Internet speed rankings state by state

According to Speed Matters the UNITED STATES is far behind the rest of the world when it comes to Internet Speed.

Rhode Island Internet users come in #1 with an average speed of 5,011 download, while Alaska came in dead last.

New York was 3rd, while California surprisingly came in at number 36.

You can read the pdf report released by speed matters here.

New Hampshire has the 17th fastest Internet connection speeds in the country, according to a survey released by PC Magazine.

The survey of more than 17,000 readers of PC Magazine using its SurfSpeed application measured the actual Internet surfing speed not the bandwidth allocation an Internet service provider advertises and pegged the average surfing speed in the Granite State at 615 kilobits per second.

Nationally, Internet speeds varied from Nevada — the fastest at 781 Kbps — to the slowest in New Mexico — 322 Kbps.

The New England states were scattered across the spectrum. In the lead was Connecticut, with connection speeds of 716 Kbps, fourth fastest in the country; Massachusetts, at 695 Kbps, ninth; Rhode Island, at 516 Kbps, 33rd; Maine, at 427 Kbps, 40th; and Vermont, at 391 Kbps, or 47th place.

The survey also rated speeds by providers. For cable modem providers, PC Magazine ranked Comcast third with an average surf speed of 750 Kbps, behind Cablevision's Optimum Online at 839 Kbps, and Cox at 774 Kbps. Time Warner's Road Runner clocked in at 733 Kbps for fifth place.

For DSL providers, FrontierNet placed the fasted with average connection speeds of 724 Kbps. Verizon's fiber optic service FiOS was the fastest overall, with average connection speeds of 931 Kbps.

Satellite Internet providers were also reviewed, and had the slowest average speeds of under 150 Kbps.

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US Internet In Slow Lane?

The United States is starting to look like a slowpoke on the Internet. Examples abound of countries that have faster and cheaper broadband connections, and more of their population connected to them.

What's less clear is how badly the country that gave birth to the Internet is doing, and whether the government needs to step in and do something about it. The Bush administration has tried to foster broadband adoption with a hands-off approach. If that's seen as a failure by the next administration, the policy may change.

In a move to get a clearer picture of where the U.S. stands, the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday approved legislation that would develop an annual inventory of existing broadband services — including the types, advertised speeds and actual number of subscribers — available to households and businesses across the nation.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is intended to provide policy makers with improved data so they can better use grants and subsidies to target areas lacking high-speed Internet access. He said in a statement last week that promoting broadband would help spur job growth, access to health care and education and promote innovation among other benefits.

The inventory wouldn't cover other countries, but a cursory look shows the U.S. lagging behind at least some of them. In South Korea, for instance, the average apartment can get an Internet connection that's 15 times faster than a typical U.S. connection. In Paris, a "triple play" of TV, phone and broadband service costs less than half of what it does in the U.S.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development — a 30-member club of nations — compiles the most often cited international comparison. It puts the U.S. at 15th place for broadband lines per person in 2006, down from No. 4 in 2001.

The OECD numbers have been vigorously attacked by anti-regulation think tanks for making the U.S. look exceedingly bad. They point out that the OECD is not very open about how it compiles the data. It doesn't count people who have access to the Internet at work, or students who have access in their dorms.

"We would never base other kinds of policy on that kind of data," said Scott Wallsten, director of communications policy studies at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank that favors deregulation over government intervention.

But the OECD numbers are in line with other international measures. Figures from the British research firm Point-Topic Ltd. put the U.S., with 55 percent of its households connected, in 17th place for adoption rates at the end of June (excluding some very small countries and territories like Macau and Hong Kong).

"We're now in the middle of the pack of developed countries," said Dave Burstein, telecom gadfly and the editor of the DSL Prime newsletter, during a sometimes tense debate at the Columbia Business School's Institute for Tele-Information.

Burstein says the U.S. is lagging because of low levels of investment by the big telecom companies and regulatory failure.

Several of the European countries that are doing well have forced telephone companies to rent their lines to Internet service providers for low fees. The ISPs use them to run broadband Digital Subscriber Lines, or DSL, often at speeds much higher than those available in the U.S.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission went down this regulatory road a few years ago, but legal challenges from the phone companies forced it to back away.

The new Internet speed record was set on December 30

The new Internet speed record was set on December 30, only to be broken the next day

A team of researchers led by the University of Tokyo was able to break the Internet speed records twice in two days. The operators of the Internet2 network made an announcement that on Dec 30, researchers were able to send data at 7.67 gigabits per second, using standard communication protocols -- on Dec 31, they modified protocols and then sent data at 9.08 Gbps.

The Internet2 network is an experimental network system created and managed by more than 200 universities around the world. Because Internet2 reportedly has a limit of 10Gbps, the recently disclosed record should remain untouched. However, the consortium of universities are now planning Internet 3, which will be able to operate at 100 Gbps.

To help understand the speed of this connection, a high-definition movie currently takes two days to be transferred over the average broadband connection. The Internet2 network would be able to transfer the same film in 30 seconds.

The announcement of the speed record was made during a spring meeting of the Internet2 consortium.

"These records are final for the 10Gbps network era because they represent more than 98% of the upper limit of network capacity, said Dr. Kei Hiraki, University of Tokyo researcher.

The 20,000-mile round trip route crossed six international networks, and was able to cover three-quarters of the Earth's circumference during the test. More specifically, the data went from Tokyo, and passed through Chicago, Seattle, and Amsterdam before returning to the starting point.

Makes me want to take an Internet Speed Test

Broadband users speed up

Broadband users are continuing to rise with the number of New Zealand broadband subscribers reaching 1.4 million.

Statistics New Zealand says the number increased 30% in the six months to September last year. That has seen New Zealand jump from 22nd to 19th in OECD rankings.

Almost 98% of broadband users have a data allowance cap on their subscription.

Ihug Chief Executive Mark Rushworth says New Zealanders have always embraced technology and it is no surprise we continue to sign up for broadband. He says Kiwis use broadband to keep in touch with the rest of the world.

Rushworth says despite the uptake of broadband there will always be a place for dial-up internet.

The Internet Society of New Zealand has welcomed the improvements but advises there is still plenty of work to be done before we can experience the full benefits of broadband.

InternetNZ Executive Director Keith Davidson says he is pleased at the increase in uptake and anticipates that broadband will overtake dial-up in the next six months.

"Clearly improvements in pricing and plans for broadband are assisting in the increase in uptake.

"However, it is disappointing that 97.6% of broadband subscribers have data caps and 68.6% have a cap of less than 5Gb per month... we have a long way to go before New Zealanders are able to experience the full potential of broadband," says Davidson.

The statistics also show Internet Service Providers are happier with the government's changes to the regulatory environment. In March 2005, 73% felt the regulatory environment was a barrier to growth. This is now down to 48%.

Verizon to expand high-speed Internet program, add TV service (Louisville Courier-Journal)

The rise of high-speed Internet and the explosion in online video content is fuelling a widespread decline in the number of people watching television according to a worldwide study by Ofcom.Young favor Internet over TV (Reuters via Yahoo! News)

POMPANO BEACH, Fla.----EGIL's previously announced partnership with SpeechPhone has enabled The Edge by Edgetech , the world's first ultra-mobile handheld computer with a built-in modem and full-screen display operating at DSL type-speed, to transform into a powerful communications device.EGIL Tackles the Question: Is 'The Edge' High Speed Internet Device Also a Phone? YES.A phone on steroids! (Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance)