Cable Had Fastest Broadband Downloads In 2011: Net Index

Cable operators delivered the fastest average broadband download speeds in 2011 -- with major MSOs easily blasting by rival telco and satellite Internet services -- according to data from independent testing firm Ookla.

For the full year, the six fastest residential Internet service providers in the U.S. based on average download speed were Comcast, Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems, Time Warner Cable and Insight Communications. That's according to Ookla's Net Index service, which has measured hundreds of millions of individual user tests through its Speedtest.net website. (Data for some providers, including Bright House Networks and Suddenlink Communications, is not available in Net Index.) Comcast and Charter delivered average download speeds of 17.19 Megabits per second, followed by Cablevision at 16.40 Mbps, Cox at 15.76 Mbps, TWC at 14.41 Mbps and Insight at 14.22 Mbps. Verizon Communications fared better than its telco peers with an average download speed of 12.94 Mbps, thanks to FiOS Internet, its fiber-to-the-home service that provides up to 150 Mbps downstream. And overall, Verizon had the highest upstream speeds with an average of 7.41 Mbps. Still, the company's legacy DSL services dragged down overall speeds.