FCC: 10 Mbps Downstream Speeds Increase by 118 Percent

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released its latest report on Internet access service connections and local telephone services in the United States. Titled "Internet Access Services" and "Local Telephone Competition," respectively, the reports are based on data submitted by service providers every six months on FCC Form 477.

The reports include data collected by the FCC through June 30, 2013. Highlights from the reports include the following:

• The number of connections with downstream speeds of at least 10 Mbps increased by 118 percent over June 2012, to 103 million connections, including 58 million fixed connections and 45 million mobile connections.


• Growth is particularly high in mobile Internet subscriptions. The number of mobile subscriptions with speeds over 200 kbps in at least one direction grew to 181 million – up 18 percent from June 2012.


• In voice services, there were 90 million end-user switched access lines in service, 45 million interconnected VoIP subscriptions, and 306 million mobile voice subscriptions, or 441 million retail local telephone service connections in total as of June 30, 2013.


• Over the three years between June 2010 and June 2013, interconnected VoIP subscriptions increased at a compound growth rate of 16 percent, mobile voice subscriptions increased at a compound annual growth rate of 3 percent, and retail switched access lines declined at 10 percent a year.

The Commission adopted changes to its FCC Form 477 program in June 2013 to assume responsibility for the collection of data on broadband deployment, an effort currently overseen by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) in coordination with the states, to implement a new approach for reporting broadband connection speeds of fixed and mobile services, and to require reporting of wireline voice subscribership at the census tract level as is currently required for wireline broadband subscribership.