U.S. broadband speeds improved in 2010, still second rate against EU

Market research group In-Stat has published the results of its annual assessment of U.S. broadband speeds, which found that the nation's average downstream speed increased by 34% over the course of 2010.

In-Stat says the average downlink speed for broadband subscribers is 9.54 Mbps, up from the 2009 average 7.12 Mbps, which was itself up from 2008 average of 3.8 Mbps. The price of fixed broadband, by comparison, rose by only 4% among the 518 households surveyed.

This projected average speed is actually a bit slower than the average determined by Speedtest.net, which ranks the U.S. #34 in broadband speed with 10.19 Mbps. If we were to use In-Stat's figure in Speedtest's rankings, the United States would knocked down to #37, behind Canada, French island territory St. Pierre and Miquelon, and Taiwan. Naturally, the size and population density of the United States play a major factor in its place on the list. China and India, for example, are all the way down at #83 and #143 respectively.

However, In-Stat asserts that the growth of mobile broadband is behaving as a driver for increasing overall speeds and bandwidth availability on fixed and residential lines. What's more, over one third (38%) of those participants in the survey had a live mobile broadband subscription in addition to their fixed one.