Speedmatters.org
Speedmatters.org has a great tool for testing the speed of your broadband connection. Once it has figured out your download and upload speeds, it presents a chart comparing you to your state and other countries around the world.
You can then use this tool to see what the average speeds are by state and county. Their statistics are based on actual speed tests done by users of their speed testing tool. (That’s why they ask for zip codes.)
My speed is so slow that you would think I was living in the third world, except that a lot of third world countries probably have faster broadband than I do. My ISP (Qwest) and I will be having a little chat in the very near future.
Timothy Karr of the Huffington Post writes about the problem and why the U.S. is falling so far behind the rest of the world.
The Bush administration, which has pledged to make broadband cheap and affordable to everyone by 2007, is instead painting the same pretty picture of broadband success.
“I think our policies are a success,” FCC chairman Kevin Martin told phone company executives last week.
“We have the most effective multiplatform broadband in the world,” the administration’s top technologist, John Kneuer, told Web experts in San Francisco last week (to protests from his audience).
Kneuer says the real problem is not bad broadband services or market failure in America, but faulty data — blaming those who compiled the recent OECD broadband report for getting the facts wrong.
[…]
Phone and cable’s complete market dominance has translated to anti-competitive, anti-consumer practices that stifle innovation and push our speeds and services generations behind those available in other nations.
“It’s not just a matter of national pride,” SavetheInternet.com’s Ben Scott told Newsweek. “A country that’s fully connected has access to tools that let citizens do jobs that we can’t do. The cost of falling behind can be hundreds of billions of dollars every year.”
A few network giants like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast have staked out the market for themselves. They use aggressive lobbying, phony research and campaign contributions to maintain this control at our expense.
Sadly, many of those now in power have bought in. By their words and decisions, people like Kneuer and Martin now help phone and cable cement their dominance — implementing rules that help them further exploit consumers, stifle new innovation and insulate their status quo.
With the Fourth of July less than a week away, I think it’s time for Americans to commit themselves to understanding just how much damage both Republicans and Democrats have done to freedom in this country by whoring to special interests for the sole purpose of increasing their own power and personal profit.
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