Are we happy being No. 16?
That was Washington’s ranking among U.S. states (and territories) in a report cited by the Seattle PI based on a study by the Communication Workers of America. The CWA Web site speedmatters.org measures users’ Internet speeds. Washington has the 16th-fastest average Internet speed in the nation.
Would you be surprised to learn that the United States itself is ranked just 28th among all industrialized countries? America’s average download speed was 5.1 megabits per second, according to the report. The world’s leader, South Korea, sends data packets flying a the speed of 20.4 mbps.
The U.S. also ranked 15th in high-speed Internet adoption - countries such as Canada, Britain, Japan, France and Germany have more people with high-speed Internet than the U.S. Washington’s average download speed was 6.2 mbps, according to the report. While our state is ahead of the average U.S. speed, it lags behind leaders Delaware (9.9 mbps), Rhode Island (9.8 mbps), New Jersey (8.9 mbps), Massachusetts (8.6 mbps) and New York (8.4 mbps).
Nearly half of Washingtonians had Internet speeds of 768 kilobits per second (the Federal Communication Commission’s definition of broadband) to 6 mbps, the report states. Fourteen percent had slower Internet (mostly dial-up), 23 percent had screaming-fast (10 to 25 mbps) speeds, and 12 percent had speeds of 6 to 10 mbps. Just 1 percent had Internet faster than 25 mbps.
The full report, including individual state rankings, can be found here. [24x7]
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