Raise your hand if you’ve been here before – paid for Internet service that isn’t actually as fast as it’s supposed to be or misleadingly costs more than the Internet Service Provider (ISP) said.
I guess every person reading this has their hand in the air because ISPs are generally not very fun to deal with. In this age of remote working, home internet service has never been more important, but it can often seem impossible to know what exactly you’re getting when you hand over a bunch of cash for a signal to reach your home. Sure, the ISP’s website He says you’re paying for 300 Mbps download speeds, but Quick test tells a totally different story. (Note: Mashable and Speedtest are owned by the same parent company, Ziff Davis)
Good news: some of these problems will be a thing of the past thanks to a new FCC order issued at the end of January. By November 2022, ISPs must provide “nutrition labels” for their services that inform consumers the true story instead of the sanitized marketing version. But since Internet services are calorie-free and caffeine-free, it can be a bit difficult to understand what exactly these labels will tell you.
Let’s dive into it.
What do these labels correct about home Internet service?
A sample label from when the FCC first introduced these labels.
Credit: FCC
Typically, when you sign up to get that sweet internet juice routed to your home, your ISP of choice provides some basic information about the service. It will give you a maximum theoretical download speed and a monthly data limit if there is one, but it won’t. Really know how the service works until you are connected and ready to go. The new FCC order will require providers to create nutrition labels that can look a lot like what you see on the back of a cereal box, but with helpful information about their services.
It is worth noting that the FCC I first came up with this idea in April 2016, but at the time, ISPs were not required to comply with the rule. We all know how eager companies are to follow rules that they are not actually required to follow. However, thanks to this new ruling, they finally are.
Here’s what you can expect to find on these labels, based on a sample the FCC accompanied with the 2016 announcement. The FCC doesn’t have updated samples yet, so some of these could be subject to change:
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Monthly cost, both for a month-to-month plan and a long-term contract plan if needed
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Data limits, including overage fees
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Any hidden fees like activation and installation costs
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Typical download and upload speeds, not just idealized top speeds
The final two points of that list are like this, then crucial. It’s not that hard to calculate the monthly cost based on the little information providers give you at the point of sale, but $100 for the first month of service can easily double or even triple when activation and installation costs are factored in. and anyone which regularly tests your internet speed You know that the top speed you pay for isn’t always what you get.
In fact, depending on your location, carrier, and number of devices connected at the same time, you could never to be that fast. A previous apartment of mine was supposed to get download speeds of 200 Mbps and would often hit less than 10 percent of that speed. Terrible.
Once ISPs start providing these labels, consumers will at least have a more accurate picture of what’s on offer. Will this fix the myriad other problems with internet in the US, like spotty service coverage in rural areas? Not on its own, although the FCC committed $1.2 billion for rural broadband expansion in the same week. But soon, providers will no longer be able to trick customers into paying too much for a service that isn’t as reliable as it claims to be.
A little transparency never hurt anyone.
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