Credit: Alan9187?Pixabay
Credit: Alan9187?Pixabay
According to a report released by Speedtest on August 3rd, internet speeds for both mobile and fixed broadband users in the United States are increasing. At the end of June, the average download speed for fixed broadband was 54.97 Mbps (Megabits per second), a 42% increase from the same time last year. Average upload speed for fixed broadband was 18.88 Mbps, a year-to-year increase of 51%.
Mobile internet speed also increased but mobile is markedly slower and the percentage increases from last year were smaller. Average mobile download speed was 19.61 Mbps, a 33% increase over last year. Average upload speed was 7.94 Mbps, a 7.4% increase.
Speedtest also ranked internet service providers in terms of their download and upload speeds. However, care must be taken when considering how Speedtest calculated speed. As you would expect, Speedtest reported average speeds across all service providers for the national averages given in the preceding two paragraphs.
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You might also expect that Speedtest would report the average speed for each service provider as well - but that's not what they did. When Speedtest compared service providers they based their measurements on the top 10% of each provider's recorded speeds. In other words, 90% of subscribers should expect speeds that are slower than the speeds reported by Speedtest.
Here's what  Speedtest found for fixed broadband service.
 
Fixed Broadband speeds measured in Mbps
Service providerDownload speedUpload speed
 XFINITY 125.5315.26
 Cox 117.8522.61
 Spectrum 113.7721.19
 Verizon Fios 88.493.64
 AT&T 49.787.49
 CenturyLink 39.8512.03