Though the United States is one of the most influential and powerful countries in the whole world, it seems ironic that even today millions of Americans are struggling with an internet connection that is below the average. Federal Communications Commission stated in its biannual report that nearly half of Americans are experiencing connections below the average quota.
FCC studied 102.2 million of households and establishments that have fixed connection all around the country and they found out that more than 47.5 millions of subscribers have internet speed below 25 megabits for a second, which is the average set by FCC for this year.
The saddening fact is that among the 47.5 million, 22.4 million of people have below 10 Mbps and 5.8 million gets 3mbps and below. Having internet connections that are slightly below the average is a bit manageable but connections like 3 Mbps are not closing into 'modern' standards.
On the good side, it means that 57.4 millions of Americans are having internet connections above the average with 15.4 million achieving a speed of 100mbps plus. However, we can't be too sure as this is based on the advertised speeds and not the actual speeds.
FCC's report doesn't reflect the accessibility to the internet because the data in FCC's report is based on the services of the consumers purchased and not on the connection available in a given area. However, it also plays a minor role as in some places; people are given very limited choices between internet services providers.
Last week, FCC also released the latest Measuring Broadband America report where FCC compared the advertised speed against the actual speed by testing homes of 4000 consumers. Optimum formerly Cablevision, Charter, Time Warner Cable and Verizon are at the top of the list for best providers with values rising above 90 percent of the advertised speed.
However, things went sour for AT&T, Frontier, and Viasat who fell below the average by 50 percent. According to International Business Times, AT&T also experienced heavy criticism earlier this year regarding the alleged denying of discounts to low-income subscribers.
