income households, calling it a “21st century necessity”. While telecom companies have

argued that most people don’t need high speed internet, consumers have shown their

preference for faster connections. So how well does the US fare in internet speed compared

to the rest of the world? Which countries have the fastest internet?

Every year, a leading internet research firm releases a list of the countries with the

fastest internet. The worldwide average speed is about 5 megabits per second, but there

are a number of external factors which affect actual download speed. To simplify: a ten-minute-long,

high definition, YouTube video would take about 3 minutes and 30 seconds to download

on a 5 megabits per second connection.

Now, despite the Internet being born in the United States, the US doesn’t even make

it into the top 10 fastest internet speeds. With an average 11.9 megabits per second connection,

that YouTube video would take about a minute and a half to download. By comparison, the

country with the fastest internet, by far, is South Korea. With speeds of 23.6 megabits

per second, the download would take less than 45 seconds. The next four are Ireland, Hong

Kong, Sweden, and the Netherlands, which all have speeds of around 15 to 17 megabits per

second.

So why does South Korea dominate internet speeds? Well, first and foremost, the South

Korean government began planning for widespread adoption back in 1995. By 2000, nearly half

of their citizens were connected. However, one of the strongest reasons is that the Korean

government deregulated internet service providers. This made it relatively easy to become an

ISP, forcing them to compete by lowering prices and raising speeds. In the US, there is almost

no competition amongst ISPs. Nearly a third of US households have either a single available

provider, or no access at all.

Additionally, South Korea has an extremely dense population. With 1,300 residents per

square mile, physical internet infrastructure costs less to install and maintain. In 1996,

the US attempted to institute widespread broadband infrastructure by allowing telecom companies

to charge consumers for future improvements. Unfortunately, despite charging roughly $200

billion dollars over the course of a decade, most of that money was collected in telecom

profits. Few improvements were made to internet service.

The differences in regulation, population, and competition are the major reasons as to

why South Korea dominates the US in internet speed. Since faster internet correlates to

more productivity, it is only a matter of time until the US starts to feel the effects

of crawling behind the rest of the world.

To learn more about President Obama’s plan to save the internet, check out this video.

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