Internet speeds in the United States just reached a milestone, as both broadband and wireless connections have reportedly been improved significantly.
For broadband users, the average download speed is now more than 50 Mbps, and to be exact, it topped out at 54.97 Mbps in June. That's a huge 42 percent increase compared with last year's performance, and this is the first time ever to reach such heights. Meanwhile, upload speeds went up to an average of 18.88 Mbps, a 51 percent boost since a year ago.
On the other hand, mobile internet speeds on AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint jumped by 33 percent for downloads and 28 percent for uploads since last year. It should be noted that during the first six months of 2016, average download speeds reached 19.61 Mbps, a slight 5 percent boost, whereas average upload speeds dropped by a mere 1 percent and hit 7.94 Mbps.
Among the four major U.S. carriers, T-Mobile and Verizon are ahead of the competition, with both delivering downloads speeds that exceed 21 Mbps. However, the former has the upper hand in the upload department, providing faster speeds of 11 Mbps than the latter's 8 Mbps.
The report comes from none other than Ookla itself, a notable figure in the industry of internet access testing.
"If you're an optimist, you'll see an annual 40 percent increase in fixed broadband performance and a 30 percent increase in mobile internet performance as a big step in the right direction," Ookla says, giving out the estimations if everything pans out.
The company also points out that significant growth has been seen in gigabit fiber optic, and as anticipated, the biggest player in the game is Google Fiber. Unfortunately, as everyone knows, wide availability for the service has yet to roll out.
On an interesting note, Google recently unwrapped data plans that are targeted at small businesses back in July.
It's also worth mentioning that despite these improvements, the overall internet speed in the United States is still lagging behind when measured against the performance in other developed countries such as South Korea and Singapore, to name a few.
To boil things down, U.S. internet speeds are improving gradually, and if all goes well, we should see huge increases in the foreseeable future year after year.
Did you notice a big change in internet speeds with your ISP? If so, feel free to drop by our comments section below and let us know.
