1

New study shows gaping rural-city digital divide

If you live in an affluent, metropolitan city, you get fast download speeds, and you're much more likely to let your download complete than you friend the country mouse.

Pando Networks released a new study that shows Internet speeds across the country for the past five months. If you live on a coast or in the Mid-Atlantic, you're making out pretty well. If you're in the Midwest or in the mountains, good luck to you.

The most striking findings were the core differences between the average speeds on a state-by-state basis. The data indicates that the fastest state was Rhode Island at an average of 894 KBps, which was almost three times faster than the slowest, Idaho, which had a dismal 318KBps.

If you're in a rural area where the average resident has a low income, you're more likely to have slow speeds, so slow that when you download something, you just give up before the thing is done downloading.

About the author

Steve Henn was Marketplace’s technology and innovation reporter for the entire portfolio of Marketplace programs until December 2011.
Frank Watson's picture
Frank Watson - Jul 28, 2011

We are visiting a very rural area of Vermont - "the Northeast Kingdom" and the Internet service here is very slow and in some places there is no higher speed access at all. Cell phone service is also very poor. Guess what - income levels here is very low.