Real Name: CJ Castillo Gender: female Member Since: December 03, 2008 Last Signed In: December 03, 2008 Profile Views: 859 Blog Views: 3119 Cyber Monday: Are you shopping online today? Black Friday not over yet: Free iPhone apps Things I Like: iPhone apps Comments of the week Gadgets killed by cell phones Comments of the Week Are you a PC but want to be a Mac? Online communities and their policies Anger behind the keyboard? iPhones more reliable than Blackberries and let's talk cases July 05 August 05 September 05 October 05 November 05 December 05 January 06 February 06 March 06 April 06 May 06 June 06 July 06 August 06 September 06 October 06 November 06 December 06 January 07 February 07 March 07 April 07 May 07 June 07 July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08 
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Dear Lazyweb: Why is my Internet slow?
According to the Second Annual Speed Matters report from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), "the U.S. has not made significant improvements in the speeds at which residents connect to the Internet over the past year, and continues to fall behind other countries."
Speed Fail The findings from the report were recorded after "about 230,000 people in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, went to the speedmatters.org site to take an Internet speed test." The results found that that the median download speed in the U.S. was 2.3 megabits per second. Japan was 30 times faster, with a median download speed of 63 Mpbs. Other countries with faster download speeds include South Korea at 49 Mbps, Finland at 21 Mbps, France at 17 Mbps, and Canada at 7.6 Mbps. These Internet speeds may be the reason why, as the report notes, someone in Japan can download an entire movie in about two minutes. Here in the U.S. it can take two hours or more.
If you that doesn't make you want to throw your routers out the window, read what the report said about the future of download speeds. The growth rate of average download speeds is slow, the report said. The increase beween the 2007 report and this year's was only four-tenths of a megabit per second, from 1.9 Mbps average to 2.3. "At this rate," the report said, "it will take the United States more than 100 years to catch up with current Internet speeds in Japan."The majority of those taking the survey used DSL, a cable modem, or a fiber connection, so the report may have "overestimated the average U.S. speed", since it would have taken too long for dial-up users to take part in the testing. The report also found that 57 percent of urban households and 60 percent of suburban households subscribe to broadband, but only 38 percent of rural households use broadband access. Breaking it down by state The survey from CWA found that states with relatively high population densities led in high broadband speeds. The first ranked state was Rhode Island with 6.8 Mbps high broadband speeds, followed by Delaware with 6.7 Mbps, New Jersey, 5.8 Mbps, Virginia, 5.0 Mbps and Massachusetts, 4.6 Mbps. The slowest speeds were recorded by states with large rural populations which include Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and Alaska. To improve broadband reception in rural and lower-income areas, the CWA and some government and public policy organizations have suggested that the Universal Service Fund be reformed to support build-out of broadband in underserved communities. 5 comments from 4 users
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posted by
cmdtx
on Sep 2, 2008 at 08:24 AM
DSL - Digital Subscriber Line - uses phone line copper with a high speed signal - as opposed to satellite - which is a wireless connection to a satellite in space 22550 mile away.
posted by
sandwichh
on Aug 19, 2008 at 02:51 PM
I use wirless internet out here. I can use either it, dial up or satellite. If you have a wireless company to use it is much faster than dialup MOST OF THE TIME. There are times it gets loaded up like at night during the week at night you just have to give up things with a large size webpage and such.
But with wireless you have to be able to see the tower they are using, line of sight. posted by
SugarMagnolia
on Aug 19, 2008 at 04:52 AM
Thank you so much, cj! Just one more question - what exactly is/does DSL stand for? Is that the same as satellite?
posted by
cjcastillo
on Aug 19, 2008 at 04:35 AM
I wish rural users had more options when it comes to Internet service, instead of dial-up. Forget even trying to view anything on YouTube.In response to your question about broadband, yes, broadband can be considered high-speed, but it all depends on the quality of service you receive and a few other factors, such as how many other users are connected. Broadband can come in as cable access (Suddenlink, etc.), DSL, or wireless. Wireless broadband users usually have to install a small dish to the outside of their house to receive a signal from the wireless provider, with the signal being sent out from a high elevation, like a cellphone tower or water tower. Fiber optics is also considered broadband, and I had heard mention of it being introduced in rural areas, but have not heard of when that will happen. Can't wait for it to happen though. Feel free to ask me questions any time, always glad to help! posted by
SugarMagnolia
on Aug 18, 2008 at 10:10 PM
cj - forgive my ignorance, I'm not a computer person by any stretch of the imagination. In my rural area, all we have are dial-up (which I am on now----HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT), or satellite, at too great a cost. I was talking with a computer person in the area, and he said that we will eventually get high-speed in the area, but it will be quite a while before that happens. My question is, is broadband the same thing as high-speed? Are they different? Is broadband only like cable or satellite (there is and will be no cable out in the country where I live) - or are those two different things? Is fiber-optics (of which I have read some about as pertains to internet service) a likely scenario in the near future for rural areas, and is fiber optics also considered broadband? Like I said, I know my ignorance is showing. Give this dinosaur a break......I just went from Windows 95 to Windows XP with a brand-spanking new Dell.....way behind the learning curve, am I. Still not brave enough to switch to Sanka (a little "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" humor there....) Any help understanding all this would be greatly appreciated! An interesting aside - when I got my new computer in (ordered off the internet-see, I'm not a complete dunce!), it had only one telephone port on the back, and that would not recognize my dial-up service. Turns out the port was for high-speed only, so I had to order a new modem (learned the meaning of that word the hard way) for my dial-up. It was cheap, only about $17 dollars, but couldn't believe it wasn't standard with the purchase. The computer guy I was talking to in town said that most new computers come with high-speed modems only, because that is what about 80% of people use nowadays. So....got my dial-up modem installed and still on old, SLOW dial up.....ah, well. The port is there for high-speed if I ever need it (hopefully!).
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