Report: Disparities In Game Download Speeds, Completion Rates Across U.S. Cities

A new report from downloadable content delivery provider Pando Networks finds wide disparities between download speeds and completion rates for gaming content across various American locales. The study of 4 million gamers' game and patch downloads in the first half of 2011 unsurprisingly found rural customers slower than their urban counterparts, sometimes averaging download speeds ten times worse than those in the fastest U.S. cities. Affluent Boston suburb Andover, for instance, saw average download speeds of over 2,800KBps, far surpassing Idaho's statewide average of just 318Kbps. Slower download speeds led rural customers to be less likely to complete an attempted download after starting, potentially impacting publishers' ability to reach those customers with online content. There were exceptions to this rule, however. Hawaiian users, for instance, completed 87 percent of all attempted downloads despite relatively slow speeds, while users in Washington DC completed only 80 percent of downloads despite high average speeds. Comcast subscribers had the highest average download speeds, at 890KBps, followed by Verizon (788KBps), Cox (757KBps) and Road runner (673KBps). Among mobile downloads, AT&T's 416KBps average outpaced Sprint's second-place 391KBps. Pando has provided a couple of interactive maps to measure average download speeds and download completion rates by state.