In its fourth yearly speed report on ISPs, the FCC found that, on average, cable operators are meeting or beating their advertised speeds by over 100 percent. The FCC also found that consumers continue to crave more speed and are moving to higher and faster tiers of service.
The FCC's latest test also found that there is some room for improvement. DSL companies are lagging behind cable and fiber broadband providers.
"Consumers deserve to get what they pay for. While it's encouraging to see that in the past these reports have encouraged providers to improve their services, I'm concerned that some providers are failing to deliver consistent speeds to consumers that are commensurate to their advertised speeds," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told The Wall Street Journal. "As a result, I've directed FCC staff to write to the underperforming companies to ask why this happened and what they will do to solve this," he said.
The FCC also said it found some congestion at interconnection points and while that was not part of this latest test, it will get some attention from the commission going forward. Moreover, DSL companies are lagging behind cable and fiber broadband providers when it comes to download speeds, according to the new FCC report.
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Average Peak Period Sustained Download and Upload Speeds as a Percentage of Advertised, by Technology - September 2013 Test Data (Source: FCC) |
For more:
- visit the FCC's website
- The Wall Street Journal has this story
- the Consumerist has this story
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