Starting Wednesday, the Federal Communications Commissions nutrition labels weve been promised for years are now fully enforced.
Every ISP with 100,000 or more customers must document everything that goes into users monthly service bills.
So what does this mean for you, dear reader?
The FCC has said that 100 Mbps download speed is the new standard for what’s considered broadband ‘high speed’ internet.Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto (Getty Images)
Well, it means its time to go back to Excel class and re-learn how to read some spreadsheets.
The nutrition labels are relatively straightforward but are also a bit too much like reading a grocery receipt.
The FCC provides itsown guideon reading these labels and what each section means.
This is a sample nutrition label meant to show what you’ll see when shopping for internet plans.Image: FCC
The most important parts of the puzzle are the price and the speeds provided.
These will help you determine whether or not the service youre looking at is actually worth it.
The Monthly Price is what you would be paying each month after the first.
Next, youll want to look at the Speeds Provided with Plan section.
This will show your plans download and upload speeds, typically in megabits per second or Mbps.
Depending on the jot down of plan, you could include minimum data usage in the monthly plan.
In the same vein, you should also check to see how the company might manage your data.
However, perhaps the most important for consumers is the links provided under the Discounts & Bundles section.
Of course, we cant all have nice things.
What is a High Speed Download or Upload Speed?
You should also look at the latency.
Normally, youll see a range of around 20 to 60 ms.
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