The FCC has had some experience monitoring broadband ISPs actual vs advertised data transmission speeds and is expanding the initiative into the mobile arena. The recently updated FCC Speed Test app, currently available on Android only, is being used to collect data speeds from end user Android devices on all carriers here in the US. I for one am looking forward to contributing some ludicrous speed samples from our 2.5 GHz enabled sites in my neighborhood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_BX6GB-b00
I can’t wait to see the results from Sprint Spark cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Tampa and Miami. 50-60 megabits per second for now, with planned incremental multiples of that inside the term of a 2 year cell phone contract. Not too far beyond that, we’ll need a new speed test app to handle the gigabit speeds!
See the WSJ Article – FCC Crowdsources Mobile Broadband Research With Android App for details.