US rank 15th in broadband speed.

[Smokey]

U.S. broadband speeds was focus of a recently conducted study by Communications Workers of America (CWA) union and the results are not especially flattering. The U.S. comes in 15th on a worldwide scale, far behind the leaders Japan, South Korea and Finland.

The results of its study are based on data of 229,494 U.S. users who took the online speed test between May 2007 and May 2008. The connection speed was determined by sending a request from participant's computer to CWA's nearest server to record the time it takes to receive a response. With 15% of the US population still using a dial-up connection, the median download speed in USA is 2.3 Mb/s.

A file that takes four minutes to download in South Korea would take nearly an hour and a half to download in the U.S. using the average bandwidth. Japanese with an eye-popping 63.60 Mb/s download link can download an entire movie in just two minutes, as opposed to two hours or more here in the U.S.

Japan dominates international broadband speed with a median download speed of approximately 63 Mb/s, more than enough to stream DVD-quality video with surround audio in real time. Next on the list is South Korea where download speeds achieve an average of 49.50 Mb/s.

Finland and France follow with 21.70 Mb/s and 17.60 Mb/s, respectively. Canada ranked eighth with an average download speed of 7.60 Mb/s. The U.S. came in 15th with 2.35 Mb/s.

http://www.circleid.com/images/uploads/2671.gif

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38861/118/

[emesbee]

I'll bet the US still has faster speeds than here in Australia though.(my download speed is around 2 to 3 Mb/s)

[kexodusc]

I'm not surprised Smokey - there's a tremendously strong correlation between a country's broadband speed and populated area in square miles. Think population density.

Considering some states are larger than some of those top countries, think of the tremendous disadvantage the US has in building millions of miles worth of infrastructure. Canada's a huge country but the population density is centered within a two hundred miles of the Canada/US border, so 3/4 of the area is probably ignored for effectively anyway. Can't say the same back in the USA.

I'm sure the US could be better, but if I were a business in that industry I would need a lot more time to recover my exponentially higher infrastructure costs, and I just couldn't afford to upgrade as often at prices the market could sustain.

Now, having said all of that - I didn't see anywhere in this article where it says Japanese users are actually able to take advantage of the 60 Mb/s capability - most servers I know of don't get anywhere near that fast on the upload, so in practical terms, I'm not sure we're doing that bad on this side of the pond...

[Smokey]

Kex, that is a fair statement and it dies have merit. Population density and greater distance are a big factor. But other factor are probably also contribute such as DSL which have about 1 to 3 mb capability and copper wire infrastructure and 10 to 15 million subscribers that are still on dialup.

But my main objective was to demonstrate that downloading video contents (at least in US) still have way to go to be a viable alternative to DVD or Bluray.

And I'm supposing Australia are in same shoes we are albeit fewer population density.

[kexodusc]

Kex, that is a fair statement and it dies have merit. Population density and greater distance are a big factor. But other factor are probably also contribute such as DSL which have about 1 to 3 mb capability and copper wire infrastructure and 10 to 15 million subscribers that are still on dialup.

But my main objective was to demonstrate that downloading video contents (at least in US) still have way to go to be a viable alternative to DVD or Bluray.

And I'm supposing Australia are in same shoes we are albeit fewer population density.
Yeah, no question we are a few years off from VOD becoming a practical, viable option for the general public.
Again, I think the real challenge with VOD isn't going to be the download rate, but rather the upload rate. I was unable to find what upload rates in Japan are like...anyone know?