FCC comes through with a Consumer Broadband Test app for iPhone, Android and the home

We talk about the FCC a lot here, but usually the ways ye olde Commission affects our lives are indirect. A little extra spectrum here, a nice leaked image there, that kind of thing. Not this time, though, as the FCC is getting involved directly with its own Consumer Broadband Test app, designed to probe network latencies and download speeds on your home connection or mobile device. Part of the hallowed National Broadband Plan, this will furnish the FCC will useful data to show the discrepancy between advertised and real world broadband speeds, and will also -- more importantly perhaps -- serve as a neat way for users to directly compare network performance in particular areas. It's available on the App Market and App Store right now, with versions for other operating systems coming up, so why not get with the program and give it a test drive?

[NYCreative Posted Mar 12th 2010 4:13PM]

I have both the DROID and iPhone. I ran the test simultaneously on both phones and DROID won. Both speeds were slow in general. Results for Chelsea area NYC: (DROID: down=.75 up.71 latency=142ms) (iPhone: down=.66 up=.07 latency=1920ms).

[KKenna Posted Mar 12th 2010 4:13PM]

I believe that I'm in the NO GOV'T APPS ON MY DEVICE camp. Yes, they COULD gather any data on us that they want to, but that would violate the constitution. If we load this app on our phone (and, I'm all but certain, agree to their terms), we will be waiving any rights to privacy we may have thought we had.

Why should they bother trampling our rights when so many of us just give them up with a smile.

Oooohhhh, Look how fast MY phone goes. These are the beads they give us for our Manhattan these days.

[Roy Emblem Posted Mar 12th 2010 4:20PM]

After 4 tries, I got it to 1.00Mbps Down, 0.32Mbps Up. With a horrible latency of 2833ms. >_> Welcome to Provo, Utah I guess. heh

[pguy316 Posted Mar 12th 2010 4:21PM]

I'm in the NYC are ( more like NJ) and I'm getting really bad speeds can someone explain??

AT&T

Upload .29 Mbps
download .16 Mbps
ping 390ms

[SouthEastBeast Posted Mar 12th 2010 4:40PM]

TMo (Seattle Area)0 1.36Mbps down, 0.38Mbps up

[foxh8er2 Posted Mar 12th 2010 4:42PM]

U-Verse broke the 6.0 barrier today for the second time, at 6.07mb/s, and then promptly went back down to 5.5 the next test. This comes on the eve of me discovering our U-Verse pipe has grown from a 25/5 profile to a 32/5 profile, allowing us 3 HD streams at once. I was hoping some of that extra bandwidth would carry over, but oh well....

[69camaroSS Posted Mar 12th 2010 5:22PM]

.66- .98mbs download. :( 400 latency. AT&T iPhone.

[Bla1ze Posted Mar 12th 2010 5:37PM]

This is stupid. Since they are running it off ookla they could just use some of the already existing data that has been obtained from everywhere else.

[radiochu Posted Mar 12th 2010 6:12PM]

Interesting, and the results my phone gets over my wifi are (sadly) comparable to what my computer is getting over ethernet. I would share the numbers, but the app force closes every time before it saves the results... (Droid Eris)

[haan Posted Mar 12th 2010 6:14PM]

too bad this app sucks

[Bozilla Posted Mar 12th 2010 6:37PM]

In Canada I'm getting 9.2Mbps Down and 0.9Mbps Up with a 242ms latency. The server isn't all that far from me (Seattle).

[deadzones Posted Mar 12th 2010 7:26PM]

The FCC is infringing on our trademark. I don't care that they launched an app but they should name it something else like: Poor Connections, Dropped calls, Dead Spots, Dead Patches, Dead Areas or Poor Coverage.

[deadzones Posted Mar 12th 2010 7:27PM]

We would like to politely ask the FCC to stop using our trademark for a product that competes with us. We are pursuing this matter through the press so we do not waste additional taxpayer dollars on lawyers that are not needed to resolve a simple issue. Read more here.
http://www.deadzones.com/2010/03/fcc-violates-our-trademark.html

[xsacha Posted Mar 12th 2010 8:05PM]

Wow guys, all 3G is sucky in the USA? I thought I read something about you guys having 21Mbps on AT&T now?

Anyway, for comparison: I am in Australia on the Telstra NextG network and consistently get 10-14Mbps with 50-140ms latency no matter where I am (but with 5 bars, which is almost everywhere).

If I had over 1000ms latency I would be very angry. Seems most you guys do.

[Draken Posted Mar 12th 2010 8:12PM]

I got 7.0 Mbs and 5.35 upload on wifi. Which is way different then what speedtest says. Of course I have a lot of WiFi devices in my home. I tried it right from my Computer and got about 6 times that. This is from the test of Broadband.gov. Using my 3g iPhone (with wifi turned off) I got 1.0Mbs and .2Mbs

[Draken Posted Mar 12th 2010 8:13PM]

Oh sorry my latency was only 71ms

[Chas Percodani Posted Mar 12th 2010 8:26PM]

Droid in Athol/Orange Massachusetts

2.25 Mbps Down
0.65 Mbps up
124ms latency

[Mr Pips Posted Mar 12th 2010 9:11PM]

Seems like a good way to fabricate a "need" for more government regulation of ISPs and cellular companies.

[Hussain Rahim Posted Mar 12th 2010 10:27PM]

You have to give the Obama admin credit for really making the efforts to democratize broadband and modernize the US infrastructure.

[HandlesIT Posted Mar 12th 2010 11:26PM]

"Force Close" failures on the android app. People are reporting "Force Close" on most models; Hero, Cliq, Nexus One, Droid, N1, Eris, Moment, ect..

[locux Posted Mar 13th 2010 12:59PM]

I am less than impressed. It's nothing more than using speedtest.net's (ookla) application and speedtest.net recently sold out from providing a useful product to an advertising model trying to take customers away from their current ISP and deliver them to their advertisers. It's only a matter of time before the advertisers mysteriously also provide better speedtest results.

[Brian Posted Mar 15th 2010 2:34AM]

Real nice how the government spent out tax dollars on this. How about they start paying for everything else that they can't pay for before this?

[kewllewk Posted Mar 19th 2010 11:57AM]

Don't feel bad, I am only getting a pathetic 0.04 down and 0.10 up with a 1536 ms latency from my office on a 3Gs. Totally lame!

[iakona Posted Apr 12th 2010 10:29PM]

Benchmark results on Nexus one ATT 3G and ATT DSL

3G deep inside house:
download: .82 Mbps
upload: .70 Mbps
latency: 134ms

3G by the windows w/ full bars:

download: 1.86 Mbps
upload: .71 Mbps
latency: 138ms

ATT DSL internet


download: 1.23 Mbps
upload: .39 Mbps
latency: 114


Ridiculous that my mobile internet connection is faster than my home internet. Think I'll cancel my ATT DSL internet and just tether my Nexus one.


download: 1.86 Mbps
upload: .71 Mbps
latency: 138ms