Notice: As of August 1, 2023, the FCC no longer partners with SamKnows on fixed broadband performance data collection, and SamKnows is no longer authorized to collect MBA data or provide fixed broadband performance analysis on the FCC’s behalf. The FCC will continue its Measuring Broadband America program work internally as it assesses Agency requirements for future potential procurement action related to the measurement of fixed broadband performance.
To stop unauthorized MBA data collection by SamKnows, a user should remove the Whitebox from their network after sending a Termination Notice to community@samknows.com stating that they would like to terminate SamKnows’ Measurement Services. If the Termination Notice is emailed before 5:00 pm Eastern Time on a business day, the user should remove the Whitebox from their network on the same day after they email SamKnows the Termination Notice. Otherwise, the user should remove the Whitebox from their network on the next following business day. Questions can be directed to Mr. Rajender Razdan at rajender.razdan@fcc.gov.
As part of the Measuring Broadband America (MBA) program, the Measuring Fixed Broadband studies began in 2011 with the release of annual reports based on data collected from fixed consumer broadband Internet service during a single month with few large-scale traffic events, such as major holidays, sports events or other elections. The data analyzed in the reports thus reflect stable network conditions that provide the most accurate view of a provider’s performance under controlled conditions. With the cooperation of 13 fixed broadband service providers and diverse industry, academic and public interest stakeholders, the FCC has been able to assess national broadband performance using actual performance tests for thousands of subscribers of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) serving more than 80 percent of the consumer market. The FCC works in collaboration with SamKnows, an international statistics and analytics firm supporting similar projects in other countries around the world. The Measuring Broadband America program incorporates the latest engineering best practices from these diverse stakeholders to collect and report the most accurate data for consumer broadband performance in the Unites States.
Researchers and developers interested in the program are welcome at regular meetings and are encouraged to review the record of recent meetings by referencing the General Docket No. 12-264 using the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs). For inquires, contact Rajender.Razdan@fcc.gov.
How It Works
Volunteer participants are sent “whiteboxes” that run pre-installed software on off-the-shelf routers that measure thirteen broadband performance metrics including download speed, upload speed, and latency. The FCC partners with SamKnows to develop the software for MBA testing. Without interfering with the consumer's regular Internet activity, the Measuring Broadband America software runs these performance tests on randomized schedules that are centrally managed and provided to each whitebox. The test results are then collected and analyzed to produce the annual Measuring Fixed Broadband report. Each of the volunteer participants provide information about their Internet service, which is verified by their ISP. Utilizing this data, the MBA program is able to measure actual performance speeds against what the ISPs advertise to the customer.
Data, Reports & Code
Measuring Fixed Broadband reports, along with links to related fixed data are available in the menu on this page. For more detailed technical information regarding the Measuring Fixed Broadband tests, go to the open methodology page
Privacy Policy
The FCC takes your privacy seriously and incorporates numerous steps in the design of the software, infrastructure, and analysis to minimize risks to your privacy. All personal data was processed in conformity with relevant U.S. law and in accordance with policies developed to govern the conduct of the parties handling the data. The data were processed solely for the purposes of this study and are presented here and in all online data sets with all personally identifiable information (PII) removed. A set of materials was created both to inform each panelist regarding the details of the trial, and to gain the explicit consent of each panelist to obtain subscription data from the participating ISPs. These documents were reviewed by the Office of General Counsel of the FCC, the participating ISPs and other stakeholders involved in the study. For more information about the privacy policy, visit the following link: Technical Appendix for the Eighth Report
Code of Conduct
ISPs are required to sign a Code of Conduct to protect against gaming test results. While the identity of each panelist is made known to the ISP as part of the speed tier validation process, the actual Unit ID for the associated Whitebox is not released to the ISP and specific test results are not directly assignable against a specific panelist. Moreover, most ISPs have hundreds, and some had more than 1,000, participating subscribers spread throughout their service territory, making it difficult to improve service for participating subscribers without improving service for all subscribers. To view the Code of Conduct, visit the following link: 2018 Code of Conduct
Data Collection Policy
The MBA Program collects broadband performance data on a continual basis, making such data available to the public as part of the Program’s open data policy. However, due to the effort involved in validating data for use in its annual report, data used for the Measuring Fixed Broadband Report is limited to a single one-month period, which is typically the month of September. As the Measuring Broadband America program has evolved, the FCC has developed policies to deal with impairments in the data collection process with potential impact for the validity of the data collected. These policies were formalized in a meeting with program participants in an open meeting on August 7th, 2013 as described in the ex parte report of that meeting (filed in Docket 12-264 http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7520939594):
The policy establishes that for data to be included in the report, the collection process must be unimpaired during the specific interval of the collection across all ISPs for which data is to be collected for the report. Data collected from measurement servers subject to short interruptions or impairments of less than five days will be excluded from analysis for the Report, and report analysis will use remaining data for reporting as a 25-day “short collection” month. Where impairments persist and prevent a “short collection”, data collection for reporting will be carried over to a succeeding month until sufficient data is collected to complete testing, and the extended reporting period will be used for reporting purposes.
Thus data used for reporting may be derived from an actual data collection period shorter than 30 days (“a short collection”) or from a succeeding month, for example October.