FCC Passes Milestone on Broadband Speed Study; Industry Willing to Help
The FCC has shipped 1,000 “white boxes” to academics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Georgia Tech, in an effort to test broadband speeds around the country, the commission said Thursday. The boxes are designed to be installed in consumers’ homes to track hourly data on broadband speed. By month-end, 10,000 of the boxes are scheduled to have gone out, Chief Walter Johnston of the commission’s Electromagnetic Compatibility Division told an agency meeting on broadband.
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The boxes are part of a program to create a uniform set of standards and methods for monitoring broadband speeds. It’s based on a similar program, begun three years ago in the U.K. Consulting firm SamKnows is running both studies. Several hardware manufacturers have agreed to install the monitoring software in their products, SamKnows CEO Alex Salter told the meeting. The effort comes as the commission weighs whether to use universal service money to supplement broadband deployment. The National Broadband Plan calls for a minimum of 4 Mbps in U.S. homes, a goal that has drawn criticism, especially from rural Internet companies.
Several companies and industry groups have agreed to participate in the study. They include AT&T, Cablevision, CenturyLink, Verizon, FairPoint, Frontier, Comcast, Qwest, Time Warner Cable, USTelecom, Windstream, Adtran, Corning and Intel. So has the New American Foundation. Their ad hoc leader, David Young, Verizon’s vice president for regulatory affairs, said the companies, facing disclosure requirements, wanted to help shape speed standards so that everyone is reading from the same page. “The real discussion” will begin once the data is collected early next year, Young said. “Interpreting the data is the real issue,” he told us.
The commission is bullish about the study, Johnston said told the meeting. His division is talking with other FCC officials about the speed study and its implications for bureaus, especially for Public Safety. Young reminded him that industry views the study as a “proof of concept exercise” and that “we will need to revisit” matters if the scope of the study expands further.