US internet speed lagging behind other developed countries - Canada ranked 5th

According to a study conducted by the Communication Workers of America who compared the Internet connection speed of nearly 70,000 members, the U.S. average download speed is 1.97 megabits per second (mbps). The top 5 countries according to the study are Japan (61 mbps), South Korea (45.6 mbps), Finland (21.7 mbps), Sweden (18.2 mbps), and Canada (7.62 mbps). The study participants were asked to check their speeds on speedmatters.org, a site developed by the CWA. Speedmatters.org was set up by the association to lobby the U.S. government to develop a high-speed policy, saying "The United States is the only industrialized nation without a national policy to promote universal, high-speed Internet access,". I tested my speed on the site and it showed I'm slightly lower than the Canadian average at 6270 kbps (~6.2 mbps) download speed. The site explains that they test the last-mile, "The speed test measures the last-mile speed of your connection – the value promised by your service provider - using a server that is geographically closest to you. It does not measure the actual transfer speed of a file over the Internet. That would introduce a host of variables into the test that are not under the service provider's control, such as the content provider's server load and bandwidth."







I then tested my connection on my ISP's site and got different download results, though their method uses actual test file downloads. My previous tests have produced better results, closer to the Speedmatters results, but as the CWA sites there are many variables to consider when using this method. This site also from my ISP gave me better results, over 7000 kbps (~7 mbps) on a 12 MB file.