Japan leads in Internet speeds

In a recent report released by Speed Matters, Japan topped the list of countries with the highest median internet download speeds at 61 megabits per second. The United States fell far behind with only 1.9 megabits per second:

Between September 2006 to May 2007, nearly 80,000 people in all 50 states and the District of Columbia (nearly all of them with broadband connections) have gone to the Speedmatters.org site to take an Internet speed test and measure how fast their computers can upload and download data. This is the first national survey of actual Internet speeds, and the results showed just how the US continues to lag behind other countries.

The chart below shows Japan’s internet speed is about 30 times faster than the US, with a few other countries in between:

Japan Internet Speed
South Korea: 45Mbps, Finland: 21Mbps, Sweden 18Mbps, Canada 7.6Mbps

You can download the full report in PDF format here. The report does not show results from the Philippines but basing form our recent discussion on the state of DSL in the country, I guess it’s way down there in the charts.

I checked with DSLReports and there’s some data there of 28 independent test for PLDT shows an average 706 Kbps download and 235 Kbps upload speeds.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

44 Comments

Patet says:

18 years ago

I wonder what they do with all that speed.

Sa Google Trends, hindi naman yata type ng Japan ang YouTube.
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BrianB says:

18 years ago

games and porn
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Eugene says:

18 years ago

I’ve heard that those kinds of speed is really pretty normal in Japan as my friend mentioned in his blog. When I went to Japan, I tried measuring the broadband speed I got from my apartment and I got a really low 10 Mbps (read my post about it.) But 10 Mbps is already a luxury here in the Philippines.
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vern says:

18 years ago

All the countries on top have the majority of their population concentrated in relatively small areas of the country. Comparing it to the US where the population is spread throughout and with a much larger landmass is a pretty stupid comparison. I personally get 20mbit, that is common where I live, whereas someone living just 50 miles away from me, 1.5mbit may be standard. Compare these speeds with US metropolitan areas and I’m sure the numbers will be up to par.
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Abe Olandres says:

18 years ago

@ vern, they also did the survey for each of the 50 states of the US and Rhode Island tops the list at 5Mbps followed by New Jersey at 3.6Mbps and New York at 3.4Mbps.
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Hari Skwatir says:

18 years ago

as usual, them japanese guys are pretty advance in everything. all u internet base belong to them.
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issai says:

18 years ago

i think one reason is people don’t want to let go of their dial up. it took me years to convince my stepdad to let go of AOL.
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www.animohosting.com says:

18 years ago

Japan is the best!
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Miguel says:

18 years ago

To add to Vern… even US metro areas aren’t that fast. That’s because the data center your favorite site is hosted in might be in a different metro area, with some fiber in between. Plus, the US Internet infra is quite complex compared to Japan/SK which are dominated by a few monster telcos.
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Sophie says:

18 years ago

Looks like Japan is really maximizing its technology, pairing it with impressive dsl speed! well, my bestbud says Canada’s dsl is way way wayy faster than ours, so what more with Japan? :) I can only imagine! :)
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