Determinants of Regional Internet Speed

Some people in regional areas find it difficult to get a fast enough Internet connection to simply check the weather. While other people in regional areas have such fast Internet, they can stream multiple movies simultaneously from a single location.

There are many reasons for the differences in Internet speed that people in different regional areas experience. These differences will be explored throughout this article.

Terrain

With the advent of satellite Internet, the terrain of a location is a lot less influential than it once was on the quality of the Internet that is available in regional locations. However, before the advent of satellite Internet, the terrain of a location played a significant role in the quality and presence of the Internet in a regional location.

The reason for this is that terrain plays a huge role in how difficult or easy it is to lay the cable from one place to another. If the ground is very rocky and mountainous, then it will be very expensive to dig the trenches to the required depth over a distance of hundreds of kilometers.

Because of this, there are many regional locations in mountainous and rocky areas where telephone cabling was not laid for quite a long time and when it was laid, it was quite minimal because of the expensive cost of putting the cable into the ground.

Due to the growing number of satellite Internet providers rocky terrain is no longer a prohibiting factor like it once was in the provision of Internet services in regional areas.

Population Density

The number of potential customers in any location is another significant factor in the quality of Internet speed you are likely to experience in regional location.

This is understandable because if a regional area has a large population, then this is a more attractive and potentially more profitable area for an Internet service provider to establish a business, whereas if the location has a very small number of residents, then this is going to be less attractive and less commercially viable, which will attract less investment by Internet service providers.

Location

Sometimes the location of a regional area is simply just lucky for a coincidental reason. For example – if there is a big infrastructure project to establish a high-speed Internet connection between two highly populated cities. Then any locations in between these cities are going to benefit from that project.

Even though those areas on their own would not justify this investment directly, they do benefit from this other plan inadvertently.

There are many regional locations with very small populations that have been extremely lucky to receive high-speed Internet cable simply because they were in between two locations that decided to establish a strong connection.

Cable Condition

The quality and age of the cable in a rural location will have a significant impact on the speed of the Internet service that can be provided through that cable. If the infrastructure is old and has been poorly maintained, this increases the chance that not only will the infrastructure be functioning poorly, but may not be functioning at all.

If there is not a huge demand to drive the companies to keep a connection operational then it may be easier for them at times to let certain infrastructure erode to the point of it not being useful.

A high speed cable such as a category 6 cable can be used.

If they feel that is more profitable than doing the repairs to keep the infrastructure operational.

If you are lucky to be in a location serviced by Broadlinc (formerly known as White Cloud Communications) then your connection will be supported by high-quality infrastructure, but this is not guaranteed in all regional locations.

Number of Providers

Competition is well respected in the field of economics because when two different companies are vying for your business, then they are incentivized to provide you with a better product at a better price than their competitor to try and secure you as a customer.

Because of this, if there are multiple Internet providers in the regional location in which you live, then this increases the chance that you will get a high-speed internet connection because these companies will be investing in the infrastructure to try and win you as a customer.

Whereas if there is only a single company servicing your area, they effectively have a monopoly and there is no incentive for them to spend too much money on infrastructure maintenance and development because you have no alternative company you can go to, to receive that same service.

In those cases, they will often do just as much maintenance as they need to, to keep the infrastructure operational but will not go over and above that to provide you with a higher speed connection than they potentially could if they don’t feel like it will deliver them a nice profit.

Final Thoughts

There are many market and environmental forces at play that influence Internet speed in different regional locations. If you are lucky enough to live in an area that happens to have a major infrastructure line built through or you have multiple companies vying for your business, then you have the best chance of a high-speed regional connection.