While Virginians beat themselves up over Medicaid expansion, slow economic growth and the McDonnell corruption trial, here’s a morsel of good news: According to Akamai’s latest “State of the Internet” report, Virginia has the highest average broadband speeds of any state in the nation — 13.7 Mbps (megabytes per second). That’s world-class, exceeded only by the average speed in South Korea and Japan. When it comes to the most important infrastructure of the knowledge economy, we’re in good shape.
The news is not so good for the nation as a whole. Broadband penetration and speeds lag in many parts of the country. As a nation, the United States doesn’t even rank in the Top 10 nations for average broadband speed.
Also, there’s no way of telling how evenly those great speeds are distributed around the commonwealth. I’d guess that the statewide average is powered by phenomenal speeds in Northern Virginia, location of a ginormous percentage of the world’s Internet traffic. The region is laced with fiber-optic cable lines and studded with server farms.
Here in Henrico County, I’m served by Comcast (having just switched from Verizon FiOS). When I conducted an XFINITY speed test, my download speed was 121.15 Mbps while my upload speed was a lame 11.77 Mbps. Averaging the two numbers, that sounds awesome compared to the national average, but I don’t know if I’m comparing apples with oranges. (I can’t believe I’m four or five times faster than the national average.)
If you understand the technical issues, you can read Akamai’s notes on its methodology for calculating broadband speeds here. Take the EXFINITY speed test yourself (I don’t think you need to subscribe to Comcast). I’d be interested in hearing what others are experiencing.
(Hat tip: Larry Gross)
— JAB
