What's Wrong with FCC's Broadband Testing

slfisher 0 567 Views

In preparation for releasing its national broadband plan tomorrow (which is already coming under criticism), the Federal Communications Commission has started collecting data from users on their broadband -- a test that is also coming under criticism.

Like similar testing a couple of years ago, the testing suffers from one glaring flaw: it is self-selected. It's reporting the results from a self-selected group who knew about the speed test, had the time and interest and ability to take it -- and who had Internet access in the first place so that they could. But the people most likely to fall into that group are the Neterati -- the very people who might be 'busting the curve' by having better access than most other Americans.

Most notably, of course, it doesn't test the people who don't have broadband access in the first place -- the people who most need to be identified so they can be served.

People are also chiming in on the with other criticisms of the test, which went up March 11. Biggest of the criticisms is that the FCC is not yet releasing the results of the data it's collected (80,000 as of March 12, according to Jordan Usdan, identified as Attorney-Advisor, Broadband Task Force).

Karl Auerbach, former North American at-large representative for ICANN, published an extensive criticism of the FCC testing in his . "The motivation is nice but the FCC's methodology is technically weak," he said, going on to describe the several different components of Internet performance and how they need to be measured separately to obtain useful results.

The FCC has also released a Request for Quotation for a more scientific measurement of Internet broadband performance.

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As notes, the biggest problem with a voluntary web speed test is bias: people who find and run the test are already online, usually more tech-savvy, and often on better-than-average connections. That produces an optimistic view of national service quality and gives little or no visibility into truly unserved or chronically underperforming households. Tests taken over Wi-Fi, on old routers, or while other apps are active will further distort results and mask whether problems are in the last mile, inside the home, or on the wider Internet.

A policymaker-grade measurement program needs three things: representative sampling, clear separation of where impairments occur, and transparency. Representative sampling means recruiting by address or census-block and stratifying by urban/rural, income, and technology (DSL/cable/fiber/fixed wireless/mobile). Separation means running both endpoint-to-server throughput tests and path diagnostics (latency, jitter, packet loss, traceroute) so last-mile problems can be isolated from backbone or CDN effects. Transparency means publishing methodology, weighting rules, and anonymized raw data so independent analysts can validate conclusions.

Practical checklist for anyone running or interpreting speed tests:

  • Use a wired Ethernet connection and quiet the network during the test.
  • Run tests at peak and off-peak times, and repeat them to get medians and variability.
  • Capture path and loss diagnostics to help locate faults.

Try these simple commands to collect useful diagnostics:

# Linux / macOS
ping -c 20 <server>
traceroute <server>
iperf3 -c <iperf-server> -t 30

# Windows
ping -n 20 <server>
tracert <server>

Treat single, self-selected results with caution: a few high-speed samples do not prove consistent, widespread quality. For real coverage mapping, combine representative active tests, ISP-side telemetry, and household surveys so unserved locations and systemic quality gaps are visible and actionable.

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