By the way, our top speed is still really slow compared to other rich nations.
Broadview Networks created this map of Internet speeds in every state (which I'm sure they did for wholly altruistic and non-business-related reasons), and the results are pretty interesting. Well, one result in particular: Washington, D.C. has much faster speeds than every state except Virginia, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Virginia is also #1 by a large margin. This is interesting because people in government work in D.C. and live in Virginia (for the most part). So, basically, every lawmaker who takes telecom lobbying dollars and ignores nationwide complaints that our Internet is much, much slower than the rest of the developed world is, by definition, getting better Internet than you are.
So, don't get your hopes up any time soon that DC will take steps to improve competition in this industry, or get telecoms to make the infrastructure improvements they've promised for decades, or that Comcast will ever have a reason not to treat you like dirt (unless you're recording them). Those companies not only pay enough in lobbying dollars to make sure their lobbyists become the head of the FCC (which is why net neutrality is going away and you'll have to pay to use popular websites), they also only upgrade Internet services where powerful people live, ensuring that those powerful people have no idea how crappy your connection really is. They probably also don't care that 30% of Americans only have one option in their area for Internet. Hooray for competition.
Here's the rest:
(by Johnny McNulty)