Most Americans don't know home broadband speed: survey

Eighty percent of Americans do not know the speed of their home Internet broadband connection, but most are satisfied with its performance, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

The survey, conducted for the US Federal Communications Commission, which is seeking to bring high-speed Internet to the entire United States, found that 71 percent of men and 90 percent of women do not know their home broadband speed.

Younger broadband users tend to be slightly more aware of their connection speed than older users, the survey found.

Seventy-three percent of those surveyed between the ages of 18 and 29 years old did not know their home broadband download speed compared with 87 percent of those between the ages of 50 and 64 years old.

Fifty percent of those surveyed said they were "very satisfied" with their home connection speed while 41 percent said they were "somewhat satisfied."

While few broadband users can identify their connection speed, 71 percent said they believe it is as fast as the provider promises most of the time.

Twenty-four percent said they "always" receive the promised speed while 47 percent said they receive the promised speed "most of the time."

Eighty-three percent of the adults surveyed said they have a cellphone and 33 percent said they were "very satisfied" with the speed of Internet access on the device. Thirty-eight percent said they were "somewhat satisfied."

Fifty-nine percent said they are "very satisfied" with their overall cellphone service and 33 percent are "somewhat satisfied."

The survey of 3,005 American adults was conducted April 19 to May 2 and has a margin of error of up to plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

The FCC's National Broadband Plan sets a 10-year goal of connecting 100 million US households to affordable 100-megabits-per-second Internet service, 25 times faster than the current national average.

(c) 2010 AFP