Calix: 60% of Rural Subscribers Receive 3 Mbps or Less

Broadband access supplier Calix released its latest U.S. Rural Broadband Report, the second in its ongoing series that reveals the broadband usage of rural consumers served by their broadband service provider customers.

The report now summarizes data captured from 50 U.S. broadband carriers who primarily serve rural markets and is based on data received during the first quarter of 2012. The data examines the broadband habits of 100,000 “subscriber endpoints” across broadband networks served by ADSL2+, VDSL2, GPON, and point-to-point gigabit Ethernet access technologies. One of the more interesting findings of the report involves broadband speeds in rural America. According to the report,”… the most common peak downstream broadband rate consumed was between 1.5 to 3 Mbps …” A telling statistic in a time where many carriers are pushing 50+ Mbps offers, at least in their marketing campaigns. By Calix’s measure, 60% of rural broadband subscribers received a maximum downstream broadband speed of 3 Mbps or less.

By comparison, Akamai conducts similar research to Calix, but on a broader national scale, and their latest report covering 4Q11 pegs the average U.S. broadband downstream speed at 5.8 Mbps. Calix reports that some rural communities do have access to speeds that peak at over 100 Mbps, with even a few reaching 1 Gbps.