Not Just Pennsylvania

Broadband sucks everywhere in the US, but researchers at Penn State have revealed that it is far worse than the official numbers:

It’s often a foregone conclusion that rural areas face major challenges to improve their access to high-speed broadband, and in Pennsylvania, that’s very much true. But what if you actually measure broadband speeds statewide from millions of data points to get a better sense of the geographic disparities of connectivity? One new study says it’s  actually much worse than previously thought.

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University spent much of this year studying internet speeds across the state, and found that only a small fraction of residents—just under 10 percent—live in areas that meet the Federal Communication Commission’s minimum speed needed for broadband connectivity. Most of those areas that meet the federal minimum standard are, as shown in green below, in the state’s major population centers, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.

The work at Penn State uncovered stark differences between advertised internet speeds and actual speeds.

“It’s not just a little different. It appears that the more rural areas have a larger difference between advertised and actual broadband speeds than urban locations,” Penn State researcher Sascha Meinrath said in a recent university announcement. “In some locales, the discrepancy between actual and advertised speeds are an order of magnitude difference or larger. And if you’re this underserved or without internet access entirely, you’re just not going to be a viable part of the 21st century economy.”

This is not something that will be fixed with deregulation, no matter what the free market mousketeers.