Are you getting the mobile broadband speeds your provider advertises for its whiz-bang 4G network? How do you know which carrier really delivers?

The Federal Communications Commission is hoping you can help them find out with a free Android app to be unveiled on Thursday.

The FCC has successfully used volunteer crowdsourcing before to keep wired Internet Service Providers honest through its “TestMyISP” speed measurement project for home broadband connections. When the first results were announced, an embarrassingly bad rating for Cablevision forced the cable company to quickly beef up its broadband infrastructure to match the speeds it promised customers.

Now the FCC’s new chairman Tom Wheeler hopes a similar effort will help the federal agency understand whether the promises wireless carriers make to customers are actually being kept.

With wireless broadband gaining in prominence, the FCC wants to do a better job monitoring a service most Americans use in some form while on-the-go. If providers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless are caught dramatically underperforming in coverage and speed, the agency may take that into account as part of its mission of regulatory oversight.

Consumers will also benefit from having an unbiased source that can offer regular analyses on the speed and performance of each carrier — useful information to have before being locked into a two-year contract.

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint are among the carriers agreeing to take part in the speed test project.

The FCC Speed Test app will initially be available for Android smartphones. There are no details about the release date of an Apple iOS version of the app, but the FCC’s Mobile Broadband Speed Test home page shows links (not yet active) for both versions of the app.

Set-top box-less Time Warner Cable subscribers in parts of New York City will find more than 90 percent of the basic cable lineup missing from their QAM-equipped televisions as the cable company completes a transition away from analog cable television and begins encrypting almost all its digital channels.

The Federal Communications Commission changed the rules last year allowing large cable operators to begin encrypting basic cable, requiring customers to rent cable boxes or CableCARD units to keep watching.

Time Warner Cable began the all-digital, encrypted channel conversion earlier this year in Mount Vernon, Staten Island and Bergen County, N.J., and is now switching on encryption in the New York City region on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.

The switch renders televisions useless for receiving cable channels without extra equipment supplied by Time Warner Cable. Encryption is deployed as an anti-theft measure, but it also inconveniences customers who have to rent equipment for each of their televisions. Encrypting basic channels also benefits Time Warner Cable by allowing service authorizations and disconnects to be handed from the office, reducing in-home appointments.

Customers will need a traditional set-top box, a Digital Transport Adapter (DTA), or a CableCARD to get the channels back. DTA boxes are being provided at no charge until 2015, after which they will cost $0.99 a month each.

Some customers also complain Time Warner is testing “copy protection” permissions, preventing some channels from being recorded. In Queens, one customer noted copy protection was active on C-SPAN, preventing recordings of the network. Some programmers may insist on copy protection technology being implemented as part of future cable carriage contracts. Most expect pay-per-view and on-demand events will be the first blocked from recording, potentially followed by premium movie channels.

At this time, Time Warner Cable says its encryption initiative is limited to the New York City area.

Wheeler

Incoming Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler believes competition can be a more effective regulator of telecom industry practices and pricing than “micromanaging” the companies selling service.

“The first goal ought to be to make sure there is effective competition,” Wheeler told the Wall Street Journal in an interview Wednesday. “But I also know competition isn’t something that happens all by itself. We very much have a responsibility to make sure that there is access, at reasonable prices, to competitive broadband services. The way you do that is go back to competition.”

But Wheeler refused to share his views on whether Americans now enjoy his definition of “effective competition” from a wireless industry dominated by AT&T and Verizon and wired broadband service available from only one cable and telephone company in most communities.

“The reason why the U.S. is the world leader on the Internet is because we have the home-field advantage,” Wheeler said. “We want to keep that home-field advantage. One of the ways to do that is to keep the environment competitive, so it’s not the regulators determining what companies do.”

But the United States is not a broadband leader in speed, price, or penetration according to the OECD.

Wheeler seems reluctant to intervene in the market unless he is convinced competition is lacking. As a former lobbyist for the same companies he is now tasked with overseeing, a key test will be if Wheeler adopts the industry view that broadband is already a fiercely competitive and highly regulated business, or the one held by many consumer groups that a consolidated telecommunications marketplace retards competition, leading to higher prices and more restrictive service.

In an article posted on the FCC website, Wheeler described the philosophy governing his chairmanship of the FCC:

During my confirmation hearing I described myself as “an unabashed supporter of competition because competitive markets produce better outcomes than regulated or uncompetitive markets.” Yet we all know that competition does not always flourish by itself; it must be supported and protected if its benefits are to be enjoyed. This agency is a pro-competition agency.

We stand for the things that are important regardless of the network technology being used:

• To promote economic growth – technological innovation, growth and national economic leadership have always been determined by our networks; competition drives the benefits of those networks; and we have a responsibility to see to the expansion of those networks, including the appropriate allocation of adequate amounts of spectrum.
• To maintain the historic compact between networks and users – a change in technology may occasion a review of the rules, but it does not change the rights of users or the responsibilities of networks.
• To make networks work for everyone – it isn’t just that we expand high-speed Internet, but what we will be doing with that capacity. How networks enable a 21st century educational system, enable the expansion of capabilities for Americans with disabilities; and assure diversity, localism and speech are basic underpinnings of our responsibility.

One surprising appointment announced by Wheeler was Public Knowledge’s Gigi Sohn, who will become special counsel for external affairs. Sohn has been a frequent critic of the FCC and its former chairman, Julius Genachowski. She is also a strong advocate of Net Neutrality.

Powell: Who cares?

As America continues to face further declines in its broadband speed ranking, reporters looking for answers to how the cable industry plans to do better got a direct answer this week from Michael Powell, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and current president and CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), the country’s largest cable lobbying trade group.

Question: Can you respond to studies that have found the United States trailing many countries in terms of the speeds of Internet services offered to consumers?

Powell’s answer: “I live in the United States of America. It doesn’t matter to me what they’re doing in Lithuania.”

Cruz Control

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has blocked the Senate from voting to confirm Tom Wheeler, the Obama Administration’s pick for the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Cruz, a Tea Party favorite, does not object to Wheeler’s credentials. He’s upset Wheeler might support a regulatory implementation of portions of the Disclose Act, a bill requiring full disclosure of who pays for political advertising. The bill would require corporations, super PACs, astroturf groups and other special interests to report to the Federal Election Commission when they spend more than $10,000 on airtime for campaign ads.

Cruz and several other Republican senators wrote the FCC in April to warn the bill violates corporate First Amendment speech rights and was unconstitutional.

With no chance the legislation will pass a Republican-controlled House and deadlocked Senate, the bill’s supporters have turned to the FCC with the idea the agency could act independently to require campaign ad disclosures, a suggestion that infuriated conservative Republicans who disapprove of any enhanced oversight powers for the regulator.

Cruz placed a formal hold on Wheeler’s nomination last week as the Senate prepared to vote an end to the 16-day federal government shutdown.

A spokesman from Cruz’s office made it clear as long as Wheeler continued to vacillate on a commitment not to regulate campaign ads, he will not get an up or down vote on his nomination in the Senate.

Observers suggest Cruz’s hold will stall spectrum auctions and, if extended beyond the fall, could eventually freeze Internet expansion programs for schools and libraries.

Acting FCC chairwoman Mignon Clyburn will continue in that role until Wheeler gets confirmed or another appointee is nominated and approved.