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0 pointsfoobarqux12y ago0 comments

The US allegedly beats Sweden in average broadband speed which is a poor measure for most purposes. I don't think you will find any Swedes telling you that the US has better broadband.

From the FCC: "The United States is 26th out of 32 countries in the 15-25 Mbps speed tier (advertised) with an average stand-alone broadband plan price of $56.50. The lowest advertised price for stand-alone services is in Slovakia at $18, while the highest charges are found in Switzerland at $180"

Although they don't summarize the findings above 25 Mbps the story looks much worse.

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rayiner12y ago

Why do you rely on a study that uses advertised speed instead of actual speed like Akamai's? Akamai also has a category for 10 Mbps+ availability, and the U.S. ranks very well there too.

foobarquxOP12y ago

Because there aren't many international broadband studies that incorporate cost and I don't see any Mbps/cost breakdown in the Akamai study. The FCC report incorporates Ookla data (Speedtest.net) which uses actual broadband speed and costs submitted by users. It corroborates the conclusions of the FCC study.

With respect to availability: There is a world of difference between 1Gps@$1000/mth and 1Gps@$50/mth though both qualify as 1Gbps availability.

Finally >10Mbps is pretty broad bin today and fails to meaningfully differentiate "very" high speed services.

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