In July 2015, President Barack Obama announced a plan to bring high-speed internet to low
income households, calling it a “21st century necessity”.
While telecom companies have argued that most people don’t need high speed internet, consumers
have shown their preference for faster connections.
So how well does the US fare in internet speed compared to the rest of the world?
Which countries have the fastest internet?
Every year, a leading internet research firm releases a list of the countries with the
fastest internet.
The worldwide average speed is about 5 megabits per second, but there are a number of external
factors which affect actual download speed.
To simplify: a ten-minute-long, high definition, YouTube video would take about 3 minutes and
30 seconds to download on a 5 megabits per second connection.
Now, despite the Internet being born in the United States, the US doesn’t even make
it into the top 10 fastest internet speeds.
With an average 11.9 megabits per second connection, that YouTube video would take about a minute
and a half to download.
By comparison, the country with the fastest internet, by far, is South Korea.
With speeds of 23.6 megabits per second, the download would take less than 45 seconds.
The next four are Ireland, Hong Kong, Sweden, and the Netherlands, which all have speeds
of around 15 to 17 megabits per second.
So why does South Korea dominate internet speeds?
Well, first and foremost, the South Korean government began planning for widespread adoption
back in 1995.
By 2000, nearly half of their citizens were connected.
However, one of the strongest reasons is that the Korean government deregulated internet
service providers.
This made it relatively easy to become an ISP, forcing them to compete by lowering prices
and raising speeds.
In the US, there is almost no competition amongst ISPs.
Nearly a third of US households have either a single available provider, or no access
at all.
Additionally, South Korea has an extremely dense population.
With 1,300 residents per square mile, physical internet infrastructure costs less to install
and maintain.
In 1996, the US attempted to institute widespread broadband infrastructure by allowing telecom
companies to charge consumers for future improvements.
Unfortunately, despite charging roughly $200 billion dollars over the course of a decade,
most of that money was collected in telecom profits.
Few improvements were made to internet service.
The differences in regulation, population, and competition are the major reasons as to
why South Korea dominates the US in internet speed.
Since faster internet correlates to more productivity, it is only a matter of time until the US starts
to feel the effects of crawling behind the rest of the world.
To learn more about President Obama’s plan to save the internet, check out this video.
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