The pace of Internet technology is rhythmic. Beat-by-beat, year in, year out, speeds increase, devices evolve, networks expand, and connections improve. The metronome of innovation makes change feel consistent and predictable - so much so that it becomes hypnotic. And suddenly, while everything is happening, it can feel as if nothing is happening at all. Rest assured, change and innovation is most certainly happening. And it’s happening very quickly.
Akamai released its latest quarterly State of the Internet report and, as expected, broadband speeds have increased. Two years ago, the average peak broadband speed in America was 27.1 Mbps. Today, it’s 45.3 Mbps, a 67 percent increase in just two years. The fastest state in the union, Delaware, averages a peak of 62.5 Mbps. Remember, that’s not peak available, that’s average peak delivered throughout the state. For reference, the average peak in South Korea, the high-rise connected nation with the world’s fastest Internet, is 73.9 Mbps. If Delaware were a nation, it would have the world’s fifth fastest average peak speed, just ahead of Japan.
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When did this happen? How did this happen? And more importantly, why do some insist it isn’t happening? For the when, the answer is it’s always been happening. Every year broadband speeds increase in the U.S. and these increases will continue. Charter, for example, this year increased its minimum broadband speeds from 15 Mbps to 60 Mbps. And Cox recently announced plans for gigabit service to many of its residential customers.
For the how, it’s investment - huge, consistent, infrastructure investment. Last year, cable alone spent $14 billion on infrastructure improvements. Telecom as a whole in the U.S. spent $46 billion, more than any other industry in America. And as for why some insist that broadband isn’t improving, well, it’s difficult to see change in real time. It’s also hard to conceptualize how quickly innovation actually happens. We take it for granted. But think back to what the Internet was like ten years ago (before Netflix streaming, before YouTube, just as Facebook was being founded) and you’ll see how far we’ve come.
In a way, the fact that it seems like nothing changes is a testament to how smooth the growth has been. We’ve gone from a world where just a few megabits per second was more than enough to today, where our thirst for super speeds and the services that use it seems limitless. It barely felt like a change at all, but broadband has kept pace with everything Silicon Valley has thrown out without missing a beat. Speed increases, access grows, and connectivity expands. It’s what technology does. If things are going well, it’ll feel like nothing is happening at all.