Why is offline storage backup slow?

A construction engineer who works for the Pa Trnpk,  who travels to the eastern countries on business, claims the business internet of the eastern countries is noticeably faster than ours.
Is this true?
I also don't understand why our internet upload speeds are slower than our download speeds.
Is this caused by a technical issue or necessary to enable video streaming on our slow internet?

Thanks,
Howie

 

another comment/question:

If I'm using the cloud and running an app,  is my data save speed on the same cloud server as fast as my pc data save rate?  How does that system work?
The reason I'm curious is because the Mottly Fool is recommending the three major cloud companies as a unique one time investment opportunity to make tons of money.  Obviously, for a data processing or a small business company,  where speed can be sacrificed to eliminate IT support, that makes sense.   But does it make sense for the rest of us?

The fool has a long history of picking winners even though the investment community doesn't agree.
The Fool Team has picked many winners over the last ten years.  I can't argue with thier success.
But, I wonder if they are right this time considering the state of our internet and international DOS attacks?
howie

The M.F. premise is the money saved in IT support makes the cloud a good investment vehicle.
I'm not sure what I think of the M.F's suggestion.   In Lockheed Martin's Nasa aerospace division
we hardly had enough money to  buy computers.   So we distributed whatever software we had and
that was the end of IT support except for repair and training.  All our money was spent on mainframes
were we built and tested our spacecraft.   Engineers don't need IT support, they need money to
complete thier contracts and get the space craft built.  Especialy, when working for NASA.
I suspect IT support exists in the publishing industry.   We had a small group of publishers who polished our proposals.  They were good at what they did but needed IT support to keep going.  They didn't hold math degrees.  In the past, I wonder how much IT support  small business's have been able to afford?  
Maybe, just maybe, I could be wrong.  But in my somewhat questionable experience,  I think the
future of general computing is not in the cloud but in the Android and similar systems,  perhaps linked
to a powerful home computer for support.   Anything is better than being stuck in front of a desk, stairing at an unmoveable  screen,  with a mouse in my fist.

Thanks for all your help it is appreciated.
And for my birthday I would like  E.E. to have a spell checker..
howie

Thanks guys.