The District is home to the federal government, international embassies, leading educational institutions and some of the slowest Internet rates in the country. Surprising? Google it, if you can.
| Most area users have slow speeds | ||||||||
| Percentage of residents in each speed tier (megabits per second) | ||||||||
| More than 25 Mbps | 10-25 Mbps | 4-10 Mbps | 4 Mbps (minimum FCC speed) or less | |||||
| D.C. | 8 | 16 | 19 | 57 | ||||
| Maryland | 7 | 37 | 19 | 37 | ||||
| Virginia | 7 | 26 | 18 | 49 | ||||
| U.S. | 1 | 24 | 24 | 49 | ||||
A new report from the Communications Workers of America found that the District has the 42nd-slowest Internet speeds in the nation, with nearly 60 percent of residents using the Web at or below 4 megabits per second (Mbps), the minimum standard set by the Federal Communications Commission.
Just 8 percent of District users were operating above 25 Mbps, and not surprisingly, they were clustered around downtown. The slowest speeds were discovered in Northwest and the outskirts of the District proper.
Speeds were higher in the suburbs, although still far from pixel-perfect: 49 percent of Virginia residents fell in the 4 megabits-or-less tier, ranking the state 17th in the U.S. Virginians’ median upload speed was 1.2 Mbps, a 50 percent advantage over the District’s 0.08 Mbps.
Maryland ranked fourth in the nation with its slightly faster Internet speeds. Although about 37 percent of residents fell at or below the federal standards, another 37 percent of Marylanders were surfing the Web at 10 to 25 Mbps, well above the threshold.
The report, from the union for telecommunications and Internet workers, placed the United States 25th among developed nations in the world for average download speed; its 3.0 Mbps, barely up from 2009, paled in comparison to South Korea’s 34.1 Mbps — and it will take the U.S. 60 years to catch up with South Korea at this rate, the report warned. Just 1 percent of U.S. Internet connections meet the FCC’s 2015 broadband speed goal of an average 50 Mbps download.
The study’s results “highlight the need for investment in higher speed broadband networks to support America’s critical applications,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.
But FCC spokesman Mark Wigfield warned that the report studied the speeds being used — not the speeds that were available.
“There may be that speed available in the community, but people have chosen to use a lower speed tier — probably because of cost. It may be a cheaper tier,” Wigfield said, pointing out older DSL options that are more affordable.
