FCC Speed Test App Released On Apple iPhone To Measure Mobile Broadband Connections

While the U.S. continues to debate the merits of net neutrality, the Federal Communications Commission announced its expansion of its speed test tool, which aims to deliver a clearer picture of the state of America’s high-speed mobile broadband.

As part of its Measuring Broadband America initiative, the FCC announced its expansion of the FCC Speed Test program to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS devices via the App Store.

In November, the FCC launched the FCC Speed Test app on Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android devices via the Google Play Store to gather data on U.S. mobile broadband connections.

The tool measures several characteristics of mobile broadband performance over cellular data and Wi-Fi, including upload and download speed, latency, packet loss, performance, type of handset and OS versions and other “passive” characteristics as part of the data-gathering process.

According to the FCC, its Speed Test app gathers the data on an anonymous basis. While the source code of the Apple iOS version is not currently available online, the FCC did provide source code for the original Android app on GitHub for those curious about its inner workings.

For those concerned about mobile bandwidth plan caps, the FCC Speed Test app is by default configured to use a maximum of 100 MB of data per month. Users can lower or raise the limit via the FCC Speed Test settings.

While the FCC Speed Test is designed to run passively and in the background to test mobile broadband connections, users will also be able run the app’s tests manually as well.

The FCC Speed Test is part of the Measuring Broadband America initiative, which was born out of recommendations from the National Broadband Plan that also addresses issues such as competition, innovation and other subjects related to improving the state of broadband in the United States.

Download the FCC Speed Test app from the App Store here.