US Broadband Providers To Begin Providing New Comparison Labels

Major U.S. broadband internet providers must start displaying information similar to nutrition labels on food products to help consumers shop for services starting on April 10, under new rules from the Federal Communications Commission. From a report: Verizon Communications said it will begin providing the labels on Wednesday. The FCC first moved to mandate the labels in 2022. Smaller providers will be required to provide labels starting in October. The rules require broadband providers to display, at the point of sale, labels that show prices, speeds, fees and data allowances for both wireless and wired products. Verizon Chief Customer Experience Officer Brian Higgins said in an interview the labels will help consumers make "an equal comparison" between product offerings, speeds and fees.

Higgins said standardized labels across the industry "make it easier for customers to do a comparison of which provider is going to be the best fit for their needs." He said customers will still need to research various bundling offers across carriers. The labels were first unveiled as a voluntary program in 2016. Congress ordered the FCC to mandate them under the 2021 infrastructure law. "Consumers will finally get information they can use to comparison shop, avoid junk fees, and make informed choices about which high-speed internet service is the best fit for their needs and budget," FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said.

The times they are a changin' (Arstechnica 2001)

[Felix Baum]

There was a time when 256k/128k was awesome https://arstechnica.com/civis/... [arstechnica.com]

One small detail

[paul_engr]

If they're not comparing their speeds to the offerings in other first world countries, it's a waste of time. A $10 at the airport data-only SIM in Korea gote better LTE speeds up/down than my "5G" plan gets me in the USA today at $65/line/mo

Re:

[Bert64]

Comparing peak throughput is a poor measure anyway, and the scores on speedtest sites are easily manipulated by prioritising the traffic to those sites.

What matters more is latency, peering, CGNAT, IPv6, equipment, technology (eg wifi/ethernet) etc. A lot of people just go for the largest numbers shown in advertising, but while the physical line from them to the ISP is capable of the headline figure the upstream transit might not be, or they might be using a lousy wireless access point which sits behind a t

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

Does anyone have a decent benchmark that simulates typical usage (and atypical usage)?

Re:

[pixelpusher220]

and while correlation isn't causation....anything provided by a US provider is *HIGHLY CORRELATED* with being far more expensive for far less service, peak or avg

Re:

[DrMrLordX]

What share of that expense is the initial cost of trenching and laying lines over long distances away from existing infrastructure?

Re:Irrelevant for most small providers

[nevermindme]

None of it. As a small town ISP you park yourself next to a CO in town and buy a good trunk to the high spot in town and have 16 fibers installed the first time you order a 10G citcuit... perhaps you may pay a 15k install charge but structure the deal to get the first year of 10G bandwidth for free. The LEC knows they are going to get you the next 3 10G circuits, and they dont have to cover the installs for every farmer with questions. Their additional costs is nothing, they already have 16 fibers ready for 100G going to three other COs, they just do mpls assignments and vary what service cloud the CO uses for your traffic. ISP get the first 100 customers going and then you should be cash flowing for the next 300 until you reach market saturation at the 1G level, then you use a few customers with high silos and offer an even lower tier rung to use the circuit that never really hit 10% untilization except for the school districts computer training cache filling.

Perhaps if you got a subdivision who looked forward and installed fiber, you pick up the HOA as a customer just to get the service point. The LEC if they have fiber in the area and enpoint is in the same vault, you may jump into something burried. By state law or regulation, the LECs have to give access away at support costs + 15% margin over what the fiber books at per mile. Alot of that rural fiber is installed and is at year 15, the LEC really for tax purposes wants it to be worthless except for the keeping it alive, a near zero cost for a passive optical network.

You spend nothing on a trench, that is for the LEC to figure out, your competitor is starlink and the excess 5G bandwidth. It is very hard time for this business model outside the port charge is dirt cheap on 10G at just about any CO. Customers expect a very high service level, but at least you no longer have to be a cable company to make a few bones on delivering ESPN and Big10. What fraction of 10G you guarantee and what you peak to, is a dance between you and the provider going through the local CO.

similar to nutrition labels on food products

[rossdee]

How many servings needed to supply 100% of your daily requirements?

Doesn't really matter

[DrMrLordX]

American broadband consumers have virtually no choice of provider. You have one landline provider or you can pick from Verizon or AT&T for mobile which gets very expensive for even moderate use.

Marketing Buzzwords

[Scutter]

It will hardly matter when words have no meaning. When $ISP is selling "Truly Unlimited(tm)!" service that really means "It's Truly Unlimited for the first 5 minutes of the month and then throttled down to nothing because you've already exceeded your Truly Unlimited Bandwidth Cap", then all they'll do is bury the details with more meaningless buzzwords. That's before you even get to the virtual monopolies they have in most areas.

Re:

[mjwx]

It will hardly matter when words have no meaning. When $ISP is selling "Truly Unlimited(tm)!" service that really means "It's Truly Unlimited for the first 5 minutes of the month and then throttled down to nothing because you've already exceeded your Truly Unlimited Bandwidth Cap", then all they'll do is bury the details with more meaningless buzzwords. That's before you even get to the virtual monopolies they have in most areas.

Sounds like you need to improve your false advertising laws.

Years ago, most countries made it illegal to advertise anything limited as "unlimited".

Back office speed label

[Tim the Gecko]

As well as the upload and download speeds, they should display something like "Plan to be on the phone with us for up to six hours if you move from one state to another. Our back office systems can't cope."

Comcast is great if you never, ever, ever want anything changed or moved.

Review the label information

[fahrbot-bot]

Major U.S. broadband internet providers must start displaying information similar to nutrition labels on food products ...

A higher fiber content is probably better for you. With an ISP, I imagine you want the insoluble kind.

Comcast must be feeling the heat

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

They gave me 50% more speed down and 100% more speed up than I was getting for "free." 575mbits down and about 23mbits up for $100/month.

Not great, but not horrible either. A couple of years ago it was 100mbits down and maybe 6mbits up on a good day for the same fee. I live out in the countryside and am relatively "lucky" to have a cable provider. People not far away are stuck with satellite or DSL service.

Best,

crooks

[groobly]

Crooks will be crooks. They will find other ways to deceive customers.