Published: August 12, 2008 09:42 pm         

W.Va. ranks 37th in real-time Internet connection speeds

The Mountain State ranks 37th in a state-by-state report released Tuesday of real-time Internet connection speeds, with a median download speed of 1.99 megabits per second (mbps).

The national report is based on aggregated data from nearly 230,000 Internet users who took the online Speed Matters Speed Test (www. speedmatters.org), a project of the Communications Workers of America.

“This isn’t about how fast someone can download a full-length movie. Speed matters to our economy and our ability to remain competitive in a global marketplace,” said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America. “Rural development, telemedicine and distance learning all rely on truly high-speed, universal networks.”

Rhode Island tops the list for the second year in a row at 6.8 mbps, while Internet users wait the longest for downloads in Alaska at 0.8 mbps. This means the same file that takes 30 seconds to download in Rhode Island would take more than four minutes if you’re logged in from Alaska.

“The speed test, which measures the last-mile speed of a user’s Internet connection, shows that the median real-time download speed in the United States is a mere 2.3 megabits per second,” Cohen said.

The best available estimates show average download speeds in Japan of 63 mbps, in South Korea of 49 mbps and in France of 17 mbps, according to Cohen.

“The CWA commends the West Virginia Legislature on efforts to bridge the digital divide through legislation that creates a Broadband Deployment Fund and Council, provides for mapping of high-speed Internet services, establishes reporting requirements for state infrastructure and requires any new service receiving state funding to be at least 6 mbps,” Cohen added.

“We are the only industrialized nation without a national policy to promote universal, high-speed Internet access, and it shows,” he said. “Most of our speed test users logged on with broadband connections such as DSL, cable modem or fiber. People with dial-up connections didn’t take the test because it took them too long, so even these dismal statistics paint a rosier-than-reality picture of connection speeds across the country.”

Recent studies show about 15 percent of Americans still use dial-up to connect to the Internet.

— Fred Pace