Did you know that the state of Florida is the second with the highest number of islands in the United States, only behind Alaska?
In fact, there are over 4,500 islands that are ten acres or larger in the state. So many that Wikipedia was not able to list all of them so far.
Since it is a Peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, Florida has the singularity of having both sunrise and sunset on the see, because its coast faces both East and West.
Therefore it is no surprise its nickname is Sunshine State. Home to big cities such as Miami, Orlando or Jacksonville (the largest), the state is also the 5th best for broadband access in the United States.
It has a good 92,4% of terrestrial broadband coverage and an average download speed slightly faster than 160 Mbps.
The downside is that only 60% of its addresses have access to low price internet plans, the ones that cost less than $ 60 a month.
Also, only 40% of the state has fiber technology connections available and not even 65% of Floridians will be able to get an internet of 1 Gigabit or more.
There are 1 million people in the state that only have access to one provider that offers wired connections and over 250,000 people do not have access to wired connections at all.
Local government has received, since 2010, almost $ 9 million from the federal government to develop its broadband and data collection in the state. The Florida Department of Management Services is the one responsible for this job.
The government of Florida has also received over $ 55,000,000 in additional federal grants to invest in broadband infrastructure projects within the state.
But Florida actually has tried to become independent from the United States. It happened just months before the start of the Civil War.
The local Legislature approved an ordinance of secession, declaring that Florida was an “independent nation”.
The state then became one of the founding members of the Confederate States. During the war, the state was important for its capacity of providing salt and meat to feed the confederate armies and troopes.
As we all know, the Confederates have lost the battle, and Florida is now famous for its amazing beaches and hot weather.
Again only behind Alaska, Florida is the second state with the longest coastline in the United States, with over 1,350 miles, or 2,1 km of extension.
Actually, of the top cities in the state, four of them stand by the sea: Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale.
When it comes to internet providers, Xfinity is the one that offers the fastest average download speed, over 190 Mbps. Right behind, with almost 170 Mbps, comes AT&T, followed by Spectrum, with over 150 Mbps.
Let’s take a deeper look, or a deeper dive, on some of the top cities in the state and see what kind of internet we can find.