R.I. has fastest Internet speeds in U.S.

Though you may not realize it, this Web page probably just loaded faster than it would have anywhere else in the country.
That is because Rhode Island has the fastest Internet speeds in the United States, according to a report released Tuesday. It was the second year in a row that the Ocean State ranked No. 1 in the Speed Matters survey, which was commissioned by the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America union.
The survey results showed the median download speed in Rhode Island is 6.77 megabits per second (mbps). That is more than double the median national download speed, which is only 2.35 megabits per second.
Unfortunately, the report also found that the Internet is still much slower throughout the United States than it is in other developed countries.
Even speedy Rhode Island is slower than Canada, where the median download speed is 7.6 megabits per second. And the numbers look even worse when compared with France (17.6 mbps) and Finland (21.7 mbps), let alone South Korea (49.5 mbps) and Japan (63.6 mbps), according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
To put it another way, a file that takes only 30 seconds to download in Japan would take more than four and a half minutes to download in Rhode Island. It would take nearly 40 minutes to download the file in Alaska, the slowest state in the union.
Larry Cohen, the union’s president, said the report demonstrates why the country needs to invest more in its broadband infrastructure.
“This isn’t about how fast someone can download a full-length movie,” Cohen said. “Speed matters in our economy and our ability to remain competitive in a global marketplace. Rural development, telemedicine and distance learning all rely on truly high-speed, universal networks.”
He called for the U.S. Senate to pass the Broadband Data Improvement Act (S 1492), which would require the Federal Communications Commission to collect more data on the nation’s Internet capabilities. The House of Representatives passed a similar measure, the Broadband Census of America Act, earlier this year.
Behind Rhode Island on the list of states with the fastest Internet speeds were Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia, and neighboring Massachusetts – all on the Eastern Seaboard. The slowest speeds were recorded in the rural states of Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and Alaska.
In addition, the report found that the nation’s Internet speeds barely improved over last year, rising by just 0.4 mbps. The increase was slightly larger but still meager in Rhode Island, where median speed rose by 1.76 mbps between May 2007 and May 2008.
At the present rate, the report said, it will take the U.S. more than a century to reach the Internet speeds that Japan has currently.
Cohen added, “We are the only industrialized nation without a national policy to promote universal, high-speed Internet access – and it shows.”
The Speed Matters report is based on data from nearly 230,000 Internet users who took the Speed Matters Speed Test – almost three times the number of tests taken for last year’s inaugural state-by-state report. For more information, go to www.speedmatters.org.