U.S. residential broadband speeds increased an average of 28% between year-end 2008 and year-end 2009, says InStat in a report titled “U.S. Residential Broadband Speeds Accelerate” released February 9.
The average downstream speed of a U.S. broadband connection now is 7.12 Mbps, the researchers say.
These findings differ significantly from a recent report from Akamai, which estimated the average U.S. connectivity speed at 3.9 Mb/s as of third quarter 2009, representing a 1.8% decrease from what Akamai saw a year earlier.
The difference may be a result of different methodologies. InStat’s research was based on consumer surveys, while Akamai calculated its numbers on an IP address basis, gathering data via its own global Internet content delivery and security infrastructure.
The new InStat study says broadband speed increases were greatest for cable modem and fixed wireless subscribers and that the broadband speed increase among cable modem subscribers was about double that of fiber-to-the-home subscribers. Researchers also found that more than a quarter of survey respondents also had a mobile wireless broadband connection in addition to their wired broadband connection.
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Categories: Broadband
