Free FCC Speed Test App for Android & iPhone is an Excellent Utility

Excellent app find in the digiphile blog…

FCC goes mobile, launches iPhone, Android apps for crowdsourced broadband speed testing

I downloaded and installed the free FCC app from the Android Market to my Droid. I also found it in the iTunes App Store…

FCC Broadband Test 1.0.0

and installed it on my iPhone 3G. You can the results from that test in the screenshot above. And, yes, you are seeing a download speed of 0.33 Mbps (330 Kbps) with a 3066 millisecond (more than 3 full seconds!) latency. I had to walk a bit to stand in a spot that actually had 3G service. So, this is far better than the “No Service” status that was showing before I took a little walk.

Both the Android and iPhone versions of the FCC speed test app has worked fine so far. It is far easier to use that the web-based speed tests I often use to get similar results on a variety of platforms. I hope the FCC provides versions of this app for other mobile platforms soon. Be sure to try it in a couple of different areas around where you live and work to get a better idea of the variation of service you may encounter.

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