Tribune]
Tags: broadband, download, internet, rankings, survey, web
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentswowAug 13th 2008 6:41PM
Dial up still exists?
WOW, I thought dial-up was extinct by now! I live 10 miles away from the nearest town and I have cable internet.
OMG if I had to go back to dial up I'd just quit getting online altogether.....I'd have to be pretty desperate to use dial up for anything.
Gez I take that back, I'd be SOL, I have Vonage too! I couldn't do dial up if I wanted to!!
Dial up is so like 2002-ish. I'm not moving to Alaska anytime soon either.
mattAug 13th 2008 7:43PM
Dear wow,
When I lived 11 miles from the nearest (real) town in eastern Maine, the only options for Internet service were dial-up or a satellite dish. Monthly service fees and installation fee for Satellite service were extremely high. My only alternative was dial-up. No DSL or cable internet were available.
mattAug 13th 2008 7:35PM
I would think that across most of Alska, internet is not available over the wires and you would have to get a dish to get internet service from a satellite.
bgy1Aug 13th 2008 7:50PM
OF COURSE ALASKA HAS THE SLOWEST DOWNLOADS!!!! Haven't you people been listening to Senator Ted Stevens? He said the internet isn't a dump truck....no no no, it's a series of tubes. And....those tubes have a long way to go before they get to Stevens' Alaska.
brrinakAug 14th 2008 3:20AM
I live in Alaska, I will agree with the damn download speeds!!!
DarkLightAug 14th 2008 1:03AM
Stop whining, in Mexico 1Mb/s is the norm. And it's considered fast broadband.
I'm on a 1Mb connection right now, and I'm OK with it.
Back in the day 512k was fast considered blazing fast around this place... So 800k isn't *that* bad. Just don't compare it to the Japanese internets...
swivAug 14th 2008 1:48AM
I have to agree with this article because I live in fairbanks,AK and everyone that uses ACS or GCI can tell you the connection packages here are sub standard compared to the lower-48; especially when you look at how much were paying for our connections. You would think that we would have one of the fastest considering almost anything you want you have to order online.
brrinakAug 14th 2008 3:28AM
i wasnt whining. it keeps people out of the state :)
Oh and Matt, I live in anchorage, alaska. I am currently connected at 4.3 megs. I guess my sarcasm failed to shine through on my last comment.
Paul DullfordAug 15th 2008 11:04AM
This explains why Ted Stevens' emails didn't get through that fast.