FCC Expected to Probe Mobile Broadband Connection Speeds
The FCC said Tuesday it plans to gather data on wireless broadband connections and released a public notice seeking comment on how to do that. The commission also asked for 10,000 volunteers to allow hardware to be installed in their homes to test the actual speed of their wireline broadband connections, in a scientific study to be run by SamKnows Ltd. The regulator still hasn’t decided what it will do with the results and whether they could lead to additional regulation, Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau Chief Joel Gurin told reporters.
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"At this point this is just about transparency,” Gurin said. “This is really about information gathering both on the fixed broadband side and … the mobile broadband side as well, that will give us all, including the industry, the first really accurate scientific picture of what consumers are getting and what their experience really is.” Gurin was asked if the FCC will end up requiring carriers to list actual broadband speeds. “It’s really too early to tell on that,” he said. “I would certainly say that’s a possibility."
The announcements came as the bureau released the results of a survey that found 80 percent of Americans don’t know the speed of their broadband connections. The FCC survey also found that 91 percent of broadband users say they are “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with the speeds they get at home. The survey found that “no demographic group had good awareness of their home broadband speed.” For example, 71 percent of men do not know what speed they're getting, while 90 percent of women don’t. The results are from the same survey of 3,005 consumers that found one in six had experienced wireless “bill shock,” according to results released last week (CD May 27 p1). It was conducted by Abt/SRBI and Princeton Survey Research Associates.
"If I buy a car and I want to know what miles per gallon I'm getting, that’s right on the sticker,” Gurin said. “Broadband speed is a measure that just doesn’t have traction in the market right now.” Measurements of speed in the home are on average half of what is advertised, according to a study cited in the National Broadband Plan, he said.
"Speed matters,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a written statement. “The more broadband subscribers know about what speeds they need and what speeds they get, the more they can make the market work and push faster speeds over broadband networks."
Gurin conceded that measuring wireless speeds could prove difficult. “There are definitely factors that come into play when you're measuring mobile speeds that are an additional level of complexity beyond fixed broadband speeds, but we believe that there are ways to solve the technical problems sufficiently that it’s possible to do a test like this,” he said. “The reason we're putting out the public notice is, we understand there’s a lot of questions to be asked and answered.”
Providing a “speed certain” for wireless will be “difficult, if not impossible,” said CTIA President Steve Largent. The FCC will find that “the variety of factors that wireless network engineers contend with every day -- such as congestion, the mobility of wireless subscribers, weather conditions and the consumer’s chosen wireless device -- all bear on the speeds a consumer receives, by the second, on a wireless broadband network,” he said.
The FCC will consider any arguments that mobile data tests aren’t necessary, but that isn’t the focus of the public notice, Gurin said. “It’s really much more about how to do it,” he said. “We're very interested in doing this."
Gurin said the FCC likely will have to report a range of numbers, based, for example, on distance from the closest tower. “We can’t predetermine anything until we see the data,” he said. “Distance from key nodes also comes into play with fixed broadband. But these are all things we would include in the analysis."
"Performance of mobile broadband networks is becoming more important as mobile broadband plays an increasingly important role in our lives and in our economy,” said the FCC notice. It seeks advice on the best measurement metrics for mobile broadband, the performance characteristics that should be tracked, such as typical data throughput, signal strength, accessibility, retainability, latency, other quality of service parameters and the level of detail that the FCC should seek. “At what level of temporal and geographic granularity?” the notice asks. “What parts of the network should be measured? What starting and ending points (e.g., radio access network, middle mile) are most useful and actionable for consumers, regulators and providers?"
The FCC hopes to wrap up tests by SamKnows in 2010 and release results by early 2011, Gurin said. The commission likely will offer data by carrier, service tier, region and for rural versus urban areas, he said. “Anyone can register as a volunteer for this national test at www.TestMyISP.com,” the FCC said. “Volunteers will be able to track the performance of their own broadband service, as well as providing valuable data for the FCC, Internet service providers, and the public at large.”