You may be getting faster broadband than you think2010-07-19 09:46 by Daniela
Tags: FCC, broadband
US broadband speeds aren't nearly as bad as they're painted, says MIT, thanks to a series of mis-estimates by a Federal Communications Commission survey.
The FCC's National Broadband Plan, released in March, reported that most American households were getting only 40 to 50 percent of the advertised 'up to' speeds they were being quoted.
But a new MIT study indicates that most methods for measuring internet data rates, including those used by the FCC, underestimate the speed of the access network.
The number of devices accessing a home wireless network, the internal settings of a home computer and the location of the test servers can all affect measurements of broadband speed.
"If you are doing measurements, and you want to look at data to support whatever your policy position is, these are the things that you need to be careful of," says Steve Bauer, technical lead on the MIT Internet Traffic Analysis Study (MITAS). "For me, the point of the paper is to improve the understanding of the data thatís informing those processes."
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