More Than Half Of U.S. Internet Connections Below FCC Standards

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released two new reports on Internet access and telephone subscribership in the U.S.

The reports are based on data submitted by carriers to the FCC every six months. They track changes at the state and national level in the number of subscribers to Internet service in 72 combinations of speed, and the number of wireline, mobile and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephones subscribers.
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The report found 60 percent of Internet connections were slower than 4 megabits per second (Mbps) a download speed identified by the FCC as the minimum bandwidth generally required for high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video.

Growth of fixed broadband service was flat at 1 percent in the first half of 2010, to 82 million connections.

Highlights from the telephone subscribership report include:

*Interconnected VoIP grew by 21% between June 2009 and June 2010.

*Conventional switched access lines (i.e., traditional wireline telephone lines) decreased by 8% between June 2009 and June 2010.

*28% of all residential wireline connections were interconnected VoIP as of June 2010.

*An estimated 77% of interconnected VoIP subscribers received service through a cable provider.

*The number of subscriptions to wireless phone service grew by 5% in the year.

There are 5 Comments. Add Yours.

Brett Glass
March 21, 2011 at 10:52 pm

This is not correct. 4 Mbps is an aspirational goal of the bureaucrats in DC. In real life, users who have the opportunity to buy that speed often choose to economize and buy less because THEY DON’T NEED 4 MBPS.

In fact, the FCC itself has identified much lower speeds – as low as .3 Mbps – as being quite acceptable for video, graphics, telephony, and all-around general use.
- warhound
  March 23, 2011 at 11:59 am
  
  .3mbps is definitely not enough. I have 1.5mbps and video takes forever to load, streaming video and voip is completely impossible. Yet this is the fastest speed available and I live 5 miles outside a town of 100,000. Speed really need to improve.
- mike
  March 23, 2011 at 1:45 pm
  
  You think 48.4 KBps is sufficient to download a full movie or stream YouTube? You’d be waiting hours for a simple 360p YouTube video at that rate.
  
  Please note that there are difference between Kb, KB, Mb, MB， Gb, and GB. The case of the letter actually matters, what 4 Mbps = 128 KBps, ergo 30% of 128 is 48.4.
  - kirmie
    March 23, 2011 at 2:05 pm
    
    You have an error. You meant 1 Mbps is 128 KBps. You also typed 48.4 KBps instead of 38.4 KBps. The 37.5 KBps I used above was assuming the OP used .3 Mbps in terms of 1000 rather than 1024 which mean 300 /8 instead of 307.2 / 8.
- kirmie
  March 23, 2011 at 1:58 pm
  
  Brett glass apparently can’t read. The FCC standard relates to connections advertised as broadband or high speed so those people who choose slower internet aren’t included. Also 37.5 KB/s is nowhere near fast enough for live streaming video. Though I agree that “THEY DON’T NEED 4 MBPS”. Since there is a massive difference between MBPS and Mbps Mr. Caps Lock.