News

80,000 Speed Testers Send a Powerful Message

26 Jun, 2007

Thanks to our 80,000 Speed Testers, the Speed Matters Campaign has been making waves around the country.

On Monday we released a state-by-state report and interactive map on U.S. internet speeds based on the test results.

In a front page story, USA Today writes,

The USA trails other industrialized nations in high-speed Internet access and may never catch up unless quick action is taken by public-policymakers, a report commissioned by the Communications Workers of America warns.
The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second — a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits).
"We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the world," CWA President Larry Cohen says. "People don't pay attention to the fact that the country that started the commercial Internet is falling woefully behind."

The report was picked up by many other publications as well, including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, MSNBC, and Forbes Magazine.

Response in the online community has been just as strong. Blogs like Gearlog, Remove the Labels, Podcasting News, 24/7 Wall St., Wired's Compiler, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Venture Blog have all cited the report and discussed its assessment of high speed internet deployment in the U.S.

Across the country, the results of the state-by-state Speed Matters report are opening people's eyes to our troubling lack of high speed internet access.

Now that awareness is building, the next step is to turn it into action.

Speed Matters: A Report on Internet Speeds in All 50 States

Speed Matters National Internet Speed Map

U.S. Net access not all that speedy (USA Today)

U.S. lags behind leaders in Internet speed (Los Angeles Times)

Life in the Net's slow lane (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Survey: R.I. Internet Connection Speed Tops In Nation (MSNBC)

W.Va. Internet Among Nation's Slowest (Forbes)

In Japan, They've Already Read This Post (Gearlog)

Average U.S. Upstream Speed: 371kbps - CWA offers updated speed data, state by state (Remove the Labels)

Japanese Internet Access 32 Times Faster Than In US (Podcasting News)

Internet Connections Speeds: Rural Folks Get Zip (24/7 Wall St.)