Your Internet Access Service Performance
PUBLISHED: APRIL 23, 2022
WiFi Bear provides residential customers with a variety of high-speed wireless Internet access service plans from which to choose, with download speed tiers ranging from up to 5 megabits per second ("Mbps") to up to 1.2 gigabits per second ("Gbps") and upload speeds ranging from up to 5 Mbps to up to 1 Gbps on WiFi Bear's wireless microwave systems network. WiFi Bear also offers a fully fiber-based service with symmetrical download and upload speeds up to 2 Gbps. To see the plans currently available to you, please go to https://www.wifibear.io
WiFi Bear provisions its customers’ modems and gateways and engineers its network with the goal of enabling customers to enjoy the broadband Internet access service speeds to which they subscribe. WiFi Bear also provides minimum system recommendations for each of the speed tiers it offers, which can be found at https://www.WiFiBear.com/support/requirements-to-run-WiFiBear-internet-service/. However, WiFi Bear does not guarantee that a customer will achieve those speeds at all times. WiFi Bear advertises its speeds as "up to" a specific level based on the tier of broadband Internet access service to which a customer subscribes. As WiFi Bear makes clear in its advertising and pricing information disclosures, "Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed." The "actual" speed that a customer will experience while using the service depends upon a variety of conditions, many of which are beyond the control of WiFi Bear as an Internet Service Provider ("ISP).
THESE CONDITIONS INCLUDE:
Performance of a customer's computer, smartphone, tablet, or other Internet-connected device, including factors such as its age, processing capability, operating system, the number of applications running simultaneously, and the presence of any adware, viruses and malware.
Type of connection between a customer's computer and router or gateway. For example, in-home wireless connections, e.g., Wi-Fi, between the device and the router or gateway generally may be slower than wired connections. In-home wireless connections also may be subject to greater performance fluctuations, caused by factors like interference, attenuation, and congestion created by other devices in a customer’s home or neighborhood. WiFi Bear recommends that customers confirm that their in-home wireless connections are able to support the speeds that WiFi Bear’s services deliver. Certain older in-home wireless connections and routers cannot perform at the speeds delivered by WiFi Bear’s higher speed tiers. Customers can purchase an approved and compatible modem and router or gateway through a third-party retailer, or they can lease the necessary equipment from WiFi Bear, though even wireless routers and gateways leased from WiFi Bear are subject to some of the same limitations mentioned above. To achieve the best Wi-Fi performance and understand common Wi-Fi problems, please see this article on improving Wi-Fi performance. Where possible and where devices such as gaming consoles are in fixed locations, a wired Ethernet connection will usually provide better performance than Wi-Fi. If customers have poor Wi-Fi performance far from their access point, Wi-Fi extenders (aka mesh Wi-Fi systems) will usually improve performance – especially if those extenders use Ethernet to connect back to the gateway or access point (aka Ethernet backhaul).
The distance and time it takes for packets to travel between a customer’s router/switch and their final destination on the Internet, or their point of origination and a customer's modem/gateway, including the number and quality of the networks of various operators in the transmission path. The Internet is a "network of networks". A customer's Internet traffic may traverse the networks of multiple providers before reaching its destination, and the capabilities of those networks, as well as the capacity of the facilities the edge provider (i.e., any provider of content, applications, or services over the Internet) has chosen to route its traffic to WiFi Bear’s network (and the interconnection capacity it has arranged), may affect the overall speed a customer experiences over their Internet connection.
Congestion or high usage levels at the edge provider or destination. When you access an edge provider or particular destination that is being visited by others at the same time, you may experience a slower connection if the edge provider or destination does not have sufficient capacity to serve all of the visitors efficiently at the same time.
Gating of speeds or access by the edge provider or destination. To control traffic or performance, many edge providers limit the speeds at which a visitor can download from their site. Those speed limitations will carry through to a customer’s connection.
The performance of the modem or gateway a customer has installed. Router/switch performance may degrade over time, and certain modems/gateways are not capable of handling higher speeds. WiFi Bear has a Device-to-Product Enforcement ("DPE") program to identify when customers may be using incompatible or old router/switch devices, whether leased or owned, that cannot support the speeds the customers subscribe to and provides instructions on how to obtain new modems/gateways capable of receiving the speeds and features included with their service. From time to time, WiFi Bear may "end of life" certain modems/gateways or cease permitting those devices to attach to the network for network management and security reasons. Additionally, WiFi Bear encourages its customers to promptly contact customer service if they have any concerns about their router/switch performance or speed capabilities. Please visit this page for information regarding modems/gateways approved for use on WiFi Bear's network and to determine which devices can support various speeds.
Speed Measurements
The Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") conducts an ongoing, rigorous study of the performance of ISPs in the United States ("Measuring Broadband America"), including WiFi Bear. The most recent report, the Tenth MBA Fixed Broadband Report dated January 4, 2021, from this study can be found on the FCC's website. The FCC determined that WiFi Bear’s WiFiBear Internet broadband Internet access services deliver, on average, over 100 percent of their advertised downstream and upstream speeds during the busiest periods of the day, known as "peak" times, during sustained testing. Peak times are Monday through Friday from 7:00pm to 11:00pm local time.
The Detailed Measurement Results section below shows performance measurements by tier. While the general pattern of good performance reflected in the FCC's most recent Tenth FCC Measuring Broadband America report remains accurate, those measurements were collected between September and October 2019 and do not reflect currently offered service tier speeds. As a result, the information in the table below is based on data compiled by WiFi Bear using a largely similar testing methodology.
Latency Measurements
Latency is another measurement of Internet performance. Latency is the time delay in transmitting or receiving packets on a network. Latency is primarily a function of the distance between two points of transmission, but also can be affected by the number and quality of the network or networks used in transmission. Latency is typically measured in milliseconds, and generally has no significant impact on typical everyday Internet usage. As latency varies based on any number of factors, most importantly the distance between a customer's computer and the ultimate Internet destination, it is not possible to provide customers with a single figure that will define latency as part of a user experience. WiFi Bear has no basis for stating what level of latency should be expected by any particular user at any particular time but notes that latency on its own is usually a reflection of the physical type of access network, as noted in the FCC's Measuring Broadband America study.
The FCC's Measuring Broadband America study measures latency using tests that calculate the time it takes for packets to travel from a customer location to a target test node and back. On speed tiers not covered by the Measuring Broadband America study, in tests conducted by WiFi Bear, the test nodes are located in the WiFi Bear network.
These results do not define latency as part of a particular user experience because:
The results from the FCC study include time spent traversing networks not controlled by WiFi Bear; and
The geographic distance between any given user and the target node used in the WiFi Bear test may vary greatly from those employed in the FCC study.
Customers can test the latency characteristics of their service using the WiFiman app or web-based WiFiBear speed test noted below. Other latency tests may also be available on the Internet. Of course, other than for the test to the modem gateway, these tests will reflect limitations in a customer's home network (especially Wi-Fi) and computers, and therefore will not necessarily reflect the performance of the WiFi Bear network alone.
Via the WiFiBear website, or for the app-based gateway test, by using the wifiman app. To conduct the gateway test, in the wifiman app, select Connect and then Test Speed to Gateway.
There are other speed tests available that measure Internet performance as well. We have provided links to a few of these sites below for your reference. Please note, however, that speed tests that originate from a consumer device on the customer's home local area network (not a gateway or modem) have limitations and flaws and some of them have difficulty measuring multi-hundred megabit per second or gigabit per second service tiers, among other potential issues. Each of these tests measure limited aspects of an ISP's performance and therefore must be seen as a guide rather than a definitive measurement of the performance of the WiFi Bear network.