Promise and Price: Ookla tools tell broadband consumers the real story

Broadband coverage and availability gets all the headlines, but ultimately, end users who have access to broadband may be more interested in two things—whether or not they are getting speeds they were promised, and whether or not they are paying more than other households.

Ookla, which runs the popular Speedtest.net site for measuring connections speeds and the more recent Net Index for gauging average download speed on a geographic regional basis, this week unveiled a Household Promise Index and a Household Value Index.

The two new indices combine with ISP speed rankings that Ookla rolled out a few months ago to create a set of tools to help consumers make more informed decisions about purchasing broadband in a competitive market. The Household Promise Index delivers a median ratio of actual download speed compared to the speed "promised" by the broadband service provider, so consumers can see if the speed actually meets their expectations. Like the other Ookla tools, it leverages information gained through Net Index from more than a million users conducting speed surveys at Ookla's Speedtest.net and Pingtest.net site on a daily basis. The Household Value Index compares one location's median cost per megabit-per-second to other locations around the world.