Here's How Terrible U.S. Broadband Service Really Is: The U.S. is Ranked 30th in the World in Broadband Speed — Thanks to the Greed of Corporations Like Comcast and the FCC

Americans Internet highway runs in slow motion thanks to greedy American
corporations and a compliant FCC. (Photo by Dmitry Kalinin)

By Micah Singleton
The U.S. has its fare share of issues when it comes to the Internet, between the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance and the ongoing battle over net neutrality. With so many entities threatening the fundamental nature of the Internet, improving the quality of America’s Internet has, for the most part, fallen off the radar.

If you were to tell someone in Hong Kong or Singapore how much you pay for your broadband Internet service in the U.S. and the speeds you receive in return, they would be shocked. America may have invented the Internet, but we have seriously fallen behind with the speed of our broadband networks and how much we pay to access a utility that has become essential across the world.

The U.S. is ranked 30th in the world in broadband speeds, behind the likes of Iceland, Romania, Bulgaria, France, Russia, and the U.K. To put that ranking in perspective, the U.S. Mens Soccer Team—a sport that 99.1 percent of Americans quit before their 10 birthday—is ranked 13th in the world, and we definitely didn’t invent soccer.

We also pay more for much less, shelling out an average of $55 a month for broadband service, while countries with faster connections like France, Russia and the U.K. all come in at under $45 a month. Even the citizens of Hong Kong—which averages the fastest Internet speeds in the world—pay over 40 percent less than American customers, with an average cost of $31 a month for broadband service.

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