A new nationwide report by the Communications Workers of America shows high speed internet connections in the United States lag far behind other nations.
The report, which also compared states, ranked New Hampshire 8th in the nation.
But that’s still twice as slow as other top-ranked states.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Amy Quinton reports.
The first ever state by state comparison of internet connection speeds shows that it takes New Hampshire residents twice as long to download a ten-megabyte file than Rhode Island residents.
The national comparison asked internet users to log onto speedmatters-dot-org to test their connection speed.
Communications Workers of America Executive Vice President Jeffrey Rechenbach says more than 80-thousand people participated.
(Speed) 2:04
(In: the real story here
Out: one of those critical ingredients.)
Jeffrey Rechenbach is Executive Vice President for the Communications Workers of America.
He points to the decision by Verizon to sell its land lines in New Hampshire as a symptom of the problem of spurring investment in broadband access.
Communications Workers of America wants Congress to approve the Broadband Data Improvement Act.
Among other things the bill would provide 200 million dollars over five years in matching grants to state non-profit, public-private partnerships to help expand high speed access.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.
