Research

It is time to update our understanding of the primary factors directly affecting end-user Internet performance. What we have learned is that high throughput alone is not sufficient. Latency is also a critical factor in providing a high-performance Internet connection. But that is not latency as we have traditionally understood it; rather, it is what we now define as 'working latency.' Over thirty years, industry has collectively missed a key factor that drives end users' Internet quality of experience (QoE). The industry has historically been focused on increasing bandwidth.

Ookla's Speedtest released its mobile and fixed broadband speed rankings in the United States for December 2021. Speedtest Intelligence revealed T-Mobile was the fastest mobile operator in the United States during Q4 2021 with a median download speed of 90.65 Mbps on modern chipsets. AT&T was second and Verizon third. This represents a strong increase in download speed for T-Mobile from 62.35 Mbps in Q3 2021.

In response to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Federal Communications Commission established universal service mechanisms to help ensure that all Americans have access to affordable telecommunications service. Congress mandated that these programs be supported by contributions from every telecommunications carrier that provides interstate telecommunications, and other providers of telecommunications services if the FCC finds contributions from such providers to be in the public interest.

In the Hamilton County Schools district (which includes Chattanooga), roughly a third of the district’s 45,000 students did not have home access to stable internet. When COVID forced schools online, one in three students could not attend virtual class. Within days of COVID pushing schools to remote learning, Chattanooga leaders implemented an emergency solution: installing 98 Quick Connect hotspots providing residents with free high-speed internet.

More time than ever before is spent in mobile apps, reaching 4.8 hours per day in the top mobile-first markets. Consumers are migrating their attention and wallets to mobile as over $320,000 flowed through the app stores every minute of 2021, an increase of nearly 20% from previous records in 2020. Mobile services from both early adopters and mobile-forced players remain in high demand — with global consumers downloading over 435,000 apps per minute.

Connected Nation’s “Connect K-12” program has released its report on US school connectivity for E-rate Funding Year 2021, which includes findings on the nation’s progress toward meeting the Federal Communication Commission’s bandwidth goal of 1 Mbps per student. Connect K-12 aggregates, analyzes, and visualizes federal E-rate program data at the district and state levels. Key takeaways from the report include:

State and local governments have enacted different types of legislation aimed at improving broadband availability. Two unstudied policies of interest are: (1) “dig-once” policies requiring state-funded construction projects to notify local internet providers about the opportunity to bury conduit for easier wire installation in the future, and (2) permitting policies requiring an expeditious response from local jurisdictions regarding the installation of broadband equipment.

New research shows high-level broadband data for each US state, offering a visual representation of average maximum broadband download speeds available in each county in the state, along with state-wide changes in availability, adoption, and speed time.

This research, performed by RVA LLC Market Research & Consulting (RVA), shows that fiber broadband now passes over 60.5 million homes in the US alone—a 12 percent growth in 2021. The increase in deployments can be attributed to the fact that fiber continues to score higher than any other broadband technology—such as cable, satellite or wireless—in terms of capacity, reliability, latency and customer satisfaction. The study also revealed that 43 percent of US households and 60 percent of Canadian households now have access to fiber.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released the first ACCESS BROADBAND Report, which highlights the accomplishments of NTIA’s recently established Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth (OICG) over the past year.