FCC Survey: Nearly 80% Users Don't Know Their Broadband Speed
FCC Survey: Nearly 80% Users Don't Know Their Broadband Speed
Posted 06/01/2010 at 6:45pm
| by Pulkit Chandna
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The folks at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) quite clearly possess two passions, and two passions alone: ensuring broadband access for every American and sporadically astonishing everyone with the most incredible facts about broadband usage in the country. Last year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had claimed in a report that actual broadband speeds in the US trailed promised speeds by at least 50%. Now, a survey commissioned by the FCC has revealed that nearly 80% of broadband users are unaware of their connection's speed.
The survey conducted by the Abt/SRBI and Princeton Survey Research Associates International polled 3,005 adults. Men fared a little better than women, with a “whopping” 29% of male respondents aware of their broadband connection's speed as compared to only 10% of the women that were surveyed. When categorized based on their age, respondents aged 65 years or more were found to be the most ignorant of the lot.
“Today, most people just know that their home broadband speed is supposed to be ‘blazing fast.’ They need more meaningful information to know exactly what speed they need for the applications they want to run, and what provider and plan is their best choice,” said Joel Gurin, chief of the consumer and governmental affairs bureau of the FCC.
The FCC is enlisting the help of UK's SamKnows Limited to more accurately measure actual broadband speeds. In fact, SamKnows is currently on the lookout for up to 10,000 volunteers for this ambitious project. Each volunteer will have their broadband connection monitored using a special set-top box installed by the UK-based company. All those interested in volunteering can apply here.
Image Credit: GeekScribes
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tkid124
June 04, 2010 at 3:19pm
Our federal taxes are going to find out how many people know what their internet speed is?
This is important information for those who are Power Users, but for Joe's Coffee Shop, I doubt he cares so long as his credit card machine works. Same when I visit my folks, they have DSL I notice a lag on streaming video, but they use it for web surfing and email, it does that wonderfully. So remind me of why again we are paying taxes so that someone can find the real speed of someone's internet connection?
lunchbox73
June 02, 2010 at 11:50am
Ask 8 out of 10 people how fast their internet speed is and they'll say something like "I have RoadRunner."
Devo85x
June 02, 2010 at 10:18am
I know what im supposed to get, what my benchmark speeds are, and what my actual speeds are... I am supposed to be getting (All speeds Download/Upload) 12Mbps/3Mbps... my benchmark speed is 12.8Mbps/2.97Mbps (Thanks to speedtest.net) but the actual speeds I have it are only 2.4Mbps/.6Mbps (found by downloading files and a friend downloading from my FPT server)
axiomatic
June 02, 2010 at 8:45am
Thankfully the other 20% of us ARE watching the broadband speeds with great interest and making sure we identify quite loudly which ISP's are ripping you 80% off.
I find it rather amusing that ISP's seem to think that they employ the only network engineers in the world. I scare the shit of of the comcast techs at my house all the time because I own all the same troubleshooting gear that they come on site with and they know they better speak the truth when telling me something about my connection.
Cota
June 01, 2010 at 9:43pm
The important thing is if you can download an internet, thats what that 80% would say
m1k3_flrs
June 01, 2010 at 7:33pm
When categorized based on their age, respondents aged 65 years or more were found to be the most ignorant.
Did they made the survey at a senior mobile home park?
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