U.S. and California Internet speeds still not speedy

It's 2008, and that series of tubes called the Internet has been around for a while. You'd think that by now, you'd be able to simultaneously download giant videos while uploading photos while checking e-mail while streaming Net radio stations, thanks to the cheetah-like speed of your broadband connection.

But as anyone who's ever used the Internet knows by now, speeds these days are less like a cheetah and more like a dog that sometimes runs kind of fast and other times slogs along. Want proof? Check out a study released late Monday by the Communication Workers of America, which tested the speeds of 230,000 Internet users and came up with median speeds for different states and ZIP Codes. You can check out the median Internet speed in your area here. It also will tell you the speed of the Internet connection you're using.

California may be a high-tech hub, but you wouldn't know it from the study. The Golden State ranks 25th in the U.S., with a median download speed of 2.5 megabits per second, slower than fastest state Rhode Island's 6.8 mbps. The slowest state is Alaska, with a dreary 0.8 mbps (Quick geography reminder: Rhode Island is the smallest state. Alaska is the biggest in size).

Some in California have faster speeds than others, according to the map. Web surfers in Topanga can bop all over the Internet unimpeded, with download speeds of 8.1 mbps per second, while those in North Hollywood have sluggish speeds of 0.5 mbps. The LA County median download speed was 2.3 mbps.

The U.S. download average of 2.35 mbps is dwarfed ...

... by Japan's 63.6 mbps and Finland's 21.7 mbps. That's not good for our productivity, said Debbie Goldman, Speed Matters coordinator for the Communication Workers of America.

"We're behind the rest of the world and it really matters," she said. "The jobs of the future depend on having the best networks possible."

Now wait a minute, you might say. I get my Internet service from Company X, and pay a whole lot of money to get a download speed of 5 or 15 or 20 mbps. What gives? Well, Goldman says, maybe you're not getting what you're paying for. Internet connections through a cable line, for instance, get slower with more more people on them. And some DSL connections get slower the farther away you get from the central office.

That's why the Communication Workers of America is advocating for a national broadband policy. Japan has one, after all. A national policy would set goals and timetables for faster connections and give tax incentives to phone companies that work toward faster speeds. The CWA backs the Broadband Data Improvement Act in Congress and a bill pending in the California Legislature that would allow the Public Utilities Commission to allocate $100 million to spur broadband deployment in underserved areas, Goldman said.

Don't want to wait for legislators, who might have more important things on their mind such as, hmm, balancing the budget? You could sign up for Verizon's FiOS or AT&T's U-Verse, which have faster speeds than DSL or the Internet provided by cable companies. Of course, they're not offered everywhere. You'll have to check out whether they're available in your neighborhood by looking online. Good luck with that.

-- Alana Semuels

Semuels, a Times staff writer, covers wireless, marketing and the L.A. tech scene.

Photo: The inside of a broadband router. Jean-Etienne Poirrier via Flickr

Comments

[Bob zielazinski]

You are not going to see the level of true broadband that other countries see until we adopt a regulatory approach similar to the countries that are seeing good service.

Our system is chaos, and I don't mean that in a good way.
I live in Oklahoma, and geographically speaking, the vast majority of this state is served only by satellite. No cable broadband. No DSL. The telco and cable companies only want to serve the very-densely-populated areas. if you live more than five miles from downtown, you may not get service. I suspect that you see the same thing in California.

[VTS]

1984 was a very bad year for the telecom consumer and broadband. The 8-steps backward of broadband is the unregulated wiring of property after 1984. Prior, AT&T provided and strung twisted pair on all new construction. After, builders were under no obligation and have strung country-wide with low cost wires - worst being non-twisted CAT0 RGYB "doorbell" wire. Without twisted pairs, poor capacity, slow bit rate and high data loss constrains the broadband user. The Broadband Data Improvement Act should have a provision for restitution and physical upgrades for broadband hampered property.

[RMS]

Deregulation has taken us to the point today where former cable and telephone monopolies are competing on price, quality and services offered, with mobile companies a mere step behind. VTS must be a layed off AT&T employee, pining for the good ol days when you had no choices when it came to telephone service and long distance calls were 50c a minute in 1984 dollars.

The problem with the USA's broadband is that we live far apart. That makes it costly to install fiber to the home. Population density is the culprit, not free markets.

[P J Evans]

If density (or lack thereof) is the problem, as RMS claims, we ought to be getting *faster* service in cities than rural areas.

We do need a national policy, encouraging faster broadband everywhere in the country. We also need 'net neutrality', so the ISPs (including cable and telephone companies) can't control what sites people can visit, or even find with search engines.

[masterpuff theater]

Although we lag far behind in internet speeds, America leads the world in whining, complaining self entitled customers and useless ill trained employees who don't have a clue, and throw in some large mega-corps who jack the price and lower the service and could care less about you than a insect, and how about obese service technicians who come when they feel like it, and you start to get a pretty good idea of the reasons why we suck. Its morning in america, we're number one....

[subgenius]

We pay for a 10MB RoadRunner connection. It is totally unreliable. One minute it is 10MB, an hour later it is less than 1MB. We still have to pay for the 10MB though....

[Elrey]

re: leads the world in whining. (He whines ...)
As far as useless, ill-trained employees, my personal favorite here is AT&T Broadband, who provides my mom's DSL line in Colorado. Once, when I called to report a service outage, I was on hold for three hours twenty minutes before service was restored without ever reaching a human. Any company that can't triage you as a customer and route your call into an effective service queue ("can I have a technician qualified to fix your problem call you back in 34 minutes?") just doesn't get it, do they? In this case, the IT was my home DSL account.

[Juan P. Amejeiras]

Journalist and columnists are always playing by ear. The investigations, polls and other amenities looks designed in bar Pullmans rather than in laboratory. The conclusions, like the rat with one leg became deaf, always are benefiting the big corporations. If you go to the movies the tickets are not suppose to be more than the seats.. how come the communication industry can sell more than they are prepared to serve?...The CWA is just a puppet reacting to lines of commands. Money for a national broadband?.. Learn how to use what you have first, that’s the advantage in other places, qualifications. We do not need more technology, we need less greedy and more ethics with relation to the consumer.