Six years after we saw the FCC formally propose “nutrition labels” for your carrier’s potentially confusing array of plans, the agency says it’s finally happening. This week, it’s ordering US internet service providers to adopt the label format you’re looking at below — or it will, as soon as some last bureaucratic elements get worked out.
They’ve changed a bit since 2016 — now, each plan will apparently have its own label rather than ISPs trying to cram all of them into a single sheet, they don’t warn you about coverage, and apparently, ISPs will be able to point you to their network management policy legalese instead of having to ding themselves for throttling data or giving some apps a fast lane. They won’t have to report packet loss, either, it seems.
Thankfully, ISPs will still need to report their typical speeds and latency, not just reiterate their advertised speed. Hopefully, someone will audit that.