Maine’s Internet is Shamefully One of the Slowest in the Country

There are very few things that are actually worse than having incredibly slow internet speed.

Whether it's trying to research a paper, looking up scores, watching endless hours of YouTube, finding a recipe, or the billion other reasons to be using the web, nothing quite ruins the experience like waiting longer than you should to complete these tasks.

We here in Maine know this too well. It's bad enough that the state has massive areas of cell phone dead zones, but to also have subpar internet? That's just a punch to the gut.

The internet has always seemed slower here than in other parts of the country, and now, we have proof that all of our complaining is 100% legit.

The popular site World Population Review decided to break down every state's internet speed to determine which ones are lagging behind (that's a nerdy internet pun). The site took a look at each state's bandwidth and broadband numbers to determine the speed. Bandwidth measures the total number of frequencies the internet connection can handle, while broadband measures the actual speed in bits or megabits per second. Essentially, it's the miles per hour for your internet.

I don't think anyone will be shocked to hear that Maine has one of the lowest speeds in this study. In fact, it came in as the slowest state in New England, and the 44th slowest in the nation. That is, well, terrible.

According to World Population Review, Maine's average internet speed is 205.02 megabits per second. To put that in perspective, America's average is over 322 Mbps. This is a crime against Maine's humanity.

Seriously, this is a truly awful number. The internet is kind of a big deal these days. There's not a job that isn't affected by it to some degree. Students of all ages rely on it. It's our major means of entertainment, news, weather reports, and connections to family members and friends. And here we are, living in one of the slowest states there is. It's just downright embarrassing.

So how bad is Maine compared to the rest of New England? Let's take a look at those other states and the rankings.

6. Rhode Island - 433.30 Mbps
11. Vermont - 408.20
12. Massachusetts - 401.20
27. New Hampshire - 317.90
29. Connecticut - 314.60

Every single New England state is simply leaving Maine in the stone age. Perhaps we should do something about this before we resemble a third-world country.

As for the fastest state? That would be Maryland. The state of crab cakes and football also does very fast internet speed. It came in with a 506.70 Mbps.

Amazingly, the slowest state came from one of the country's largest states, California. The state could only produce an average speed of 93.00 Mbps. That actually makes me feel much better about Maine.

You can see the entire list here.