Skip to main content

US Internet launches ‘world’s fastest broadband’ for $399 a month

If you’re in the Minneapolis area and have a spare $400 a month to spend, then you can now sign up for the fastest broadband connection in the United States: US Internet, a local Internet provider based to the west of Minneapolis, is offering a 10 Gbps package to businesses and residents in its coverage area. That’s more than 300 times faster than the country’s current average connection speed of 30 Mbps (as measured by Ookla).

In other words, very very fast. US Internet has announced “it’s the fastest service the world has ever seen” and while it’s difficult to verify that claim it’s certainly the fastest broadband currently on offer in the United States. Both Google and Verizon are testing connection speeds of 10 Gbps, but neither has yet made it available to customers.

Recommended Videos

The ISP currently offers a $65-per-month plan for a 1 Gbps connection speed and says it expects a select group of people to want to make the bump to 10 Gbps. At that kind of speed you can pull down 1.25 GB of data in a second, so the HD version of Guardians of the Galaxy on iTunes would make it from the cloud to your hard drive in about 3-4 seconds. US Internet has plans to expand the service to more areas in 2015.

According to Akamai’s State of the Internet report, South Korea is the country with the fastest average Internet speeds, thanks to its densely packed urban environments and high-tech wired apartments. Netflix recommends 25 Mbps for its Ultra HD streams, so the new offering from US Internet should have you comfortably covered, if you can get it.

“This is like going from 30 to 10,000 miles per hour,” says US Internet co-CEO Joe Caldwell.

[Image courtesy of anat chant / Shutterstock.com]

David Nield
Former Contributor
Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…
How to change margins in Google Docs
Laptop Working from Home

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may need to adjust the space between the edge of the page and the content -- the margins. For instance, many professors have requirements for the margin sizes you must use for college papers.

You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.

Read more
What is Microsoft Teams? How to use the collaboration app
A close-up of someone using Microsoft Teams on a laptop for a videoconference.

Online team collaboration is the new norm as companies spread their workforce across the globe. Gone are the days of primarily relying on group emails, as teams can now work together in real time using an instant chat-style interface, no matter where they are.

Using Microsoft Teams affords video conferencing, real-time discussions, document sharing and editing, and more for companies and corporations. It's one of many collaboration tools designed to bring company workers together in an online space. It’s not designed for communicating with family and friends, but for colleagues and clients.

Read more
Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs
A person using a laptop that displays various Microsoft Office apps.

For the last few decades, Microsoft Word has been the de facto standard for word processors across the working world. That's finally starting to shift, and it looks like one of Google's productivity apps is the heir apparent. The company's Google Docs solution (or to be specific, the integrated word processor) is cross-platform and interoperable, automatically syncs, is easily shareable, and perhaps best of all, is free.

However, using Google Docs proves it still has a long way to go before it can match all of Word's features -- Microsoft has been developing its word processor for over 30 years, after all, and millions still use Microsoft Word. Will Google Docs' low barrier to entry and cross-platform functionality win out? Let's break down each word processor in terms of features and capabilities to help you determine which is best for your needs.
How does each word processing program compare?
To put it lightly, Microsoft Word has an incredible advantage over Google Docs in terms of raw technical capability. From relatively humble beginnings in the 1980s, Microsoft has added new tools and options in each successive version. Most of the essential editing tools are available in Google Docs, but users who are used to Word will find it limited.

Read more