From "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio
Consumers In The Dark Over Their Broadband Speeds
By Cyrus Farivar
It's hard to conceptualize a data network with speeds that are up to 100 times faster than what the average American has at home. But last month, Google said it plans to complete a broadband network with speeds of 1 gigabit per second for up to 500,000 people in the U.S.
Most consumers don't even know what kind of speed they are paying for with their broadband. Industry analysis from Forrester Research shows that only 41 percent of Americans know what their home Internet download speeds are....
"If the videos are pausing all the time or if the voice is choppy — because that's more noticeable than the video itself, usually — then people will complain," says Yale Braunstein, a professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. "But for your average user, my guess it that they can't tell the difference between 1.5 megabits or 3 or 6."