Internet Connections Speeds: Rural Folks Get Zip

The Communications Workers of America, part of the AFL-CIO, seems to hate the phone companies, but that does not necessarily make their research bad. Saying that Americans don't have high speed internet compared to the rest of the world may help them save their jobs, but it has the additional benefit of being true.

The CWA, as they call themselves, set up a website called www.speedmatters.org. Over the period from September 2006 to May 2007, 80,000 people went to the site to check their connections speeds. That is not the scientific way to do a survey, but leaving that aside, it is a big sample.

The results are along the lines of what one might expect, but a bit sad nonetheless. People who live in rural areas tend to have lousy broadband. Living in West Virginia may have a number of drawbacks. Add to that list extremely slow internet connections. The area that runs from Washington, DC to Philadelphia to NYC to Boston is the place to live if you want to watch movies online or download all the files from the Library of Congress website.

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