Internet speeds in America are pathetic, which you probably already knew if you...live in America. A new piece in The New York Times report makes that more clear.
Choice quote:
"Downloading a high-definition movie takes about seven seconds in Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Zurich, Bucharest and Paris, and people pay as little as $30 a month for that connection. In Los Angeles, New York and Washington, downloading the same movie takes 1.4 minutes for people with the fastest Internet available, and they pay $300 a month for the privilege, according to The Cost of Connectivity, a report published Thursday by the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute."
The Times' article is based primarily on a report from the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute
The reason for our poor Internet? A lack of competition. The Times reports:
For relatively high-speed Internet at 25 megabits per second, 75 percent of homes have one option at most, according to the Federal Communications Commission — usually Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T or Verizon. It's an issue anyone who has shopped for Internet knows well, and it is even worse for people who live in rural areas. It matters not just for entertainment; an Internet connection is necessary for people to find and perform jobs, and to do new things in areas like medicine and education.
So if you're in America and, say, love games and want to download a new 20GB release, well, you're going to have to wait a while, pay a lot or some combination of the two.
For more about America's not-so-hot Internet, check out this 2013 study from our pals at Gizmodo. It'll at least make you feel better than the people in Montana. Unless you live in Montana.
To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo. Top image via Shutterstock.