ALEC Rock exposes the truth about how many of today’s bills are actually written and passed into law with the help of a shadowy, corporate-backed group known as the “American Legislative Exchange Council” (ALEC). Counted among its members are: AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter Communications, Comcast, FairPoint Communications, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon. ALEC works on elected members of state legislatures to deregulate phone and cable service, eliminate consumer protection/oversight laws, ban publicly-owned broadband networks, and let phone companies walk away from providing rural phone service at will.  (2 minutes)

If you were or remain a customer of Verizon Wireless under either their America’s Choice I or America’s Choice II plans (unavailable to new customers), a class action settlement benefit should be arriving in your mailbox this week.

In July 2005, a lawsuit was brought against Verizon Wireless alleging the company improperly assessed roaming charges on customers. Cowit et al. v. Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless was filed in Hamilton County, Ohio. In eventually became a nationwide class action case.

The two sides reached a settlement for all America’s Choice customers, one that considerably benefits the plaintiff’s lawyers. They will receive attorney’s fees, costs and incentive awards not to exceed $6 million dollars. The original complainant, Barry Koblenz, will receive a check in the mail from Verizon Wireless for the princely sum of $50. Koblenz can also apply for an “incentive award” not to exceed $10,000. Other Class Representatives can apply for their own awards not to exceed $20,000 each.

What do customers get? Not much:

• Customers who did not submit a valid claim to participate in the action by the fall of 2011 will receive 25 additional calling minutes good on any Verizon Wireless plan when you exceed your current calling allowance. The minutes expire in one year.
• Customers who submitted a valid claim will receive a transferable long distance calling “card” worth up to 40 minutes of domestic long distance calling (or around 13 minutes of international calling) valid for 24 months.
• All affected customers enrolled in an unlimited calling plan will receive the long distance calling “card” as described above.

The wireless industry is in transition. Increasing capacity also means decreasing the number of customers trying to share a traditional cell tower. The future will bring a combination of shorter-range cellular and Wi-Fi antennas that can sustain traffic loads much easier than overburdened traditional cell towers.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Policy and Technology’s recommendation that the growing demand for wireless spectrum be met by sharing frequencies with the federal government is getting a cold reception from the wireless industry.

AT&T, other wireless operators, and their lobbying trade association have been embarked on a fierce campaign in Washington to free up additional spectrum they can use to meet growing demands for wireless data. Unfortunately, clearing spectrum that can be re-purposed for wireless phone companies requires complicated, and often expensive frequency reassignments as existing users relocate elsewhere. With the federal government holding a large swath of spectrum for the use of a range of public safety, research, and military applications, the best source for new frequencies comes from Washington.

PCAST’s final 200-page report urges the Commerce Department prioritize locating 1000MHz of frequencies that could be re-purposed for private wireless communications. But the council also recommended that frequencies could be more quickly made available by asking wireless telecom companies to share them with existing users.

Today’s “exclusive use” licenses all too often are being underutilized and, in fact, are sometimes used as a valuable investment tool to buy, trade, or sell. Issuing exclusive licenses guarantees that no other players can use those frequencies. That is a valuable tool for wireless companies protecting their market share from potential competitors.

PCAST declared the concept of a “spectrum shortage” to be largely a myth:

Although there is a general perception of spectrum scarcity, most spectrum capacity is not used. An assigned primary user may occupy a band, preventing any other user from gaining access, yet consume only a fraction of the potential spectrum capacity. Unique among natural resources owned by the public, spectrum capacity is infinitely renewable from second to second—that is, any spectrum vacated by one user is immediately available for any other user.

Measurements of actual spectrum use show that less than 20 percent of the capacity of the prime spec­trum bands (below 3.7 GHz) is in use even in the most congested urban areas.

This spectrum inefficiency is not just a problem for the wireless industry, it also afflicts government use as well. But it is a problem that can be solved by modernizing spectrum allocation policy in the United States.

“Exclusive frequency assign­ments should not be interpreted as a reason to preclude other productive uses of spectrum capacity in areas or at times where the primary use is dormant or where underutilized capacity can be shared,” the report concludes.

If implemented, the wireless industry could begin accessing hundreds of megahertz of new spectrum, with the understanding there may be other users sharing certain frequencies in different areas at different times. For example, AT&T could use spectrum assigned to forest rangers in federal parks for wireless data in Manhattan or other urban areas, where neither user will create interference for the other. Verizon could use spectrum allocated for naval communications at seaside ports in land-locked Nebraska, Utah, Kansas, or West Virginia.

The proposal identifies these frequency bands as ideal for shared use between private and government users.

As technology progresses, shared spectrum users will easily afford equipment that dynamically locates open frequencies for communications with little or no interference even if two users are located right next door to each other.

The benefits to taxpayers, governmental users, and private industry are notable:

1. The cost to relocate existing government users to other bands is prohibitively time-consuming, complicated, and expensive. Taxpayers often foot the bill for the frequency changes;
2. Government use of spectrum is not particularly efficient either. Identifying under-utilized spectrum for shared-use can bring pressure to government users to consolidate operations and increase operating efficiency;
3. Private industry gets much faster access to new spectrum, which suddenly becomes plentiful and potentially affordable for new entrants in the wireless marketplace.

Despite the benefits, the wireless industry had a frosty reception to the new report:

Joan Marsh, AT&T Vice President of Federal Regulatory:

“While we are still reviewing the PCAST report, we are encouraged by the sustained interest in exploring ways to free up underutilized government spectrum for mobile Internet use.  However, we are concerned with the report’s primary conclusion that ‘the norm for spectrum use should be sharing, not exclusivity.’  The report fails to recognize the benefits of exclusive use licenses, which are well known.  Those licenses enabled the creation of the mobile Internet and all of the ensuing innovation, investment and job creation that followed.

“While we should be considering all options to meet the country’s spectrum goals, including the sharing of federal spectrum with government users, it is imperative that we clear and reallocate government spectrum where practical.  We fully support the NTIA effort of determining which government bands can be cleared for commercial use, and we look forward to continuing to work with NTIA and other stakeholders to make more spectrum available for American consumers and businesses.”

CTIA – The Wireless Association:

The CTIA is the wireless industry’s lobbying group

“We thank the Administration and PCAST for focusing on the need to make more efficient use of spectrum currently assigned to federal government users. As the PCAST report notes, it is sensible to investigate creative approaches for making federal government spectrum commercially available, including the development of certain sharing capabilities. At the same time, and as Congress recognized in the recently-passed spectrum legislation, the gold standard for deployment of ubiquitous mobile broadband networks remains cleared spectrum.

“Cleared spectrum and an exclusive-use approach has enabled the U.S. wireless industry to invest hundreds of billions of dollars, deploying world-leading mobile broadband networks and resulting in tremendous economic benefits for U.S. consumers and businesses. Not surprisingly, that is the very same approach that has been used by the countries that we compete with in the global marketplace, who have brought hundreds of megahertz of cleared spectrum to market in recent years.

“Policymakers on a bipartisan basis have grasped the importance of making more spectrum available to meet the growing demand for mobile Internet services, and this report highlights a range of forward-looking options, some of which are not yet commercially available, that may be considered to meet this important national goal. We look forward to continuing to work with the Administration, the FCC, NTIA, Congress and other interested parties to increase access to federal government spectrum and to continue to assist our nation in its economic recovery.”

Wireless carriers will continue to lobby Washington lawmakers to leave the current “exclusive use” spectrum policies in place, even if it delays opening up “badly-needed” spectrum for years.

In short, the major players in the wireless industry are hostile to the idea of losing exclusive-use spectrum. That comes as little surprise because shared spectrum cannot be controlled by the wireless industry. Spectrum squatting, where large phone companies or investment groups hang on to unused spectrum either to keep competitors out or as an investment tool until it eventually can be resold at a major profit, is a significant problem in the industry. Wall Street analysts routinely assign value to the spectrum holdings of wireless carriers, whether they are used or not. Since most spectrum is now sold to the industry at “highest bidder wins” auctions, only the largest players are frequently serious contenders. Auctioning off shared spectrum, if practical, will bring lower bids — but could potentially bring new bidders like start-up ventures that have some new ideas on how to use wireless frequencies to compete.

Therefore, it has been in the wireless industry’s best interests to keep the idea of sharing frequencies with other players out of the minds of Washington regulators and legislators. Their technical objections and claims that shared spectrum would somehow destroy innovation and investment ring hollow, and are weak deflections from the more obvious agenda: to maintain their status quo control of wireless frequencies, well-utilized or not.

AT&T and other wireless players will no doubt lobby their case to Washington politicians, many who will rush to the industry’s defense. The shadow argument most likely to be used to defend the current “exclusive use” auction system is the auction proceeds collected by the federal government. Billions have been raised from past auctions, and shared use frequencies would never net that level of return. But PCAST’s report exposes the rest of the story. The cost to reallocate existing users to other frequencies, hand out new radios, raise new antennas and purchase new transmitters is often so costly, the government’s net gain, post-auction, is likely to be minimal.

Abroad, many governments have already adopted shared use, discarding the focus on spectrum earnings and refocusing spectrum allocation on delivering the best bang for the buck — whether that dollar belongs to the consumer, the wireless industry, or the government.

Attempts by AT&T and others to kill PCAST’s recommendations should also be considered proof the industry’s dire claim of a spectrum shortage emergency is vastly overblown. In a true crisis, everyone makes compromises.  That does not appear to be the case here. Congress and regulators should receive that message loud and clear.

Nearly 100 Frontier employees may be visiting Idaho’s unemployment offices by September.

On the second anniversary of Frontier Communications assuming control of landline operations in Idaho formerly owned by Verizon Communications, Frontier has announced plans to close its Coeur d’Alene call center this summer, putting nearly half of Frontier’s workers in Idaho out of work.

“There’s nothing wrong with the employees or the work they’re doing. It’s more about efficiencies,” Frontier’s senior vice president Steve Crosby told CDA Press. “What we’re trying to do is work through efficiencies, consolidations, really moving people around, having work groups working closer together.”

Those hoping to remain with Frontier will need to move to another state and accept a large pay cut if they want to keep their jobs. Other Frontier call centers around the country will assume the responsibilities of the 100 Idaho-based employees who face termination by Sept. 18, including one opening near Myrtle Beach, S.C., that will pay substantially lower salaries.

The closure will reduce Frontier’s workforce in Idaho almost in half. Crosby said Frontier had roughly 260 employees in the state as of last week.

Two years ago, Frontier was telling Idaho a very different story about its takeover of Verizon landlines.

“I think we’ll have better service for customers,” David Haggerty, then a Verizon manager staying with Frontier, told the Bonner County Daily Bee. “Frontier brings with it a small-town mentality. It used to be you were able to pay bills in town and make human contact. That was taken away by Verizon.”

In 2010, Haggerty promised the transition would have no impact on former Verizon workers now heading to work at Frontier.

“We focus on putting the customer first,” said Frontier’s regional manager Vickie Bullard said. “That’s one of the 11 value statements we have at Frontier.”

Some of Frontier’s customers in Idaho wonder if Frontier’s “value statements” are also being downsized.

“I just switched from Frontier to Time Warner Cable for my Internet,” says Scott Mead. “Frontier started out great in the beginning, but shortly after went downhill as issue after issue started.”

Mead reports his calls to Frontier’s national 800 customer support number, which promises 100 percent of the company’s workers are American-based, often left him flummoxed dealing with foreign-accented employees with poor English language skills.

The last one out can turn off the lights.

Another Coeur d’Alene customer endured bad service from Frontier before finally leaving, with the phone company’s collection agency chasing him not far behind:

“As far as I’m concerned Frontier can take a long walk off a short pier. When they first took over from Verizon, from whom we had good service, they sent out a service guy to get us back online. He installed the wrong equipment so another serviceman came out and replaced the wrong one with a bigger, better, and faster wrong one. Over the next 6 weeks we were down all but 12 days and we heard one excuse after another with nothing getting resolved.

So a month later, after switching companies, not only did we get a bill from Frontier for the entire 6 weeks but they charged us for several wrong pieces of equipment. When we tried to resolve the issues they simply sent us to collection and refused to talk. Se we ended up paying for over 4 weeks of service they did not provide and for 4 Internet boxes that the servicemen could not get to work.

I can only hope that Frontier has an office at the bottom of a honey bucket at a chili feed. Flippin crooks.”

One former Verizon/Frontier employee suggests the “efficiencies” Crosby is concerned with is paying call center workers less, and offering fewer benefits:

“Frontier closed a center in Elk Grove, Calif. back in June leaving 50+ people unemployed there,” he writes. “When Verizon sold their landlines and DSL to Frontier back in 2009 they only guaranteed the acquired employees jobs for two years. July 1, 2012 was the second anniversary of that acquisition. This does not surprise me at all. The leadership of both Verizon and Frontier is like any other large corporation. Bottom line is the new call center in South Carolina is cheaper to operate. Why pay people over 50K (this is including 401k, stock & medical benefits) when you can pay half that in a center that has no union.”

Another Idaho employee is bitter about the extra work Frontier employees managed for the company during its great billing and systems transition away from Verizon.

“We will be out of a job, after working massive amounts of overtime to transition this company to get them through the largest conversion in telecommunications history,” the worker shared. “They needed us to get them through it and now they don’t.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WMBF Myrtle Beach New Frontier Call Center 5-11-12.mp4[/flv]

Race to the bottom. Frontier Communications closes an “unneeded” 100-worker call center in Idaho that reportedly paid workers over $50,000 a year in salary and benefits while announcing a new, “much-needed” call center with 110 workers near Myrtle Beach, S.C. that will pay workers only $30,000 a year. WMBF in Myrtle Beach calls the new South Carolina call center a “success” for Horry County’s efforts to recruit new business to the area. Frontier applauded South Carolina’s “excellent business environment.” But that success comes at a cost to other workers in other states.  (2 minutes)

The Federal Communications Commission’s July report on America’s broadband speeds shows virtually every major national provider, with the exception of Frontier Communications, made significant improvements in delivering the broadband service and speeds they advertise to customers.

Utilizing thousands of volunteer testers agreeing to host a router that performs automated speed tests and other sampling measurements (full disclosure: your editor is a volunteer participant), the FCC speed measurement program is one of the most comprehensive independent broadband assessments in the country.

Hourly Sustained Download Speeds as a Percentage of Advertised, by Provider—April 2012 Test Data

The FCC found Cablevision’s improvements last year paid off handsomely for the company, which now effectively ties with Verizon Communication’s FiOS fiber-to-the-home service for delivering promised speeds during peak usage times. The cable operator was embarrassed in 2011 when the FCC found Cablevision broadband customers’ speeds plummeted during Internet use prime time. Those problems have since been corrected with infrastructure upgrades — particularly important for a cable operator that features near-ubiquitous competition from Verizon’s fiber network.

“This report demonstrates our commitment to delivering more than 100 percent of the speeds we advertise to our broadband customers – over the entire day and during peak hours – in addition to free access to the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network and other valuable product features and enhancements,” said Amalia O’Sullivan, Cablevision’s vice president of broadband operations.

Verizon also blew its own horn in a press statement released this afternoon.

“Verizon’s FiOS service continues to demonstrate its mastery of broadband speed, reliability and consistency for consumers as represented in today’s FCC-SamKnows residential broadband report,” said Mike Ritter, chief marketing officer for Verizon’s consumer and mass market business unit. “The FCC’s findings reaffirm the results from the 2011 report, which found that FiOS provides blazing-fast and sustained upstream and downstream speeds even during peak usage periods. This year’s results also show once again that FiOS Internet customers are receiving speeds that meet or exceed those we advertise, adding even more value to the customer experience.”

Average Peak Period Sustained Download and Upload Speeds as a Percentage of Advertised, by Provider—April 2012 Test Data

Cable operators’ investments in DOCSIS 3 technology also allowed their broadband networks to perform well even as broadband usage continues to grow. Comcast delivered 103% of promised speeds during peak usage, Time Warner Cable – 96%, and Cox – 95%.

Just one nationwide provider lost ground in the last year — Frontier Communications, whose DSL service has grown more congested than ever, with insufficient investment in network upgrades apparent by the company’s dead-last results.

Frontier managed 81% of promised speeds in 2011, partly thanks to its inherited fiber to the home network. This year, it managed only 79%.

Frontier performed adequately for customers choosing its lowest 1Mbps speed tier. It also performed well in areas where its fiber network can sustain much faster speeds. The biggest problems show up for Frontier’s DSL customers buying service at speeds of 3-10Mbps. At peak times, network congestion brings those speeds down.

On average, the FCC found fiber to the home service delivers the best broadband performance, followed by cable broadband, and then telephone company DSL. Five ISPs now routinely deliver nearly one hundred percent or greater of the speed advertised to the consumer even during time periods when bandwidth demand is at its peak. In the August 2011 Report, only two ISPs met this level of performance. In 2011, the average ISP delivered 87 percent of advertised download speed during peak usage periods; in 2012, that jumped to 96 percent. In other words, consumers today are experiencing performance more closely aligned with what is advertised than they experienced one year ago.

The FCC report also found that outlier performers in the 2011 study, with the exception of Frontier, worked hard to make their differences in performance disappear. Last year, the standard deviation from promised broadband speeds was 14.4 percent. This year it is 12.2 percent.

Peak Period Sustained Download Performance, by Provider—April 2012 Test Data

The FCC also found consumers are gravitating towards higher-priced, higher-speed broadband service. Last year’s average broadband speed tier was 11.1Mbps. This year it is 14.3Mbps, almost 30% higher. Along with faster speeds comes more usage. Customers paying for more speed expect to use their broadband connections more, and the FCC found they do.

Overall, the FCC was encouraged to see broadband speed tiers on the increase, some to 100Mbps or higher.

Highlights from the report:

• Actual versus advertised speeds. The August 2011 Report showed that the ISPs included in the Report were, on average, delivering 87 percent of advertised speeds during the peak consumer usage hours of weekdays from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm local time. The July 2012 Report finds that ISP performance has improved overall, with ISPs delivering on average 96 percent of advertised speeds during peak intervals, and with five ISPs routinely meeting or exceeding advertised rates.
• Sustained download speeds as a percentage of advertised speeds. The average actual sustained download speed during the peak period was calculated as a percentage of the ISP’s advertised speed. This calculation was done for each speed tier offered by each ISP.
  • Results by technology:
    • On average, during peak periods DSL-based services delivered download speeds that were 84 percent of advertised speeds, cable-based services delivered 99 percent of advertised speeds, and fiber-to-the-home services delivered 117 percent of advertised speeds. This compared with 2011 results showing performance levels of 82 percent for DSL, 93 percent for cable, and 114 percent for fiber. All technologies improved in 2012.
    • Peak period speeds decreased from 24-hour average speeds by 0.8 percent for fiber-to-the-home services, 3.4 percent for DSL-based services and 4.1 percent for cable-based services. This compared with 0.4 percent for fiber services, 5.5 percent for DSL services and 7.3 percent for cable services in 2011.
  • Results by ISP:
    • Average peak period download speeds varied from a high of 120 percent of advertised speed to a low of 77 percent of advertised speed. This is a dramatic improvement from last year where these numbers ranged from a high of 114 percent to a low of 54 percent.
    • In 2011, on average, ISPs had a 6 percent decrease in delivered versus advertised download speed between their 24 hour average and their peak period average. In 2012, average performance improved, and there was only a 3 percent decrease in performance between 24 hour and peak averages.
• Sustained upload speeds as a percentage of advertised speeds. With the exception of one provider, upload speeds during peak periods were 95 percent or better of advertised speeds. On average, across all ISPs, upload speed was 107 percent of advertised speed. While this represents improvement over the 103 percent measured for 2011, upload speeds have not been a limiting factor in performance and most ISPs last year met or exceeded their advertised upload speeds. Upload speeds showed little evidence of congestion with little variance between 24 hour averages and peak period averages.
  • Results by technology: On average, fiber-to-the-home services delivered 106 percent, DSL-based services delivered 103 percent, and cable-based services delivered 110 percent of advertised upload speeds. These compare with figures from 2011 of 112 percent for fiber, 95 percent for DSL, and 108 percent for cable.
  • Results by ISP: Average upload speeds among ISPs ranged from a low of 91 percent of advertised speed to a high of 122 percent of advertised speed. In 2011, this range was from a low of 85 percent to a high of 125 percent.
• Latency. Latency is the time it takes for a packet of data to travel from one designated point to another in a network, commonly expressed in terms of milliseconds (ms). Latency can be a major controlling factor in overall performance of Internet services. In our tests, latency is defined as the round-trip time from the consumer’s home to the closest server used for speed measurement within the provider’s network. We were not surprised to find latency largely unchanged from last year, as it primarily depends upon factors intrinsic to a specific architecture and is largely outside the scope of improvement if networks are appropriately engineered. In 2012, across all technologies, latency averaged 31 milliseconds (ms), as opposed to 33 ms measured in 2011.
  • During peak periods, latency increased across all technologies by 6.5 percent, which represents a modest drop in performance. In 2011 this figure was 8.7 percent.
    • Results by technology:
      • Latency was lowest in fiber-to-the-home services, and this finding was true across all fiber-to-the-home speed tiers.
      • Fiber-to-the-home services provided 18 ms round-trip latency on average, while cable-based services averaged 26 ms, and DSL-based services averaged 43 ms. This compares to 2011 figures of 17 ms for fiber, 28 ms for cable and 44 ms for DSL.
    • Results by ISP: The highest average round-trip latency for an individual service tier among ISPs was 70.2 ms, while the lowest average latency within a single service tier was 12.6 ms. This compares to last year’s maximum latency of 74.8 ms and minimum of 14.5 ms.
• Effect of burst speed techniques. Some cable-based services offer burst speed techniques, marketed under names such as “PowerBoost,” which temporarily allocate more bandwidth to a consumer’s service. The effect of burst speed techniques is temporary—it usually lasts less than 15 to 20 seconds—and may be reduced by other broadband activities occurring within the consumer household. Burst speed is not equivalent to sustained speed. Sustained speed is a measure of long-term performance. Activities such as large file transfers, video streaming, and video chat require the transfer of large amounts of information over long periods of time. Sustained speed is a better measure of how well such activities may be supported. However, other activities such as web browsing or gaming often require the transfer of moderate amounts of information in a short interval of time. For example, a transfer of a web page typically begins with a consumer clicking on the page reference and ceases when the page is fully downloaded. Such services may benefit from burst speed techniques, which for a period of seconds will increase the transfer speed. The actual effect of burst speed depends on a number of factors explained more fully below.
  • Burst speed techniques increased short-term download performance by as much as 112 percent during peak periods for some speed tiers. The benefits of burst techniques are most evident at intermediate speeds of around 8 to 15 Mbps and appear to tail off at much higher speeds. This compares to 2011 results with maximum performance increases of approximately 50 percent at rates of 6 to 7 Mbps with tail offs in performance beyond this.
• Web Browsing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and Streaming Video.
  • Web browsing. In specific tests designed to mimic basic web browsing—accessing a series of web pages, but not streaming video or using video chat sites or applications—the total time needed to load a page decreased with higher speeds, but only up to about 10 Mbps. Latency and other factors limited response time starting around speed tiers of 10 Mbps and higher. For these high speed tiers, consumers are unlikely to experience much if any improvement in basic web browsing from increased speed–i.e., moving from a 10 Mbps broadband offering to a 25 Mbps offering. This is comparable to results obtained in 2011 and suggests intrinsic factors (e.g. effects of latency, protocol limitations) limit overall performance at higher speeds. It should be noted that this is from the perspective of a single user with a browser and that higher speeds may provide significant advantages in a multi-user household or where a consumer is using a specific application that may be able to benefit from a higher speed tier.
  • VoIP. VoIP services, which can be used with a data rate as low as 100 kilobits per second (kbps) but require relatively low latency, were adequately supported by all of the service tiers discussed in this Report. However, VoIP quality may suffer during times when household bandwidth is shared by other services. The VoIP measurements utilized for this Report were not designed to detect such effects.
  • Streaming Video. 2012 test results suggest that video streaming will work across all technologies tested, though the quality of the video that can be streamed will depend upon the speed tier. For example, standard definition video is currently commonly transmitted at speeds from 1 Mbps to 2 Mbps. High quality video can demand faster speeds, with full HD (1080p) demanding 5 Mbps or more for a single stream. Consumers should understand the requirements of the streaming video they want to use and ensure that their chosen broadband service tier will meet those requirements, including when multiple members of a household simultaneously want to watch streaming video on separate devices. For the future, video content delivery companies are researching ultra high definition video services (e.g. 4K technology which has a resolution of 12 Megapixels per frame versus present day 1080p High Definition television with a 2 Megapixel resolution), which would require higher transmission speeds.

Year by Year Comparison of Sustained Actual Download Speed as a Percentage of Advertised Speed (2011/2012)