FCC Mobile Broadband Apps to Help You Measure Provider’s Performance

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You definitely can’t say that the FCC is not trying to make consumer’s lives easier. After hunting the Big Four and Google regarding ETF policies, and I assume that battle is neither lost nor finished yet, the FCC is interested now about consumers mobile broadband satisfaction.

The Commission has issued its first mobile app which is supposed to help consumers measure broadband performance and submit “broadband dead zone reports.” Not that bad, you FCC, you!

Here’s what Chariman Julius Genachowski had to say about the new Consumer Broadband Test and the Broadband Dead Zone Report:

Transparency empowers consumers, promotes innovation and investment, and encourages Competition. The FCC’s new digital tools will arm users with real-time information about their broadband connection and the agency with useful data about service across the country. By informing consumers about their broadband service quality, these tools help eliminate confusion and make the market work more effectively.

The Consumer Broadband Test is supposed to measure “broadband quality indicators such as speed and latency” and then report those numbers to the customers that use the app and the FCC. The application is available for Apple and Android users so far but besides mobile broadband performance you can also test your home broadband speeds aswell.

The Broadband Dead Zone Report will let you submit addresses of locations where broadband is unavailable for purchase at this point which is really an admirable initiative.

Of course you’re not obligated to run the apps if you don’t want to. The FCC wants to analyze how your broadband/mobile broadband provider is doing in terms of performance and we should hear more details about it next week when the National Broadband Plan will be unveiled.

The Commission wants to make available to the general public details about “the gap between actual broadband speeds delivered and the maximum sped tiers advertised” and we will definitely be interested to hear its conclusions. It will also be interesting to see if the FCC is willing to impose any extra conditions for carriers and Internet providers. After all, access to broadband/mobile broadband connectivity should already be a human right. Right folks?