One-Way Internet

We've been looking at our speed test results, and some of the statistics have been remarkable. Although download speeds vary significantly, upload speeds are almost universally terrible.

You can see these results first-hand. How much faster is it for you to download a file from the Internet than it is to upload one?

There's a reason behind these results:

The information superhighway isn't truly equal in both directions. Cable and phone companies typically sell asymmetrical Internet services to households, reserving the bulk of the lanes for downloading movies and other files and leaving the shoulders at most for people to share, or upload, files with others.

The imbalance makes less sense as the Internet becomes truly interactive. Users are increasingly becoming contributors and not just consumers, sharing photos, video and... podcasts. In a nod to the trend of user-generated content, Time magazine recently named "You" - everyone who has contributed - as its Person of the Year.

Most people don't know about the asymmetry because commercials stress fast download speeds - and don't mention uploads. And most high speed Internet users don't know that they should higher expectations from their Internet providers.

New definitions of high speed Internet are needed to remedy this problem.

AP: Imbalance in Net Speeds Impedes Sharing