The Federal Communications Commission has released a handy little app that lets you test your internet connection speed using an iPhone, iPod touch, or Google Android device. Just do a quick search for FCC in the App Store or Android Market and install the utility to test your download, upload, and latency speeds.
The app looks pretty much identical on the iPhone and Android platforms. The only difference is that the menus are located at the bottom on the iPhone and at the top of the screen on Android.
The utility keeps a record of your speed test results and lets you show speeds in kbps, Mbps, or kB/s.
That’s about it for settings. It’s really quite a simple app. But the reason the FC launched it is to make it easier for people to test their internet connections and be aware of any differences between the speeds advertised by their ISPs and the real upload and download speeds available to them. The FCC may also collect the data to analyze coverage across the United States… although I’m not entirely clear on what the agency plans to do about it if it turns out that broadband speeds aren’t equally distributed.
via Engadget
