[rayiner]

> The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone)

By what measure? Certainly not Akamai's (http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q114.pdf?WT.mc_i...). The top 10 U.S. states (much of which are in the Northeast and are Comcast territory), would appear comfortably in the top 10 of the global rankings (compare page 14-15 with page 18).

On Ookla's ranking, the U.S. is quite comparable to other big western countries (France, Germany, UK): http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries. Compare the U.K., at 29 mbps, with comparably-dense northeastern states like New York (35 mbps), Massachusetts (33 mbps), etc.

Indeed, if you look at Ookla's rankings, you can see that density/wealth is a driver of internet speeds: http://www.netindex.com/download/2,1/United-States. Sparsely populated or poor states like Wyoming or West Virginia are down in the 15-20 mbps range. Rich, dense states like New York and New Jersey are at 35+. The U.K. and Germany are ~600 people per square mile, somewhere between New York State and Connecticut in density. The U.S. as a whole is only 90 people per square mile, and states like Wyoming are less than 10 people per square mile.

EDIT: I don't normally get annoyed at down votes, but I point these facts out every time someone repeats the trope "the U.S. lags in broadband speed!" but I never get a real answer, just down votes. The narrative that the U.S. lags behind in broadband speeds seems pretty central to criticisms of U.S. broadband policy, but the surveys I've seen that measure actual speeds (as opposed to advertised speeds), contradicts the assertion that the U.S. lags behind its counterparts. Can someone explain why they disagree with this analysis?

[foobarqux]

I have challenged you about this topic several times and backed it up.

I still think the best public data is the FCC international broadband survey and report which I have previously referenced. The Ookla "promise" figures can be used to validate the advertised speeds in that dataset versus actual speeds.

The issue is not merely of availability of very high speed (>25mbps) connections but its price, an area in which the FCC study demonstrates the US is not competitive. [This information cannot be obtained from the data sets you mentioned].

Moreover, most people, certainly most people here, don't care about nation-wide or even state-wide averages, and they distort the figures, in favor of the US no less (rural Wyoming probably has better access than rural Romania, nobody cares about either). What are the figures for the main urban centers? As a datapoint, based on the FCC data I don't think there is a major US city which is competitive with Warsaw, Poland except possibly for Austin due to Google Fiber.

What would help settle this issue is if someone like Netflix , Google or Dropbox incorporated a speed test (they don't seem to test beyond their stream rates currently) and made the granular data public.

Finally, it is anecdotal but I have found those who have lived in Scandinavia (or Eastern Europe) and the US say pretty consistently that the broadband is much worse in the latter.

[bicknergseng]

I think the problem is that you compare population densities without comparing population distributions. The comparison with the Scandinavian countries is less unfair than you claim: "almost everyone lives on the coasts, unlike in the U.S." Over 50% of the US population lives in the largest 20 cities, and > 75% live in cities, mostly near coasts and rivers and the great lakes. The centers of population in the US are just as dense as the centers of population in Europe; the difference being that much of the interior of the US is almost empty as you mention.

The point is, there is not a legitimate "population density" excuse for NYC or LA or Dallas or Seattle or SF or any other major metropolitan area to have much slower internet speeds than cities like Seoul or Tokyo, or nations like Israel or Singapore.

[rayiner]

Comparing population distributions makes the distinctions even more stark. 80% of the U.S. population lives in an "urban area" but that definition includes towns of 2,500 people. My friend in rural Georgia that has to drive several hours to get to an international airport technically lives in an "urban area" according to the Census Bureau.

The population of the 20 largest cities (New York down to Memphis) is 33 million, or about 10% of the U.S. population. 9% of Sweden's population lives in Stockholm, and the next 10% lives in the three largest cities after that.

Half the population might live in the 20 largest metro areas, but American metro areas are structured very differently than European cities. Stockholm's 900,000 people anchors a metro area of about 2.2 million people. That 40-50% ratio is typical of European cities, but atypical here in the U.S. Out of the largest 20 metro areas in the U.S., only San Diego has more than 40% of the overall metro population in the core city.

The population distribution in the U.S. is very different than in Europe, even if you restrict your attention to large metro areas. In the U.S., much more of the population lives in sprawling suburbs.

[kuschku]

I live in Germany, 1.5h from the nearest International Airport – and I can get 200mbps for 80$ everywhere here, in some areas even more. And these speeds are provided by for-profit companies, not by municipalities.

Your argument is invalid.

[foobarqux]

The easy way to account for problems with the non-uniform definition of urban area is to consider population density. As I said in another comment there are several cities in the US that have a larger density (for whatever defined area) and larger population.

[rayiner]

There's two separate issues:

1) What's internet services like in the U.S. at large levels of granularity?

2) What's internet service like in the U.S. in specific cities?

Re: 1, I think the available data shows that, at a large granularity, we can say that, e.g. the average speeds in big European countries like the U.K. and Germany, factoring in their rural and urban areas together, are comparable to U.S. cities that have similar density, like New York or Connecticut. I think that shows that the overall structure of our telecom market is not inferior to that in the U.K. or Germany or France.

Re: 2, the question is why certain European cities have much faster internet than comparably dense U.S. cities. And I think the answer to that is the same as the answer to: why do certain European cities have much better public transit than comparably dense U.S. cities?

The status of Stockholm within the political structure of Sweden, or the status of Warsaw within the political structure of Poland is very different than the status of New York or Chicago within the political structure of the U.S. Large U.S. cities don't have the political pull to get national-level infrastructure investment.

I've never been to Sweden, but I'm familiar with Bangladesh, where Dhaka (10% of the national population), is the center of political life. I imagine Sweden similarly views the infrastructure of Stockholm as a point of national competitiveness. That's not at all true of American cities. The bulk of the polity of the U.S. views our large cities with skepticism and derision. Instead of viewing investment into urban infrastructure as a point of competitiveness, the heavily-suburban American polity views it as a boondoggle to get poor urban votes.

[foobarqux]

> Re: 2, the question is why certain European cities have much faster internet than comparably dense U.S. cities. And I think the answer to that is the same as the answer to: why do certain European cities have much better public transit than comparably dense U.S. cities?

Public transit is typically state sector, telecom is often private sector. Are you saying that the reason for superior broadband internationally is primarily because of government subsidies or nationalized telecom infrastructure?

[rayiner]

The cities that have much faster broadband than what's available in the U.S. achieved it with targeted public investment and subsidy of fiber deployment. That's also how they achieved much better public transit than what's available in the U.S. The political will doesn't exist for either of those things in the U.S.

[msandford]

I guess part of it is that there's the idea here in the US that everyone should have access to certain things like power, water, telephone, etc. There are a lot of universal service laws about these utilities and the internet is fast becoming another utility.

Worse is that with the internet you have to be hooked up to the central grid or else it's useless. A farmer in a rural part of Kansas who's tired of not getting enough electricity from the electricity company (not a fast enough connection) and paying power overages (bandwidth caps) has alternatives like solar, or buying a generator or whatever.

But when your internet isn't fast enough you can't just install 10gig copper in your house and solve the problem. Install your 10gig until you've got terabits of bandwidth all over your farm; you still can't use it in what most people would call a meaningful way to interact with the rest of the world.

The idea that some states have good broadband and others have terrible broadband and that this is acceptable is an oft-argued point especially once you take population density into account. And it's not a bad argument. The economics are completely real.

But once you try and make an analogy to power or water or telephone it gets a little easier to see why some folks might be up in arms.

[harryh]

Without power or water your basic standard of living drops significantly. Without high speed internet you....don't get netflix?

I don't really see why lumping all these things together in the same category makes sense.

[tehwalrus]

Without the internet you cannot function well in the economy - many many deals (including those for utility companies as well as retailers) are only available either online, or if you found them online and then mentioned them in the shop/on the phone.

The internet is an information network that gives consumers nearly perfect information about price; which translates to a much more ideal market (in economic jargon,) which is much more efficient. It is essentially a utility, if people without it are at a significant economic disadvantage like that.

[harryh]

You conveniently left out the words "high speed." Everything you talk about can be done just fine even on the mediocre broadband speeds that people in this thread are complaining about.

[scrollaway]

"high speed" can be swapped out for "high quality" in this context.

Spotty connectivity, packet loss, frequent disconnects - all things that come with shoddy internet infrastructure. High speed generally means higher quality.

And let's not forget that even just for work the internet is not only used to send plaintext emails. We video chat, we work with crappy bandwidth-hungry web apps, and those are just the smaller of the hungrier things we can do. At my work I have to download tens of gigabytes of foreign data every few days.

And as someone who works at home and manages a work-entertainment schedule to keep sane, it's pretty pathetic to see people try to squeeze out an "Admit it! You just want a faster netflix!" from others. So what if they do? If you compare internet access to access to drinking water, then high speed internet access is drinking water that doesn't taste like piss. Just because you can live off it doesn't mean it's pleasant.

[jedberg]

I can make a living with my water off. I can't with my internet off.

[harryh]

How fast does your internet have to be for you to do your job?

[nitrogen]

Naturally, at least as fast as the other guy or gal competing for the same job.

[harryh]

If all you're doing is moving text around then faster internet isn't going to help any. Unless you're streaming video or doing a few other high bandwidth activities then even really shitty broadband is going to service your needs just fine.

[Retric]

Let's see north east US, Main = 14 MBPS or 0.1 MBPS faster than Mongolia woot!

Comparing nations to states is ridiculous. However, if you read the report it's damming with faint praise. "the average connection speeds seen in the United States and Mexico remained more than twice as fast as the next fastest country"

Sure, if you discount everyone that's better than you then you can call yourself #1 at anything.

PS: Note this is of course average bandwidth which radically distorts the picture. One person nominally at 1GBPS and 10 people at 1MBPS is not the same as 11 people at 90+MBPS. For a more realistic vew you would average the square roots of bandwidth, but that makes US look bad.

[rayiner]

Maine has a population density of 43 people per square mile, less than 1/10th the density of the U.K. or Germany. Maine is just Northeast's version of Montana.

[mkempe]

Please stop bringing up this kind of measurement as if it were an excuse.

Sweden's population density is 21 inhabitants/km2 -- about 54/sq.mile. Finland's population density is lower. Both countries have much better, and cheaper Internet connections on offer than the US.

[muhfuhkuh]

Agreed. However, having gone down that rabbit hole too often, the arguments devolve. One particularly puzzling exchange devolved from my position of "Japan and Korea has ultra high speed Internet, why doesn't the US?" to "population density" on the other side, then to this same argument about Sweden's density, then to "cultural homogeneity" on the other.

That made me pause. "Cultural homogeneity?" I asked. And, the debate devolved into how there are too many minorities in the US and because of that, no one in any position of power wanted to allow everyone universal access because minorities (which I assumed to be Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, etc.) would need too many handouts to get the same speed, which no one would want to pay for. But if it were all-white like Sweden or all-Japanese, etc. it would be fine because it's "for the good of the people".

I just kinda tuned out after that argument. That debate did make strike a nerve, though. I wonder how much "cultural heterogeneity" actually _does_ come into play rather than the tired "population density" argument.

[Zirro]

I know you meant no ill by saying it, but I have seen the claim of homogenity in the Swedish population brought up in several discussions over the past months and being Swedish myself it does sting a bit. Sweden has a long tradition of accepting refugees, wherever they may come from. Along with Germany, we are currently receving far more than other EU countries and many more are expected over the next few years due to the current unrest in the world.

Sweden being all-white, all-Scandinavian is an outdated image. Many cultures thrive together here, bringing new food and traditions. Almost thirty percent of the current Swedish population is foreign-born or have foreign-born parents. Studies show that the average Swede has become increasingly positive to immigration.

I am certain that if something is holding back the progress of Internet connections, it's not minorities. If this post can change the image of Sweden as "all-white" in just one person on HN, typing it will have felt very worth the time.

[bjelkeman-again]

Hmmm. "All-white like Sweden", is a poor way of describing Sweden.

"As of 2011, Statistics Sweden reported that around 19.6% or 1.858.000 inhabitants of Sweden had foreign background, defined as born abroad or born in Sweden by two parents born abroad." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden#Immigr...

That said, I think that the fact that the Swedish regulatory and legislative process isn't captured by commercial interests in the same way it is in the US, is the key thing that has allowed Sweden to move ahead with good broadband.

[kalleboo]

Although of those born abroad, only 40% were born outside of the EU, so you'll probably have to cut your number in half

[AnthonyMouse]

> And, the debate devolved into how there are too many minorities in the US and because of that, no one in any position of power wanted to allow everyone universal access because minorities (which I assumed to be Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, etc.) would need too many handouts to get the same speed, which no one would want to pay for.

If anything it's probably the other way around. It will be a long time before it's cost effective to run fiber to every farm and and shack in the woods in America. But if you let the telcos decide who to serve then you end up with $50/month for gigabit fiber in rich and middle class neighborhoods and $20/month for some tin can on a string in poor neighborhoods, where "poor neighborhoods" include most of the predominantly racial minority neighborhoods, which makes it a political quagmire.

So the telcos end up saddled with build out requirements which means no gigabit fiber for anybody. Which is really quite unfortunate because the justification doesn't require the remedy. Most of the urban poor neighborhoods might not be profitable but they're at least close to break even. The problem is the universal service requirements passed to make sure they get served also require providing service to sparsely populated areas that are a pure money pit.

[henrikschroder]

> So the telcos end up saddled with build out requirements

Whoa there, this story is about "the telcos" opposing municipalities taking the matter in their own hands and ensuring their citizens get fiber.

I would assume there would be no build-out requirement for private entities if there is municipal fiber, but they're welcome to offer service over it if they want, but apparently they don't want that. So if they're saddled, they're hell-bent on keeping on being saddled, presumably so that they can continue wringing their hands and building out things veery slowly, while keeping the local monopoly.

[rayiner]

Sweden and Finland are only sparsely populated on paper. Nearly 75% of Sweden lives along the coast, compared to only 40% of the U.S. 18% of Swedes live in the country's four largest cities, versus only 5% of Americans.

[foobarqux]

The 5 largest American cities all have larger populations than urban Stockholm and 4 of them have higher population density. None of them have better broadband.

[Retric]

Let's see, Washington DC has a population density ~10 times that of Japan. Guess which has the faster Internet speeds? As an independent state that have no need to subsidize anyone in low population areas yet the Internet is just not that fast.

Population density is something of a misnomer as for example parks significantly lower population density but there basicly irrelevant when building a network.

[rhino369]

You can't compare an urban city with a whole country. Japan's landmass includes farm land, mountains and shit.

Washington, DC isn't very dense for the core of a city. There aren't any high rises. Most of the city is single family homes and 3 story walk up apartments.

I live in Arlington, VA which used to be part of DC. I get Verizon Fios. I get 75/75 and cable tv for 80 a month. It's not the dark ages.

[oostevo]

I can't think of any place that I've lived in the US which has consistently worse broadband performance than DC and Northern Virginia. This is especially sad given Northern Virginia's density of large tech companies and history as 'internet alley'[1].

[1] http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/internet-alley

[rayiner]

If D.C. and Virginia were countries, they'd be in the top 5 in Akamai's data, between Japan and Switzerland.

[Retric]

According to speedtest.net I have a 58 MBit download and 39 MBit upload. Yet, Netflix is basically unwatchable at around 6PM on weeknights. I literally get a better connection on my parents DSL than with Verizon Fios in Northern VA.

Remember Netflix maxes out at 3MBit/second and use useable at .75MBit/second so I am getting ~1-2% of my theoretical connection speed.

[Zigurd]

The local electric coop is plowing fiber in Taos, NM. They don't have a problem serving a VERY low-density region.

[corford]

What's Mongolia's population density (I haven't checked but my guess is not very high)?

[coldtea]

That justifications has been shot down multiple times.

[raarts]

Ookla lists the US as #26. Akamai does not rank the US as a country.

But stifling the economy is not only a matter of speed. It's also a matter of how much you pay for that speed. Let me explain. I am a Comcast customer. When I look at a Netflix movie, Comcast gets money from three sources for that movie: my monthly subscription, the 200% overage fee that I pay, because - basically - I watch Neflix instead of one of the crappy channels that come with my subscription, and from Neflix.

The fact that Comcast gets paid three times makes internet pretty expensive for me. Because Netflix will have no choice but increasing their subscription costs.

[rjsw]

A single "average" value can be misleading, the options in the UK have quite big speed jumps once you go beyond ADSL+, the figure you quote will be made up of x number of customers on ~40 mbps and y number on ~80 mbps.