Ranking U.S. States with the Best Internet Value

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Ranking U.S. States with the Best Internet Value

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Ranking U.S. States with the Best Internet Value

Internet access has increased over the years, but both internet speed and affordability can vary considerably around the world, and even within the U.S. itself.

This interactive data visualization by Surfshark examines which states have the best internet value on average, and which have the worst. It uses data compiled for the company’s 2022 Internet Value Index.

Calculating Value

How do you measure the “best” internet value?

Surfshark’s Internet Value Index scores U.S. states on both broadband and mobile internet, measuring the ratio of speed to affordability, with each factor defined as follows:

  • Internet Speed: The average download speeds between Q3 of 2021 and Q2 of 2022.
  • Internet Affordability: The average monthly price of a standard internet or data package divided by the average hourly net wage in each state.

Each state’s index value is calculated by dividing speed by affordability for both broadband and mobile internet, then normalizing over the maximum value of 1.0.

Which States Have the Best Internet Value?

Surfshark’s study revealed large disparities between rural and urban states, highlighting the country’s digital divide. Here’s their full list of 50 U.S. states and internet index rankings in 2022.

StateInternet Value RankBroadband Value RankMobile Value RankRegion
New Jersey112Northeast
Massachusetts223Northeast
New York341Northeast
Rhode Island474Northeast
Washington596West
Maryland6127South
Delaware7108South
Connecticut8510Northeast
Illinois9119Midwest
California10811West
Hawaii11322West
Minnesota12265Midwest
Pennsylvania131412Northeast
Texas14627South
Utah152013West
Colorado162514West
Ohio171716Midwest
Arizona181817West
Michigan192715Midwest
North Carolina201329South
Oregon212219West
New Hampshire221531Northeast
Indiana232424Midwest
Georgia241928South
South Carolina251633South
Tennessee262130South
North Dakota272921Midwest
Nevada283320West
Florida293025South
Missouri303523Midwest
Kansas312826Midwest
Virginia324418South
Wisconsin333434Midwest
Kentucky343136South
Nebraska352347Midwest
South Dakota364032Midwest
Alabama373241South
Maine383639Northeast
Oklahoma393842South
Louisiana403745South
Idaho414237West
Iowa424144Midwest
Alaska434835West
New Mexico444538West
Vermont454343Northeast
West Virginia463949South
Montana475040West
Arkansas484748South
Wyoming494946West
Mississippi504650South

New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York deliver the best value for internet services. Workers in all three states received fixed broadband speeds above 37 Mbps per hour of work at the average net state wage, and mobile speeds of 5 Mbps or more.

On the other end of the index, Mississippi, Wyoming, and Arkansas had some of the worst value services. Using the same ratio, workers got download speeds of 16 Mbps and below per hour of work for broadband, and mobile speeds of 2 Mbps or lower.

Regional disparity is quite clear, with five of the top 10 states being located in the Northeast. Eight of the bottom 10 states, meanwhile, were in the West and South.

Interestingly, the Midwest was the second best region for internet value, but still ranked below the country’s average score. This further highlights the disproportionate value earned by higher-income and heavily-populated states over others.

Internet For All?

Internet affordability (or lack thereof) can have economic consequences, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An IMF study details how high-speed internet has become critical for socioeconomic inclusion for work, education, and access to services.

As more workplaces and schools expect tasks to get done in a remote environment, it’s expected that affordable, high-quality internet will become even more critical going forward.

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This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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AI

Charted: The Surging Cost of Training AI Models

To train AI models, companies are burning through millions of dollars to run thousands chips non-stop in sprawling data centers.

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Bar chart showing the estimated training cost of training AI models in 2023 and 2024.

Charted: The Surging Cost of Training AI Models

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Key Takeaways

  • While detailed information on AI model training costs is limited, it is estimated that Google spent $192 million on Gemini 1.0 Ultra—the highest across leading models.
  • These costs were calculated based on cloud compute rental prices, which can rake up millions of dollars quickly since companies rent out thousands of supercomputers that run nonstop for weeks.
  • By contrast, the DeepSeek-V3 reportedly cost $6 million to train, however this cost remains disputed.

Today’s state-of-the-art AI models can cost $100 million or more to train.

Yet as companies pour millions into improving model performance, the escalating costs are raising serious questions in the industry. DeepSeek, a new competitor, cited training costs of just $6 million. Meanwhile, an s1 model from Stanford and the University of Washington cost just $6 to train.

This visualization is part of Visual Capitalist’s AI Week, sponsored by Terzo, shows the dollar cost of training AI models, based on analysis from the 2025 AI Index Report.

Training AI Models is Not Cheap

Below, we show the estimated cost for leading models—from OpenAI’s GPT-4 to xAI’s Grok-2:

Year of ReleaseModelMakerTraining Cost
(Inflation-Adjusted)
2023GPT-4OpenAI$79M
2023PaLM 2Google$29M
2023Llama 2-70BMeta$3M
2023Gemini 1.0 UltraGoogle$192M
2024Mistral LargeMistral$41M
2024Llama 3.1-405BMeta$170M
2024Grok-2xAI$107M

As we can see, OpenAI’s GPT-4 cost $79 million, using models containing artificial neural networks that guess the sequence of words in a string of text.

OpenAI has since released new models o1, o3, and o4-mini, which use a “test-time compute” strategy. This means that the longer the model thinks about an answer, the better the answer it spews out. Today, OpenAI charges $200 per month for a pro o1 subscription, which is reportedly running at a net loss given the scale of queries exceeding the compute costs budgeted to run them.

With a $192 million price tag, Google’s Gemini 1.0 Ultra cost more than several major models. For Gemini Ultra, a large chunk of the costs were for research and development staff salaries (including equity)—making up to 49% of the final cost. Meanwhile, AI accelerator chips accounted for 23% of the total cost, followed by 15% for other server components.

Meanwhile, the Grok-2 model from xAI can answer queries on current events in real-time using data from X. Overall, the model cost $107 million to build, which is now integrated into the Grok AI chatbot on X.

To dive into all the AI Week content, visit our AI content hub, brought to you by Terzo.

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