Weekend Open Forum: How fast is your home connection?

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Matthew DeCarlo

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There were roughly 1.73 billion Internet users worldwide last year, and that figure is undoubtedly trending upward. In a perfect world everyone would have access to the same bandwidth. Unfortunately, that's not the case, and some folks simply have it better than others.

Based on Akamai's Q4 2009 data, the US placed 22nd globally with an average connection speed of 3.79Mb/s and a meager 57% broadband adoption. The FCC's estimates suggest similarly, indicating about a third of American households don't have broadband access at home.

Akamai claims South Korea has the fastest connection, averaging about 11.7Mb/s. Hong Kong follows at 8.6Mb/s, Japan at 7.6Mb/s, Romania at 7.2Mb/s, Latvia at 6.2Mb/s, while Sweden, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Switzerland and others are above 5Mb/s on average.

It's not just speeds that vary mind you, prices fluctuate greatly depending on the region. For instance, at my Pennsylvania apartment I'm paying around $55 a month for an unbundled 25Mb/5Mb, while our Ecuadorian staff is stuck paying $130 month for a measly 3Mb/512Kb.

How lucky – or unlucky for that matter – do you have it? Discuss.

** The picture above is derived from OECD and ITIF broadband rankings. We cited Akamai's Q4 2009 State of the Internet report in the post.

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I have Charter cable internet. I pay around $55 a month for 25 Mb/s down, and 3 Mb/s up. My actual download speeds are around 35 Mb/s.
 
10 years ago we were paying $30/month to potentially get up to 56K on dial up and that didn't include the cost of the phone service. I used to sit and reconnect until I got an open 56K line as I usually connected at 28.8.

Paying $35 for 6mbps DSL.
 
15 bucks a month for crappy att dsl 768 down/384 up actual speeds less, but my college has t3 so yea :)
 
AT&T DSL Direct High Speed- $40/ month (no contract which is what I like) - 3Mb/s down (with real speed average of about 2.5) and 512kb/s up (with real speed average of between 400-450).

But once I hopefully find a job, i'll upgrade to the $45 plan (if available in my area) which is 6Mb/s down and 768Kb/s up.

I had considered Camcast's 20Mb/s down speed for $42.95/month, but my wife and daughter and I currently live with my wife's parents who don't want holes drilled in the walls and cables running through the house (ah, old people...gotta love 'em, lol).
 
$50/month with Comcast. I have an extremely unreliable 6mb/s down (up to 16mb/s down with "turbo boost") and 3 mb/s up. It's unreliable because Comcast... well, it's Comcast. Need I say more?
 
GO (tier 2) connected to Seabone (tier 1) for an 8 Mbps down (actual down 5Mbps) and 512 Kbps up.

Our internet bandwidth in Malta is very slow and inefficient, as Malta is so densely populated and we are still using copper medium instead of fibre.
 
Yeah, I live in Lithuania too (EU). You can get FTTH almost in every town/city. From 2010 ISPs started to provide internet plans with up to 200Mb/s speed (costs ~36$). And 100Mb/s plans starts from 14$. We love piracy here in Lithuania, so Internet Service Providers helps us to make it better. :)
 
Nearly 27$ for a 2 Mb download and 512kb upload.
OH well can't say i am satisfied :|
 
I have 32Mb down 2Mb up from kabel deutschland about 35euros a month. with 2 phone lines on it.
 
Voice from Poland: 16Mb/s down, 1Mb/s up. 20$ monthly. Living in small city (~75k).
 
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