Now I get why Americans always complain about pictures being too big.

U.S. Trails Far Behind Other Countries. The United
States has fallen to 15th behind other industrialized nations
in the percent of the population subscribing to broadband.
Countries like Canada, Britain, France, Germany, and
Sweden have higher broadband subscription rates than we
do.5 In addition, other countries, like Japan, South Korea,
and Sweden, have much faster Internet connections than
we do. People in Japan can upload a high-definition video
in 12 minutes, compared to a grueling 2.5 hours at the
U.S. average upload speed. Yet, people in Japan pay about
the same as we do in the U.S. for their Internet
connection.

Poor US residents! Perhaps us civilised countries should set up a foundation so that the US can have descent internet speeds as well?

Also South-Korea is doing exceptionally well for a country lacking natural resources.

[Source]

Australia has ♥♥♥♥ty download speeds too, but that's mostly because the middle of it is a massive desert, so to access something in Syndey, I get routed through Singapore, Germany, some other ♥♥♥♥in' ♥♥♥♥, then finally back to my own country. And the government totally sucks.

Maybe we Americans don't live on the intranetz ;0)

Good news, though. After 3 years of having dialup, I'm finally getting cable internet WOOHOO! :0D

Also, I kinda think those numbers a skewed, because nearly everyone I know who DOES use the internet (not everyone cares to here, you know) has high speed. And I know tons of peeps. ;0) Additionally, a lot of people don't need to use their own connection, but can just bum off of someone else's (University, neighbors, wireless providing restaurants (many of them do this), &tc.) That would DEFinitely skew the numbers, and is almost certainly not being taken into account.

EDIT: Jodders, you make a good point also. SIZE. All those other countries have small infrastructures (no Oriental jokes intended...) I don't see any actual LARGE countries listed there. Where does China stand?

Originally Posted by Big Bro Davidia

Maybe we Americans don't live on the intranetz ;0)

Good news, though. After 3 years of having dialup, I'm finally getting cable internet WOOHOO! :0D

Also, I kinda think those numbers a skewed, because nearly everyone I know who DOES use the internet (not everyone cares to here, you know) has high speed. And I know tons of peeps. ;0) Additionally, a lot of people don't need to use their own connection, but can just bum off of someone else's (University, neighbors, wireless providing restaurants (many of them do this), &tc.) That would DEFinitely skew the numbers, and is almost certainly not being taken into account.

EDIT: Jodders, you make a good point also. SIZE. All those other countries have small infrastructures (no Oriental jokes intended...) I don't see any actual LARGE countries listed there. Where does China stand?

I wouldn't dare to say such a thing! OH WAIT where did this graph come from?!

This is by penetration so by percentage most Americans live on the internet; as in Europe a little over 50% still have non-internet lives. This is of course quite different in absolute numbers.

Congratulations welcome to the new century!

Yes that would skew the numbers, but not necessarily in favour of the US. Seeing that most restaurants, all universities, most train stations in Europe have this and most definitely Asia as well.

Size is definitely an issue, no doubt about it. Accurate Chinese numbers are (what a surprise) impossible to find but Russia has an average speed of about 7.84 Mb/s. (Numbers seem to vary a bit) putting them behind most of Europe but still ahead of the US. Seems you lost the Cold War after all.

Originally Posted by Big Bro Davidia

Maybe we Americans don't live on the intranetz ;0)

I think it has more to do with the fact that the telecom companies in the United States are extremely greedy and want to charge ridiculous rates, in addition to overthrowing net neutrality for their own commercial gains. If they can make you pay twice as much for a connection three times slower than it should be, they will.

Originally Posted by Big Bro Davidia

Also, I kinda think those numbers a skewed, because nearly everyone I know who DOES use the internet (not everyone cares to here, you know) has high speed. And I know tons of peeps. ;0) Additionally, a lot of people don't need to use their own connection, but can just bum off of someone else's (University, neighbors, wireless providing restaurants (many of them do this), &tc.) That would DEFinitely skew the numbers, and is almost certainly not being taken into account.

It's because there's a huge amount of people in rural areas. Often they don't have access to high-speed Internet connections, and the service providers don't have competition so they can jack the prices sky-high.

haha, that stinks :0P

My new speed is 16 Mbps, but I know most unis here have 100Mbps connections....or 100/1000 (whatever that REALLY means).

EDIT: Sear, I think you're right, there. The cable connection I just got is the lowest price they offer (which is actually very low...gonna save me $30/month once I get rid of AOL and this phone line) but it's not something they advertise. We had to go digging for it.

Originally Posted by Big Bro Davidia

haha, that stinks :0P

My new speed is 16 Mbps, but I know most unis here have 100Mbps connections....or 100/1000 (whatever that REALLY means).

16 Mbps is pretty good, better than what I have certainly. However, since you're going with cable it's also subject to how many other people are using it at the same time in your area; the more people using it, the slower it gets, because you are all in effect sharing the same line.

As for universities, they tend to use high-speed T1 or T3 lines, but again, they're shared across a huge network. I was at my university the other day and downloaded a 70 MB file in about 10 seconds, it was so fast, but that's because classes aren't on and almost nobody (relatively) was on campus. Normally it'd take me much longer, and often it's extremely slow, worse than dial-up.

The only thing South Korea does is surf the interwebs and play MMOs.

It's a bit cruddy over in America for Internet Speeds. I remember checking my speed between 8 and 12 Mbps. It's pretty good for online gaming as long as no-one downloads a huge file at the same time.

I remember a time when i used to have a speed of less than 1 mbps back in 2001, and it kept going up year on year until we got to what we have now.

Originally Posted by Icky

Also South-Korea is doing exceptionally well for a country lacking natural resources.

Because South Korea's phone lines are all new and they made them all fibre optics, it’s basically impossible to get slow internet there.

I wonder how low Scotland or the UK as a whole would be on that list

My connection says 117 mbps, but that's just going off of the wireless signal, so it jumps all around.

But I had no idea so many people still used dialup or other inferior connections, especially with how important and necessary the Internet has become and is becoming.

The only time I ♥♥♥♥♥ about a pic being to big is because some asshat doesn't know how to scale it down and posts some picture larger than the monitor resolution. Has nothing to do with how fast it goes, but how unnecessarily big it is.

Lets just ban all Americans and do away with the image size restrictions. Two birds with one stone!

Originally Posted by Avalanchemike

Lets just ban all Americans and do away with the image size restrictions. Two birds with one stone!

I agree with the Brit.

I think it has more to do with the fact that the telecom companies in the United States are extremely greedy and want to charge ridiculous rates, in addition to overthrowing net neutrality for their own commercial gains. If they can make you pay twice as much for a connection three times slower than it should be, they wil

Yes.
Also in rural areas in the US, alot of broadband services are limited, if not completely non-existant. I live in a rural area and broadband doesnt reach everywhere. I couldnt get DSL, cable internet or much else for that matter. I was stuck with dial-up for years. We finally broke down and got satellite simply because we couldnt handle the bull♥♥♥♥ speed anymore. Satellite is the only broadband service that could reach my particular neighborhood and it does cost a lot. D:

Originally Posted by Big Bro Davidia

Also, I kinda think those numbers a skewed, because nearly everyone I know who DOES use the internet (not everyone cares to here, you know) has high speed.

What's 'high speed' to you Americans? 2 mbit? I know at least 50 people who have 100mbit.

Originally Posted by Big Bro Davidia

Additionally, a lot of people don't need to use their own connection, but can just bum off of someone else's (University, neighbors, wireless providing restaurants (many of them do this), &tc.) That would DEFinitely skew the numbers, and is almost certainly not being taken into account.

And you assume we don't have universities, neighbors, wireless restaurants (they are probably ten times more common here) in Sweden? Why?

Originally Posted by Anann

The only thing South Korea does is surf the interwebs and play MMOs.

And play Starcraft.


If my memory serves correctly, it was our military/government that developed the Internet.

"Don't bite the hand that feeds you."

"Who could really blame you, we're the ones who made you."

Originally Posted by fratey

What's 'high speed' to you Americans? 2 mbit? I know at least 50 people who have 100mbit.

And you assume we don't have universities, neighbors, wireless restaurants (they are probably ten times more common here) in Sweden? Why?

Because Sweden is full of Odd Folks.

I use to know a TON of swedes online a long long time back.
All of them odd, all of them cool, and all the girls were cute as hell. I wanted to move there

Jeez, I think my internet is fine. I don't need that fancy Korean internet.

So true America has sucky download connections. I am on a high package with my ISP and I get 10MBPS Download.