On April 4, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unveiled a new Consumer Broadband Label to help consumers when signing up for home and mobile data plans. Your BBB® would like to pass on this information to consumers.

The new labels resemble nutrition labels on food products, but instead of telling us about calories and carbs, they cover average speeds, data caps, and monthly fees, in plain language. The new label is designed to not overwhelm consumers with too much info. The home broadband label includes monthly costs, one-time costs, hardware rental costs, data caps, latency and typical downstream and upstream speeds. Speed should not be the “up to speed” but the “typical peak usage download speed for your chosen tier of service.” Other monthly fees should include regulatory and other costs not mandated by state and local governments.

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