Broadband Speed: FCC Data Is Improving the Market

As part of our Consumer Empowerment Agenda, the Federal Communications Commission has been taking action to ensure that consumers are getting the information they need to make informed decisions. Our efforts to combat bill shock are one recent example, where we worked out a landmark agreement with the wireless industry to alert consumers before they are charged overage fees. The residential broadband market is another area where consumers may be faced with decisions they don’t have adequate information to make. Signing up for broadband—high-speed Internet—service can been a real challenge for consumers. To be an informed shopper for any service, you have to know what will best meet your needs, and you have to know that service providers will deliver what they advertise.

In our Measuring broadband America report, we presented findings in a number of ways, by technology, provider, and time of day. Many providers performed quite well, some even exceeding advertised speeds. But we also found some instances where broadband service fell significantly short of what was advertised, particularly at the times of day for peak broadband usage. As we had hoped, our results quickly began informing the marketplace. Our findings were reported not only on the news and on the websites of consumer groups, but also in television commercials, radio ads, and press releases from Internet service providers themselves. Those who had done well in our tests spread the news, and attempted to use their strong performance results to win customers in the marketplace. In the months since we released our initial report, we have continued to gather direct measurements of broadband performance. We are pleased to note that the performance of one company—Cablevision—markedly improved from earlier this year. As we noted in our report, during March 2011, subscribers to Cablevision’s 15 Mbps service were receiving average download speeds during peak hours of only about 50% of the advertised speed. By comparison, average users across all companies other than Cablevision were receiving download speeds during peak hours of 89% of the advertised speeds. During October 2011, the most recent month for which data is available, subscribers to Cablevision’s 15 Mbps service were receiving average download speeds during peaks hours at over 90% of the advertised speed.