FCC report: Home broadband services delivering promised speeds

Consumer Reports News: August 02, 2011 05:23 PM

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Is your home broadband speed as fast as your provider promises? The FCC released a report today (PDF) with the results of a study it conducted to determine whether ISPs are actually delivering their advertised speeds to home consumers.

The conclusion? Most consumers are receiving close to the broadband speeds they're promised from their home internet provider. For most major broadband providers, says the FCC, actual speeds are generally within 80 to 90 percent of their advertised speeds. Further, the study found that even during peak usage periods—weeknights, from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm—most major providers deliver speeds that are 80 percent of advertised speeds or better.

To test the broadband speeds, the FCC used an all-volunteer panel of home testers who were able to measure their own connection speeds.

The study's results show a marked improvement over broadband performance in 2009 for both the U.S and the U.K. (tested by the same service the FCC used in this study), when actual speeds were closer to 50 percent of advertised speeds. The study also concluded that all of the measured broadband technologies, including DSL, cable, and fiber-to-the-home, are capable of delivering good results to home users, depending on their needs.

In Consumer Reports' Internet service provider satisfaction survey, which was included in our May 2011 issue (available to subscribers), we found a wide range of satisfaction levels among our survey respondents with broadband speed among providers. The highest level of satisfaction, beyond some smaller cable companies, was with fiber services from phone companies such as Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse.

Parul Desai, policy counsel for Consumers Union (the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports), had this to say about the FCC's study:

Today's report suggests that in some cases consumers may be getting the advertised speed they paid for. That's good—but this is just a first step. ISPs need to provide this information to consumers in a way that we can all understand. And the FCC needs to help ensure that happens. We urge the FCC to do a similar study on wireless broadband service.

—Carol Mangis