T.The Federal Communications Commission encourages people to use her internet speed test app, available free nationwide for anyone with an Android or iOS device, so that it can collect more accurate internet speed data for its broadband deployment efforts.
“To close the gap between digital haves and have nots, we are working on a comprehensive, user-friendly dataset on broadband availability,” Acting FCC Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement today.By expanding the number of consumers using the FCC Speed Test app, we can provide better coverage information to the public and complement the metrics we are developing to show where broadband is really available in the United States . “
The app works just like other internet speed tests from, for example, Ookla and Google-simply press a button and the app will measure your download and upload speeds. Produced the FCC app similar results as Ookla’s in my testing. Connected to my 5.0 GHz Wi-Fi band, the FCC app said my download speed was 282 Mbps and my upload speed was 23.4 Mbps. (I pay for 400 Mbps down.) Ookla gave me a result of 270 Mbps down and 22.0 Mbps up.
However, on a 4G LTE connection, the FCC app spewed a result of 56.3 Mbps down and 10.8 Mbps up, while Ookla reported 59.6 Mbps down and 2.81 Mbps up.
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One thing the Ookla doesn’t have is the ability to track your mobile data usage. The FCC recently added this to its app, so if you plan to test your internet speed on a 4G or 5G connection instead of Wi-Fi, you will know how much data you are using by doing that. YOU can turn this feature on or off, and while it is On, you can also set a mobile data limit, with an option to choose which day of the month your data is reset based on their billing cycle.
But like Ookla, the FCC app also provides users with other measurements, such as latency, jitter and packet loss – information that the average internet user might not need, but someone who plays a lot of online games would probably be helpful, especially if they play over the cloud.
The FCC speed test app has been around for a number of years. It was first launched in 2013 for Android devices and then again in 2014 for iOS devices. The purpose of the app was the same then: to crowdsourcing internet and mobile speed data to improve broadband deployment.
It’s not clear what the FCC has done with all that data since 2014, or if it’s even had enough of it, but as the agency is overhauling its push for people to use it, it suggests the app isn’t working like the FCC hoped for the past few years.
But yeahour phone is just one way to connect to the internet. You can vary wifi speeds from your laptop or desktop, and if you connect either of them to your router via Ethernet, you will always get the best results. Phone connectivity is only one piece of the puzzle, so if the FCC really wants a comprehensive portrait of internet connectivity in the US, it will have to look at other data points as well.