Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Canada Falls On Internet Speed Rankings

Canada has some of the slowest internet speeds in the developed world.

According to data from broadband research company Ookla, Canadians on average had the 38th fastest internet speeds in the world. Among developed countries, only a handful had slower internet speeds than Canada, among them Australia, New Zealand and Italy.

That represents a fall of five spots since this spring, when Canada ranked 33rd in Ookla’s survey.

Ookla crowdsources data from SpeedTest.net, a site that allows web users to test the speed of their connections. The research firm used millions of these tests to compile its data on internet speeds around the world. The numbers represent an aggregate of actual internet speeds, not speeds as advertised by providers.

The average internet speed in Canada was 18.94 Mbps over the past six months, up from 16.6 Mbps this spring. But despite the apparent improvement, Canada slipped on the rankings as other countries saw larger increases in internet speed.

Canadians' average is speed is less than a third of world-leading Hong Kong, at 70.91 Mbps.

How a country ranks on the listings depends not only on the quality of the internet infrastructure, but also on affordability: If internet services are too expensive, consumers will opt for lower-speed services, and average speeds will be lower.

Canada ranks 30th on Ookla’s list of lowest internet costs. At $3.61 per Mbps on average, Canada is slightly cheaper than the U.S. ($3.82) and slightly more expensive than Sweden ($3.55). Despite this, Sweden ranks fifth in the world on Internet speeds.

The CRTC’s latest survey of broadband services finds broadband is now available to 99 per cent of Canadian households, including 95 per cent of households in rural areas.

The availability of ultra-high-speed internet (100 Mbps+) has increased considerably, with about a third of Canadian households having the option to order the service. That’s up from only around 10 per cent in 2009.

The number of households with broadband grew to 13.5 million in 2012, up from 13 million in 2010, the CRTC reported.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.ca
Author: The Huffington Post Canada 

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