US ranked 26th in global Internet speed, South Korea number one

[Shawn Knight]

The United States ranks 26th in a recent report concerning global Internet speed. Such a ranking puts the US slightly ahead of the world average at 616KBps, according to Pando Networks.

The study analyzed 27 million downloads by 20 million computers in 224 countries from January through June 2011 to determine that the average worldwide download speed is 580KBps. South Korean Internet access is nearly four times faster than what most Americans use. That country ranked first in the study with an average speed of 2,202KBps, surpassing most nations by a large margin. Romania and Bulgaria came in second and third place with average speeds of 1,909KBps and 1,611KBps, respectively.

On the low end, developing nations in Africa and Asia reported painfully slow speeds. The Congo came in dead last at 13KBps, followed by the Central African Republic at 14KBp and Comoros at 23KBps.

"The disparities we found were striking. While, in general, developed economies outpaced the developing world in average download speeds, big names such as the US, UK, France, China and Canada were not even close to being the fastest. Instead, we saw high speeds in markets such as Eastern Europe where focus on infrastructural development and favorable geography promote a higher level of connectivity,” said Robert Levitan, CEO of Pando Networks.

The study further detailed Internet speeds based on cities and ISPs, with Verizon Internet Services providing the fastest connection in the US courtesy of their FIOS network. The fastest six cities are all located in South Korea, with Andover, MA and Bucharest, Romania the only two non-South Korean cities to make the top 10.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/45566-us-ranked-26th-global-internet-speed-south-korea-number-one.html

 

[1977TA]

These studies are such a waste of time. Is it easier to build a network on 38,500 sq miles ( South Korea ) vs 3,795,000 sq miles( USA )? It's not rocket science. They should go by city, Seoul vs San Fran. I'm in Portland, OR which is not exactly the largest city in the US and I get an average of 1,600kbmps down.

 

[tehbanz]

So that's what gives them the upper hand in Starcraft! Damnit!

 

[gwailo247]

It's not that weird that Eastern Europe has such high speeds. You're looking at places where you had no existing communication networks, and in the 1990s western investment and aid brought a complete modernization of a lot of things, including the communication infrastructure. And labor costs are far far less than in the west, allowing the actual building of these massive projects.

 

[Jibberish18]

1977TA said:
These studies are such a waste of time. Is it easier to build a network on 38,500 sq miles ( South Korea ) vs 3,795,000 sq miles( USA )? It's not rocket science. They should go by city, Seoul vs San Fran. I'm in Portland, OR which is not exactly the largest city in the US and I get an average of 1,600kbmps down.

What's a "kbmps"? KilobitMegaPornSecond?

 

[1977TA]

What's a "kbmps"? KilobitMegaPornSecond?

Whoops, typo.....but I do like the idea!

 

[Guest]

I'd really take the whole survey with a grain of salt. Not disputing that South Korea has the fastest internet, however their reports on other countries may be inaccurate.
I'm not referring to advertised speeds from the ISPs (as they're mostly BS anyway), but realy world usage. I can only speak about what I know first hand, and their report on Singapore says 335Kbps, however on the 'slowest' of available internet plans here (which is about 4Mbps that I use for redundancy), one can still attain easily 2Mbps if not saturate the connection as my main line has 100Mbps and I can sustain 40Mbps even during peak hour usage and saturate it during the nighttime hours. All this is for international traffic, mostly to the USA for my downloads (and in some cases uploads *cough*). Just FYI, there's a freakin fibre plan that advertises 1Gbps down and 500Mbps up. Too bad my new house isn't set up for fibre yet to find out.
My whole point is, the whole report is highly inaccurate in my view. Or maybe it's because of all those darn Blackberry users on GPRS dragging it down. I'm also pretty sure broadband penetration is higher than 80% if not 90% here, so it's not the dialups. Even the people living in trees here have cable

 

[Zecias]

1977TA said:
These studies are such a waste of time. Is it easier to build a network on 38,500 sq miles ( South Korea ) vs 3,795,000 sq miles( USA )? It's not rocket science. They should go by city, Seoul vs San Fran. I'm in Portland, OR which is not exactly the largest city in the US and I get an average of 1,600kbmps down.

lol then the U.S would still fall flat ... =.=
the reason the U.S. has such crappy internet, when compared to South Korea, is because the ISPs here are greedy bastards. Getting a 100Mbps connection from Comcast would cost you a few hundred just on the setup and an extremely high monthly bill. The companies are just trying make as much profit as humanly possible. Sure they could build an infrastructure supporting fiber optic cables, but when people are willing to pay boatloads of money for crappy internet, why would change?

 

[stan4]

I have 1MBps LOL, I beat the USA.

Latinoamerica FTW!

 

[Puiu]

Glad to be in Romania

 

[dustin_ds3000]

Im glad i live in South Korea, fast internet and hot girls.

 

[Guest]

lol, here in the philippines:
globe telecom
slowest wimax plan 512kbps ~795 pesos/month; selected areas only.
(/8, max download speed = 64kbps, actual download speed = 20-30kbps, sometimes 40-50kbps)


wimax plan 1mbps ~995 pesos/month; selected areas only.

wired dsl 768kbps ~/month, selected areas only.
(/8, max download speed = 96kbps, actual download speed ~100-120kbps)


the philipppines' first national telecom, pldt, covers a majority of the philippines but ironically is absent in low class municipalities.

other wimax internet providers offer similar speed with globe telecom but still covers only selected areas.

LTE internet will also be launched "soon" (2012?) but i doubt if any telecom will offer real broadband speed at an affordable cost.

 

[Guest]

yeah we suck..we would rather put money towards wars

 

[xplayer]

Jibberish18 said:

1977TA said:
These studies are such a waste of time. Is it easier to build a network on 38,500 sq miles ( South Korea ) vs 3,795,000 sq miles( USA )? It's not rocket science. They should go by city, Seoul vs San Fran. I'm in Portland, OR which is not exactly the largest city in the US and I get an average of 1,600kbmps down.

What's a "kbmps"? KilobitMegaPornSecond?

hahahah Really Funny!!!

 

[xplayer]

but actually i pay 50$ per month for 512kbps internet that mean the download speed is 64kb per second in Kurdistan of iraq, and the ping time for yahoo.com is varies from 178ms to 320ms, that make me to lose online almost always when i play COD modern ware fare 2 on my xbox360, hmm too bad!!!

 

[Guest]

wow Romania second place thats awesome

 

[fpsgamerJR62]

Looking at the average internet connection speeds of the various countries around the world, I would wonder why they call it broadband in the first place.

 

[caravel]

The US still has quite a high percentage of dial up users, this probably brings the average down considerably.

 

[1977TA]

zecias said:

1977TA said:
These studies are such a waste of time. Is it easier to build a network on 38,500 sq miles ( South Korea ) vs 3,795,000 sq miles( USA )? It's not rocket science. They should go by city, Seoul vs San Fran. I'm in Portland, OR which is not exactly the largest city in the US and I get an average of 1,600kbmps down.

lol then the U.S would still fall flat ... =.=
the reason the U.S. has such crappy internet, when compared to South Korea, is because the ISPs here are greedy bastards. Getting a 100Mbps connection from Comcast would cost you a few hundred just on the setup and an extremely high monthly bill. The companies are just trying make as much profit as humanly possible. Sure they could build an infrastructure supporting fiber optic cables, but when people are willing to pay boatloads of money for crappy internet, why would change?

I guess you missed my point where I state that I have a pretty decent connection that's close if not on par with South Korea. And I don't pay for a premium service either.

 

[Guest]

Romania being near the top must be because all the internet criminals require it.

 

[Guest]

Antarctica doesn't look to good.

 

[Emexrulsier]

Silly these reports its based on what ppl own not what people can get... To put some of the poorer countries in the top world averages when only a handful of the well off can afford internet anaways and because they have money they pay for faster lines so the averages are all to pot.

Like the UK 50% can get 100mb (virgin media) if they all wanting to spend the money to get this then according to the above we would be top, not cause we have the best net globally but because we have money to burn.

 

[Guest]

I Remember back in 1986, the U.S. (via Sprint and the 1st Signal Brigade) built South Korea's entire fiber network across the entire counrty from the ground up - no wonder.
And we are 26th?

That's the size of Illinois.

 

[Guest]

Not only their speed is superior, their costs are realistic. Their warcraft superiority is because they do not throttle games or anything whereas big brother allow ISP in North America to do so. Time are changing

 

[Guest]

We koreans don't pay more than 100 bucks per year for internet. Also, you stated that they should compare by cities. My statement is, he did indeed. Read again. He said all the top 6 cities are located in korea.