National Broadband Maps Must Be in Vogue, Actual Speeds Are Not

This week Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industry, launched a Fixed Broadband Map. The map displays a 1-5 ranking for 5 different metrics: overall performance, average broadband take up, percentage of users receiving less than 2 Megabits per second (Mbps), super-fast broadband (speeds over 24 Mbps) availability and average modem sync speed. This map is part of Ofcom's “ongoing work to provide useful information about broadband in the UK,” and while Ofcom notes that they intend to release a more detailed map later this year, the lack of actual speeds in the current map misses the mark of “useful information.”

Ofcom includes “average modem sync speed,” defined as "[t]he average maximum speeds of the existing broadband connections" (emphasis mine) rather than more useful data such as actual speed. In the accompanying report Ofcom writes that the goal was to chart the capability of the infrastructure while noting: "The actual average speeds experienced by consumers when using the Internet will typically be slightly lower due to factors such as traffic congestion." Slightly might be the wrong word choice to frame the issue considering Ofcom has repeatedly found, most recently in March, that the "[a]verage broadband speed is still less than half advertised speed."

The lack of actual speeds also skews the mapping of areas receiving less than 2 Mbps. Ofcom’s methodology is to map the modem sync speeds of 2.2 Mbps to account for a “10% overhead on the connection,” i.e. the lower actual speeds realized by the user. However this threshold is likely too low considering the gap between advertised and average is 50%. Mapping the “maximum rate at which data is transferred from the ISP to the end users across their broadband connection,” even with this 10% bump in the threshold, is likely understating the percentage of sub 2 Mbps connections, and therefore the number of users who would need to wait three or more seconds to download a website as uncluttered as the International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) website, by ITU estimates, or even Ofcom’s website.

This is not the first time the Open Technology Initiative has noted the need for actual speeds in a National Broadband Map. In May Benjamin Lennett and Sascha Meinrath wrote Map to Nowhere in Slate noting the need for actual speeds in the U.S. National Broadband Map. Ofcom is releasing more data later this year but unless actual speeds are included the usefulness of the updated map will suffer.