The State of Global Internet Speeds
Complaints about problems and demands for greater speed in our internet connections are multiplying. In some regions of the globe, providers act like true monopolies that keep harming their customers and delaying for years the necessary investments to optimize connectivity. With such a conflict among us, we ask: How fast is the internet in each country? Our best option to answer that question is the folks at Akamai.
A Reddit user configured his Raspberry Pi to automatically send a tweet to his provider's profile (Comcast) every time his connection speed drops. A group of neighbors fed up with not having a decent connection decided to build their own access network. Where companies fail, users suffer, and if there is a market where that is especially true, it is connectivity. Disputes with our providers transcend borders, languages, and customs. It doesn't matter if it's a social network, a forum, or a simple isolated comment at the bottom of an article, there will always be someone speaking horrors about their company… and most likely they are right.
How bad is the situation then? Well, the best database on the web for comparing global connection speeds is available through the State of the Internet portal, run by Akamai Technologies. Thanks to its visualization tools, we can determine the overall average speed in each country, the average 'peak', and coverage at 4, 10, or 15 megabits per second. Although Akamai's data belongs to the third quarter of 2015, there is no reason to think things have improved much. Just by looking at the map, it's easy to verify that most of the planet has an average below double digits, and those that exceed it tend to do so by very little.
More specific numbers? Spain has an average of 10.35 megabits per second, surpassing countries like France and Italy, and very close to the average speed in Germany, calculated at 11.52 megabits per second. Crossing the pond to Latin America, the outlook is bleak. Except for a few exceptions in the Caribbean, it's almost impossible to find a value above six megabits: 5.5 in Mexico, 4.4 in Peru, 5.6 in Chile, 3.6 in Brazil, and 4.1 in Argentina. Unfortunately, our friends in Bolivia, Venezuela, and Paraguay record the lowest speeds on the continent, with performance not exceeding two megabits per second. In summary: These are speeds that should have been achieved half a decade ago. Do you want to share your connection speed and what you pay? Comments are open.
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