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Policy & Regulation

Broadband Nutrition Labels

FCC-mandated consumer disclosure labels that ISPs must display, showing plan speed, price, data caps, and fees in a standardized format, similar to food nutrition labels.

What It Means

The Broadband Consumer Labels (commonly called "broadband nutrition labels") are FCC-mandated point-of-sale disclosures that every ISP in the United States must display for every consumer internet plan, modeled explicitly on the FDA nutrition facts label for food. The FCC adopted the labels in its November 2022 Order implementing Section 60504 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, with compliance required for large ISPs (over 100,000 subscribers) by April 10, 2024, and for small ISPs by October 10, 2024. Each label must display: monthly price (including all recurring fees), introductory rate duration and the post-promotional monthly price, typical download and upload speeds, typical latency in milliseconds, any monthly data cap in gigabytes with overage charges, one-time installation and equipment purchase fees, monthly equipment rental fees, early termination fees, taxes and regulatory fees, contract duration, and a link to the ISP's privacy policy. The labels must appear at the point of sale (online, in-store, and on the monthly bill) and cannot hide behind a link. The FCC requires machine-readable format so the labels can be scraped and aggregated by consumer comparison tools, including the Broadband Grade pricing and plan compare features. The labels ended the common practice of advertising a $49.99 introductory rate while hiding a $79.99 post-promo rate, a $15 per month equipment rental, and a $10 per 50 GB overage charge. Consumers can now make apples-to-apples comparisons across ISPs and plans.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "Broadband Nutrition Labels" mean?

FCC-mandated consumer disclosure labels that ISPs must display, showing plan speed, price, data caps, and fees in a standardized format, similar to food nutrition labels.

Why does Broadband Nutrition Labels matter for internet quality?

The Broadband Consumer Labels (commonly called "broadband nutrition labels") are FCC-mandated point-of-sale disclosures that every ISP in the United States must display for every consumer internet plan, modeled explicitly on the FDA nutrition facts label for food. The FCC adopted the labels in its N...

Related Terms

Broadband
High-speed internet access that is always on and faster than traditional dial-up. The FCC defines broadband as a minimum of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload as of 2024.
Digital Divide
The gap between communities with access to fast, reliable, affordable internet and those without. Disproportionately affects rural, low-income, and tribal areas.
BEAD Program
The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, a $42.45 billion federal initiative to expand broadband access to underserved and unserved areas across all 50 states.
FCC Broadband Data Collection (BDC)
The FCC's address-level broadband availability database that replaced the older Form 477 system. Collects data from every ISP twice a year covering over 116 million locations.

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About This Data

Definitions based on FCC standards, industry specifications, and federal broadband policy. Speed benchmarks reflect 2024 FCC standards. See our methodology.

this entity is one of the U.S. internet availability and broadband speed concepts that recurs across this site. The definition above is the technical answer; the paragraphs below add the practical context for how the concept connects to the the FCC Broadband Data Collection (BDC) data behind every per-entity page on the site.

In the the FCC Broadband Data Collection (BDC) data, this concept shapes one or more of the fields that drive the per-entity grades and rankings on this site. The methodology page describes which fields feed into which output; this glossary entry documents the underlying term.

Source: FCC Broadband Data Collection, 2026.