The Death of Broadcasting

[trk2]

Originally Posted by wayner

The US average is 132/55 and Canada is a bit lower at 121/53.

Those upload speeds are much higher than I would have expected but the people who know to use Ookla are probably more likely to pay for higher speeds.

I typed my zip code into BroadbandNow and it reports 0% have access to gigabit. It lists the max available speed as 987mbps. So close...

[pjpjpjpj]

That was my first thought about the ookla numbers too, trk2. Anyone who uses that site knows what they are looking for and probably has better internet service already, skewing the numbers upward. For one thing, if you google "internet speed test" (in actual Google, not using the term "google" generically), you get a built-in Google speed test as the top result, and won't ever get to ookla. Ookla's usually the second choice but most people won't go past the top one.

Honest question: what percentage of the population do you think actually know their home's true download and upload speeds? Not just know what they pay for, but know what they actually get? I'd bet it's less than 10% (simply because most people won't even look unless they have issues). Maybe even way less than that... which circles back to my original point upthread, we here on this site are a small minority in the world in general.

That said, the number of people who are tech-aware, or at least NOT tech-afraid, is growing exponentially due to Coronavirus quarantining! My wife and even my young kids are learning about some of the icons in the system tray that they'd never in a million years have looked at before this. A very small silver lining.