Why Is High Speed Internet So Slow In The United States?

The United States, one of the most developed counties in the world, surprisingly doesn’t have the fastest internet speed. In fact, the U.S. isn’t even in the top five countries with the fastest internet speeds. It ranks 31st in internet download speeds with an average of 21.5 Mbps. Besides the fact that it’s slow, it’s also extremely overpriced compared to other countries.

As recently reported by The Inquisitr, The United States is also far behind in 4G Data speeds as well. In fact, it’s the second slowest in the world.

According to Marguerite Reardon of CNET, US cable providers aren’t encouraging customers to take up high speed broadband. She said when consumers do, “they charge significantly higher prices that escalate as you move to faster tiers.”

Romania has the fastest internet speed, averaging out to 56.8 Mbps according to the high speed internet access guide, over double the speed the United States has. But why is this? Why do we have such a slow internet speed considering how much we rely on and use the internet?

Comcast charges $114 per month for 105 Mbps. Compare that with Google Fiber which offers 1 Gbps for only $70, and you may start scratching your head and be wondering why. That’s nearly 10 times the amount of speed for significantly less.

The answer is simple really. Greed. Why charge less and offer more when nobody else in the country is? Many CEOs of big cable companies like Verizon have been releasing information that only gives some of the facts and makes it seem like they’re charging a fair amount, when that is not true at all.

The sad part is, the U.S. government allows these major corporations such as Comcast to raise prices and essentially “rig” the telecommunication industry to make huge profits and take advantage of Americans.

If this trend continues and we don’t adopt the same or similar pricing and speeds as countries like Japan or South Korea, the internet speeds in the United States are likely to remain behind those of the rest of the world.

Back in 2011 President Barack Obama, announced plans to connect more Americans with High Speed Wi-Fi. It appears that his plan hasn’t exactly made too big of an impact. Especially with the recent announcement of a merger between two of the nation’s biggest cable providers, Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Who knows what will happen now. Will high speed internet continue to be slow and overpriced in the United States?

[Image credit: Flickr]