150,000 take FCC broadband speed test in first week

bealtine

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/150000-take-fcc-broadband-speed-test-in-first-week.ars

The FCC has had it with ISPs. For more than a decade, the agency has relied on ISP reports to get a picture of broadband speeds and availability in the US, and the results have been uniformly terrible. The ISPs don't want to report numbers detailed enough to be useful, so the feds finally dropped a pile of cash on the table last year to do some proper broadband mapping.

Last week, the FCC went a step further, rolling out tools for Android, the iPhone, and the Web that enable users to test—and, crucially, to report—their broadband speeds. In addition, it decided to fund a third-party measurement company that will use hardware devices to test actual line speeds in tens of thousands of US homes. It's all about the data, and the FCC is determined to get it one way or another.

In the last seven days, 150,000 people have used the Web testing service. The results aren't scientific, of course; there was no random sampling and the two test platforms both function in different ways. But the results do show some general trends in US broadband.

First, average download speeds. According to the Ookla test platform, average US speeds are 11.5Mbps; according to the M-Lab platform, they are 7.04Mbps. Those average numbers are certainly helped by high-speed 50Mbps connections from some cable and FiOS customers. When we look at the median, the numbers are lower; according to M-Lab half of all people using the test had under 4Mbps of download capacity, probably implying that most are on DSL.

Upload averages are much slower, at 2.09 Mbps and 2.74Mbps, respectively; the median is around 1Mbps.

Mapping the data shows that the west coast has higher speeds, as one might expect. Minnesota and Georgia do surprisingly well, though with only 5,000 to 12,000 tests run in each of those states, we shouldn't read too much into the map.
As the broadband speed tool comes out of beta, it should provide better information to the FCC, and it provides a way to report broadband "dead zones" where no service is available.

But to really guide its analysis, the FCC has issued a "request for quotation." It plans to pay one company to provide a statistically valid, geographically diverse sample of 10,000 broadband connections. The participants in the study will have their lines analyzed for a month or so by small hardware devices that sit inline on the network and record latency, speed, jitter, uptime, and more.

The idea comes from Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator, which did the same thing some time ago and used the results to guide its own broadband policy decisions. As the FCC notes, "accurate and clear information is crucial to a well-functioning market. Today, broadband consumers in the United States (US) have little information about the actual speed and performance of the broadband services available to them."

Between the national mapping efforts funded by last year's stimulus bill, the consumer-facing Web and mobile tools rolled out by the FCC, and the new 10,000 person sample, real broadband data could be in hand within the year.

What happens to that data? The newly released National Broadband Plan tells us that it should be collected, analyzed, and then used to "make informed policy decisions and to track deployment, adoption, and competition issues." Reading the Plan, we were struck by the number of times that things like a comprehensive review of wholesale regulations were suggested—but only after better data is acquired.

"The FCC has also been criticized for not collecting better data," notes the Plan.

Once broadband data is in hand, the real fireworks begin: a huge number of new rulemakings on everything from special access to wholesale to copper retirement to ISP transparency and disclosure.

Sponge Bob

No chance of that happening in Ireland. Comreg hides its failures while the FCC simply wants to ascertain where the admitted failures are.

Chalk and Cheese

clohamon

Deputy Kathleen Lynch*** asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources*** the position regarding the timeframe for setting up initiatives to analyse broadband speeds experienced by end users here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10131/10]

Deputy Eamon Ryan:****I support proposals to conduct an audit of the quality of service experienced by broadband service customers compared to the quality of service advertised by suppliers. Ideally, this study would be conducted in a manner which would also permit international comparisons.
In June 2009 the European Commission published an invitation to tender for a contract to conduct a study and prepare a report on the quality of broadband services available to customers in the European Union. The emphasis of this study, as proposed, was on measuring real time customer experience across the European Union compared to the speeds and other quality of service parameters advertised by broadband service providers.
In January last, the European Commission announced that following a thorough assessment of the eight bids it had received, it had decided that none provided sufficient guarantees that reliable robust data would be obtained. The Commission therefore decided to close the tender process without awarding a contract. In its announcement, the Commission also indicated it may recommence this procurement procedure.
Following informal contacts between my Department and the European Commission on its likely plans to re-tender and the likely duration of the study after the award of any contract, which would be expected to be nine months or more, I have decided to commence a study of broadband speeds available to customers in Ireland independently of the proposed wider EU study. My Department has commenced drafting an invitation to tender document. The formal invitation to participate and the contract award process will accord with competitive public procurement arrangements. I expect the tender document to be available to participating parties shortly.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20100302.XML&Node=H4-2#H4-2

Easy to be cynical about this.

The FCC survey seemed to have a flaw. You can put in a dummy US Postal address and run the test from here (or at least you could a few days ago). Maybe its filtered out later if they check the IP address, maybe not.

watty

So if we all use the FCC survey we can make the Chocolate Factory look bad?
such as CA 94043

bk

We come 47th in the world for downloads at an average speed of 4.65mb/s and 64th in the world for uploads at an average speed of 0.66mb/s

http://speedtest.net/global.php#0

So now the Minister Ryan can send me my nice fat consultancy cheque

It is pretty scary how far behind we are of the emerging central and eastern european countries who are closest competitors for IT jobs:

3rd Latvia
5th Romaina
6th Lithuania
9th Bulgaria
14th Hungary
15th Ukraine