You ever see those Slowsky commercials, the ones about the slow turtles promoting faster Internet service? Maybe those turtles should advertise all online service.
The United States ranked 31st in Internet speed, according to website Speedtest.net. They study and rank consumer download speeds all over the world. They use Mbps, megabits per second, as a unit to measure data transfer. Some of the 30 nations above the US may surprise you, some shouldn’t. Hong Kong, Singapore, Sweden and South Korea top the nations. Other nations that outdo the US in Internet speed include Romania, Moldova, and Uruguay. What?!
But how has a nation that laid the groundwork for the Internet fallen so short in online speed? One reason is the US size and population is so big that it’s nearly impossible to guarantee everyone fast paced Internet service. Note that it’s the small countries who made the top of this list. Many say there’s a lack of competition between service providers is a factor. Some are doing something about this. Google is putting Google Fiber in neighborhoods which has slow online access and in some cases, little online access at all. President Obama himself wants to get 99% of school students access to WiFi, and lightning speed WiFi. These are all great steps. But doesn’t more need to be done to get us where we should be as for as online speed is concerned? Are you really satisfied with being 31 in Internet speed?