“Averages don’t always reveal the most telling realities. You know , Shaquille O’Neal and I have an average height of 6 feet.” – former U.S. Labor Secretary, Robert Reich.

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We continue to get new data that helps spell out the state of broadband in America, but sometimes we have to sift through the numbers to see what’s actually being captured.

While some coverage of this week’s FCC Report on Broadband Internet Access Services seems to have opted for a glass half-empty approach, (“more than two-thirds (68%) of… U.S. broadband connections tracked were too slow… to technically qualify as high-speed service”), there’s a decidedly different story if you look more closely at the numbers.

First, the report focuses on what broadband speeds consumers elect to purchase, not on availability. Second, the Report includes all available means to connect to the Internet – including wireless and DSL – in addition to fiber and cable broadband deployments.

Cable broadband is available to 93% of U.S. households, offering speeds of 5 Mbps or faster to more than 90% of U.S. households. With continued investment in the rollout of ultra-fast access built on DOCSIS 3.0, the future will only get brighter for those consumers with the need for speed. A report earlier this year forecast that D3 would reach approximately 92% of homes by 2013.

The Report’s findings do mean that many consumers have higher speeds available to them but are opting to subscribe to lower speed tiers. In part, this is just a reflection of the choices that are available. While cable is busy deploying faster speeds, we offer multiple options. Some people elect to connect to the Internet through their mobile devices. Others to want to save money by opting for slower connections. It’s important to make sure that consumers can select the scenario that works best for their needs.

As we all work together to promote broadband adoption and to expand the reach and capabilities of next-generation broadband networks, it’s good to get beyond the averages of the marketplace and take stock of some of the good news.

I was pleased to run across a new FCC survey which focuses on commercial broadband service, indicating that the vast majority of respondents are happy with their connection. However, I didn’t see any coverage of these results.

I keep thinking about a post I wrote five months ago, in which I marvel that some people never seem to be satisfied, no matter how much broadband improves or the proliferation of connected devices continues to grow. Any good news about broadband doesn’t seem to get the traction of the not-so-good.

In June, we highlighted an FCC survey entitled “Americans’ perspectives on online connection speeds for home and mobile devices.” That study found that 91% of home broadband users report being satisfied with the speed of their service. Those results were echoed by a report from Leichtman Research Group that came out that same month. Leichtman found that “71% of US broadband Internet subscribers are very satisfied with their current Internet service at home.”

Now, a new post on the FCC’s Blogband blog offers the results of a new survey which focuses on commercial broadband service.  In talking to managers, owners or IT directors at businesses with 5 or more employees, the survey determined that nearly all businesses report having at least one broadband Internet connection.

When looking at attitudes towards broadband service suppliers, 95% of businesses report being very or somewhat satisfied with their current service. In addition, 85% of businesses were not planning to upgrade their service in the next 12 months, citing the adequacy of their current connection.

Of course, this is only the beginning. The cable industry continues to improve the speed and quality of its broadband service and we all need to do more to promote broadband adoption by the general population. But we should also step back on occasion to remind ourselves of the amazing success story that broadband has already become.  The FCC’s latest survey is a nice opportunity to do just that.

I know, moment’s over – back to work.

Yesterday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski  delivered remarks about proposed FCC rules to preserve an open Internet; the rules will be voted on at the FCC’s next meeting on December 21.

As I indicated in a statement regarding Chairman Genachowski’s proposal, we are pleased with much of what the Commission will be considering.  One particular aspect of his remarks, however, is worth highlighting.

Chairman Genachowski  noted:

Our work has also demonstrated the importance of business innovation to promote network investment and efficient use of networks, including measures to match price to cost such as usage-based pricing.

This approach reflects a responsible and considered view of a fast-moving and highly dynamic marketplace but it doesn’t assume that there is any one “correct” answer.  I made a similar point last year in an interview conducted by Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson:

…Internet pricing models are now on everyone’s collective mind. Is metered and/or capped Internet the future?

McSlarrow doesn’t defend any model; he’s not even partial to metering, having happily lived under flat-rate plans himself for many years. He also won’t defend particular business plans, like those advanced by Time Warner Cable. But what he will defend is cable’s right to experiment.

“I’ve lived under a flat rate plan,” he said, “but I don’t assume… that’s it’s necessarily impossible to believe that you could have a different model in the future.”

That means experimentation, and lots of it, done in the most transparent way, with full input from consumers. Without even doing the tests, McSlarrow says there’s simply no way to know whether certain business models will work better than others.

I also wrote on this very blog:

None of us knows with certainty what works best for consumers. As broadband providers, we face daunting and ever-changing challenges in ensuring that we do our level best to provide consumers with what they want, when they want it. But our goal has been, is, and will be to communicate with our customers in an open and transparent manner; to try new models that can be used to attract new broadband users and more equitably spread costs among high and low volume users, and – at the end of the day – to let the consumer make the ultimate choice of whether new models survive and thrive or are thrown into the dustbin of history.

Even though the cable industry first rolled out high-speed Internet access in the mid 1990s, this is still a relatively young business.  While 70 million Americans now subscribe, broadband adoption continues to be a key challenge.

Some consumers don’t see the need to go online.  Others are constrained by cost.  Still others want to use the service they have in cutting-edge ways.  And the ability to pigeonhole companies and their business plans as being one thing or another is breaking down, particularly in an environment where Internet applications, content, and services change the way we behave as consumers, provide new opportunities for providers and consumers and alter how we all interact with both traditional and new devices and features.

The key point is that that we need to focus on what best serves consumers.  With all this change, it is necessary to have the flexibility to test new business models – and perhaps new pricing plans – in order to see if they make sense.

A usage-based pricing model, for instance, might help spur adoption by price-sensitive consumers at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder.  As Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett noted in a report issued yesterday, “{u}sage-based pricing for broadband would have profound implications.  At the low end, it would allow cable operators to introduce lower priced tiers that could boost penetration and help in efforts to serve lower income consumers.”

As I’ve said before, I’m not arguing for or against any particular model.  All I’m really confident about is that the marketplace is changing and that companies will have to adapt to that change.  Chairman Genachowski should be commended for recognizing the close connection between driving network investment and efficiency, providing consumers more choices, and permitting broadband providers to experiment with different business and pricing models.

Earlier this month, Ookla, the company responsible for Speedtest.net (one of the two online speed tests available on the FCC’s website Broadband.gov), started publishing a “Household Promise Index” that is designed to measure the gap between actual and advertised “up to” broadband speeds.  The results?  On average, Ookla reports that U.S. consumers are receiving roughly 93% of the advertised speeds on the tiers to which they subscribe.  And in many regions, that figure exceeds 100% – i.e., customers are getting faster speeds than the “up to” speeds they’ve signed up for.  The Ookla data may help explain why a recent FCC survey found that over 90% of consumers are happy with the broadband speeds they’re receiving.

That sounds like pretty good news – networks are performing by and large as they should and, as a result, consumers are happy.  It certainly is welcome (although not surprising) news to NCTA’s members – and should be to policymakers as well.  With the FCC and others devoting significant attention to promoting broadband adoption, data that demonstrates the fundamental value proposition of broadband should be tremendously helpful in overcoming the reluctance that some Americans continue to feel about signing up for broadband service.

The new Ookla data provides a sharp contrast to the National Broadband Plan’s estimate, based on data from a company named comScore, of a “50% gap” between actual and advertised broadband speeds.  Without going into too much detail (those interested can follow this link), the comScore data was flawed on both ends of the equation.  It overestimated the speed of the “service tiers” to which consumers actually subscribed and also underestimated the speeds that consumers actually receive – thereby creating an alleged “gap” between advertised and delivered performance that lacks any sound factual basis.  A recent MIT study confirmed that there are a number of “potentially significant sources of measurement error” that caution against using the comScore data to reach any conclusions about ISP service performance.

Admittedly, the Ookla data is not a perfect measure of network performance either.  The Ookla data, like the comScore data, are based on user-generated speed tests and suffer from some of the same weaknesses.  Both systems measure the long and winding road from a consumer’s computer to a test server somewhere on the Internet.  Although ISPs control only a portion of that road, speeds can be impeded anywhere along the route (e.g., within the home computer, the home network, or on the open Internet).  But while the Ookla and comScore data share some of the same weaknesses, the MIT study found that “the Ookla/Speedtest test methodology is more likely than the other tests we examine to correspond to the speed of an access link for common network usage patterns.”

To its credit, the FCC has contracted with a company called SamKnows to conduct a hardware-based test that should eliminate many of the problems associated with online speed tests.  NCTA and many of our member companies have been working closely with SamKnows and the FCC staff on that testing process, which is expected to begin in the near future.

But as we wait for the collaborative development of even better measures of broadband performance, it’s worth noting Ookla’s independent assessment and the continuing efforts of cable ISPs to meet their customers’ expectations.

NOTE: Steven Morris is Vice President and Associate General Counsel for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. If you are interested in this topic, you may want to read these related posts:

• Glass 95% Full? The Broadband Report’s Mixed Bag
• Consumers Note Broadband Satisfaction
• Measuring the Speed of Value

CableCARDs will again be a topic of discussion in D.C. this week as the FCC on Thursday is expected to approve some revisions to the CableCARD rules, smart-card like devices which facilitate the ability of retail  cable-ready “video navigation devices” to access cable services.

We largely agreed with the proposals the Commission made in its CableCARD Further Notice and want to ensure that customers who utilize these devices have a satisfying experience.  We also support the Commission’s efforts in the “AllVid” Notice of Inquiry to examine fresh approaches to implementing Section 629 that involve all video providers – not just cable – and we have proposed a set of principles that can serve as a foundation for these efforts.  But since the AllVid item is still in early stages, we are committed to working with the Commission on targeted revisions to the CableCARD rules.

You can review this previous post on the history of CableCARDs for a refresher on how we got to our current point. Quite simply, the CableCARD approach failed largely due to rational consumer choices. The original one-way retail devices worked only with one-way cable services, cost more than other devices, and made consumers assume the risk of obsolescence.  Instead, consumers chose to lease devices at government-mandated rates which offered Video on Demand and other valuable interactive services and which also provided them the flexibility to swap boxes when the next model was released or return boxes if they terminated service.

We agree that consumers should have a self-installation option, if their cable operator allows self-installation of leased set-top boxes and the device’s manufacturer provides adequate installation support, as Moxi and TiVo do today. We also think it’s a good idea for professional installers to arrive at the home with no fewer than the number of CableCARDs (specifically, M-Cards) that have been requested by the customer. And we agree that operators can provide more transparency regarding CableCARD pricing by including relevant information on an operator’s website, in rate cards and in other notices.

On a broader level, we don’t think that onerous new CableCARD requirements should be imposed on cable operators; instead, the focus should shift towards new solutions that cover all multichannel video programming distributors.   As we said in an earlier post, “the only way a retail video device marketplace can fully work for consumers is if all MVPDs participate.”

To that end, we’re happy to work with manufacturers like TiVo, but as we noted previously, we feel that TiVo’s proposal for mandating a standardized IP backchannel approach – in lieu of tuning adapters, so that one-way devices can access two-way switched digital video channels – would be costly, time-consuming and unnecessary.

Instead, all parties should work together to make the viewing experience better for consumers. We hope that tomorrow’s FCC meeting will help move us in that direction.