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FCC: 80% of users are clueless about broadband speeds
Nonetheless, the FCC is launching two initiatives to better control what broadband speeds consumers are receiving – regardless of their satisfaction levels. One is reportedly a $600,000 study that will measure broadband speeds in the homes of 10,000 voluntary participants, and the other is simply a call for consumer feedback on how to measure mobile broadband speeds.
That finding isn't particularly staggering, after all, most people aren't interested in technical minutiae as long as everything works. That isn't to say consumers don't care about a speedy connection, however. "If they don't know their speed and they're happy, then they're basically saying it's not paramount in the consumer's mind to know their exact speed," said FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.
Whether folks care about their bandwidth rate is one thing, but the FCC believes they shouldn't be overpaying for Internet access. Based on the agency's analysis, consumers often receive a connection that is only half the advertised speed. "If people are unaware of speeds, they could be effectively overpaying for broadband," Genachowski said.
User Comments: 31
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you pay $30 a month for 25 mb FIOS? Thirty dollars? Puhleesse!
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He is not telling the truth obviously. Not accusing him or deception, but certainly of ignorance. There is no place in the country you can get that speed for that price.
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Only 80%?
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I pay for 10/1(cant get a faster upload from my isp) and speedtest shows around 6-7/1 usually. I do show 10 sometimes, but never more.couple family members have same isp in the next town and a 1.5 can show almost 3 and a 5 can show almost 6-7 as well. if only I could get the 5Mbps down and still get the 1 up....
when browsing the web though it doesnt feel anything like 10M, maybe my isp just knows when I am running a test and says oh crap we better let him have it all right now...
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foxrox said:
There are few choices in my area. Verizon has just sold out to some outfit called Frontier, whom I have never heard of. Verizon's service has been really crappy and overpriced, so it will be interesting to see what comes of this change. I have a gut feeling it is not going to be good.
I also wonder how this is going to affect my "bundle". I have Verizon phone and DSL bundled with DirectTV and receive one bill from Verizon. The DirectTV is discounted $20 per month with the Verizon bundle. If the discount goes away and I have to pay two monthly bills, I am not going to be a happy camper. DirectTV has a very punitive early termination clause, so it would be really expensive to switch to the only other provider (Charter) in my area that offers decent broadband speeds.
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3GB/ps would be extremely fast
3MegaBit second with verizon is typical.
3 megabit = 0.375 megabyte per second or about 375 kbytes/ps download rate.Where as 3GB/ps be about 384 megabytes per second. So in theory you would download a full 700mb cd image in less then 2 seconds. A DVD in less then 7 seconds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units
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