The U.S. Federal Communication Commission has launched a program to give consumers software tools to test the speeds of their broadband services.
The commission is offering two tools, Ookla and M-Lab (both still in beta) that will test broadband services by transferring a temporary file and measuring performance of providers’ services.
The FCC-supplied tools will test:
“Download Speed: The speed at which data is sent from the testing server to your computer.
“Upload Speed: The speed at which data is sent from your computer to the testing server.
“Latency: The time it takes for data to be sent from your computer to the testing server and back (the ‘round trip time”’).
“Jitter: The variability in the delay between your computer and the testing server.”
The commission said “This beta version is the FCC’s first attempt at providing Americans with real-time information about their broadband connection quality. The FCC will continue to explore ways to improve user experience and the feature sets of these tests.”
Info here: “About the Consumer Broadband Test (Beta)”
Tom Kelchner