Want Fast Internet? Don't Live In the Sticks

Delaware, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts have some of the fastest Internet access speeds in the country, according to a new survey by the Communications Workers of America, while Hawaii, Alaska, Montana and Wyoming have the slowest. In other words, there appears to be a direct correlation between Internet speed and population density. States with more residents per square mile were almost guaranteed to have faster Internet access, with the exception of Hawaii (which has its own issues, being in the middle of the ocean and all). California ranked 11th in terms of both population density and download speed. The linking of population density to download speed is most likely the result of the revenue that can be gleaned by introducing high-speed services in more populated areas, along with the technical limitations of rolling out high-speeds in rural areas where customers may be many miles away from the nearest switching office.