FCC Speed Test app reaches 30,000 downloads in first week, generates 40,000 collections of data

After being available for a week at the Google Play Store, the FCC's crowdsourced speed test app has been downloaded 30,000 times. No, that kind of response is not going to put the app on anyone's top ten list based on popularity. Some of those who worry about their personal data being stolen by the government are certainly not going to be interested in the app, but the truth is that it only measures cellular and Wi-Fi network speeds (both download and upload), latency speeds and packet loss data. Testing is limited to 100MB a month over each phone.

So far, after one week, the app has generated 40,000 collections of data. Of this total, 25,000 of those tests were generated when the app user set off the speed test, while the remaining 15,000 came from scheduled FCC testing. 23,000 of the tests were done over a 4G LTE network. All of the major carriers were represented in the results, with network data obtained and measured by the FCC in large and small towns.

Other information released by the FCC revealed that 22,000 tests were conducted on a cell network while 16,000 came from a cellular network. The FCC's goal with this app is to improve the mobile broadband performance available to Americans. Currently the app is available to Android users only, although a version for iOS is expected.


source: FCC via FierceWireless