FCC Releases Second "Measuring Broadband America" Report

The Federal Communications Commission released the results of its ongoing, nationwide performance study of residential wireline broadband service in its second “Measuring Broadband America” report.

The report continues the Commission’s efforts towards bringing greater clarity and competition to the home broadband services marketplace. This year’s Report reveals that broadband providers have significantly improved accuracy in actual versus advertised speeds during the past year and that consumers are subscribing to faster speed tiers and receiving faster speeds than ever before. Specifically, the Report indicates two key areas of improvement.

• First, broadband providers’ promises of performance are more accurate. In the time period measured for the August 2011 Report, the average broadband provider delivered 87 percent of advertised download speed during times when bandwidth demand was at its peak. During the time period measured for the July 2012 Report, that number rose to 96 percent. FCC analysis indicates that the improvements of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in meeting their advertised speeds were largely driven by improvements in network performance, and not downward adjustments to the speed tiers offered.
• Second, consumers of broadband providers covered by the Report are subscribing to faster speed tiers and receiving faster speeds than ever before. We found that the average speed tier that consumers were subscribing to increased from 11.1 Megabits per second (Mbps) to 14.3 Mbps, an almost 30 percent increase in just one year. Because providers also did a better job in the testing period for this report of meeting or exceeding their advertised speeds, the actual increase in experienced speeds by consumers was even greater than advertised speed, from 10.6 Mbps to 14.6 Mbps, representing an almost 38 percent improvement over the one year period.