FCC Asks You To Test Your Broadband Speeds

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FCC Asks You To Test Your Broadband Speeds

Posted by kdawson on Friday March 12, 2010 @01:51AM from the your-mileage-will-vary dept.

AnotherUsername writes "The Federal Communications Commission is asking the nation's broadband and smartphone users to use its broadband testing tools to help the feds and consumers know what speeds are actually available, not just promised by the nation's telecoms. At http://www.broadband.gov/, users enter their address and test their broadband download speed, upload speed, latency, and jitter using one of two tests (users can choose to test with the other after one test is complete). The FCC is requiring the street address, as it 'may use this data to analyze broadband quality and availability on a geographic basis' (they promise not to release location data except in the aggregate). The agency is also asking those who live in a broadband 'dead zone' to fill out a report online, call, fax, email, or even send a letter. The announcement comes just six days before the FCC presents the first ever national broadband plan to Congress. Java is necessary to run the test." Lauren Weinstein points out some of the limitations in the FCC's testing methodology.

353 of 454 comments (clear)

Hmm... by Pojut · 2010-03-12 01:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

...I would like to help them out by providing the necessary data, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with it...tinfoil hat and all that. Anyone planning on doing this? Why or why not?

--
Living With a Nerd
1. Re:Hmm... by DarkKnightRadick · 2010-03-12 01:56 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I am, or I would. I need to wait for FreeBSD to update the java available in ports, though. It's too much of a pain to get it from Sun.
  Why? Well I'd like to see telco's held to their promised speeds as much as possible. If you are going to advertise one speed but only deliver a lower one, that's false advertising (or something).
  
  --
  "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
2. Re:Hmm... by aicrules · 2010-03-12 01:57 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I did it from work, but said I was doing it from home. Further, I entered an address of a home (not mine) in a rural area in my state that is currently trying to get federal stimulus money because they have no broadband.
3. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 02:00 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  And making the feds think they already have high speed internet is supposed to help them... how?
4. Re:Hmm... by timeOday · 2010-03-12 02:03 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I did it from work, but said I was doing it from home. Further, I entered an address of a home (not mine) in a rural area in my state that is currently trying to get federal stimulus money because they have no broadband.
  So your goal to make sure they don't get any stimulus money for broadband by making it appear they do?
  Anyways, it's hard to imagine they won't be discarding outliers, and (regardless of intentions) your dishonest result will be an outlier.
5. Re:Hmm... by Prof.Phreak · 2010-03-12 02:04 · Score: 1
  
  give'em approximate address? (like... corner house on your block).
  In my case, it's the apartment building without apartment number.
  
  --
  "If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
6. Re:Hmm... by Chris+Mattern · 2010-03-12 02:04 · Score: 2
  
  So you deliberate made an area trying to get federal support because it doesn't have available broadband look like it has broadband? That's not very nice...
7. Re:Hmm... by DJLuc1d · 2010-03-12 02:05 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  They don't ask for your name, just location, which I am ok with. It's a census year anyways and I plan on participating which is more of a threat to my privacy than a nameless broadband test.
8. Re:Hmm... by WrongSizeGlass · 2010-03-12 02:06 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Obviously it's Spinal Tap Syndrome. He wants them to be able to get an 11 so he's pretending they have a 10 now.
9. Re:Hmm... by Selivanow · 2010-03-12 02:08 · Score: 2
  
  What's the point? The Feds already know where I live...I did want my tax return. So now they know "how fast" my connection is.
  
  --
  -- ...trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. -Bruce Schneier
10. Re:Hmm... by somersault · 2010-03-12 02:17 · Score: 1
  
  I told them I live in one of the US Minor islands.. which is semi true. I live in the UK. They may or may not fall for my address: 12345, City: 12345, Zipcode: 12345..
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
11. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 02:17 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  >>>So your goal to make sure they don't get any stimulus money for broadband by making it appear they do?
  Our national debt is nearly $130,000 per American home* and projected by Obama's budget to increase +$10,000 more each year. We. Need. To Stop. Spending. Otherwise we'll have ~$200,000/home by the end of this decade, and all go bankrupt. As Cosby might say, "C'mon people! This isn't hard to figure out."
  The solution to broadband is ridiculously easy -
  - Congress should mandate with a simple law that the telephone company must provide DSL to any customer requests it (within six months). The twisted-pair lines are already there, except for the need to add a neighborhood DSLAM. If Verizon/ATT/whoever balk about expense, simply point to the billions they received circa 1996 and say "use that". Actually the expense should be quite low to upgrade existing phone lines to DSL lines.
  *
  * Simple math. Current U.S. Government Debt /100 million households.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
12. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 02:21 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  This is one of the best tricks I have ever seen to get people to attach their ip address to their street address. Now the Fed doesn't even have to trace anymore, just refer to the street database. brilliant.
13. Re:Hmm... by Rallias+Ubernerd · 2010-03-12 02:25 · Score: 1
  
  Don't forget, you have to pay up some more money if they do succed
14. Re:Hmm... by WrongSizeGlass · 2010-03-12 02:26 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The solution to broadband is ridiculously easy -
  - Congress should mandate with a simple law that the telephone company must provide DSL to any customer requests it (within six months). The twisted-pair lines are already there, except for the need to add a neighborhood DSLAM. If Verizon/ATT/whoever balk about expense, simply point to the billions they received circa 1996 and say "use that". Actually the expense should be quite low to upgrade existing phone lines to DSL lines.
  So you're proposing that instead of the taxpayer paying for it via taxes, the customers will pay for it via price increases handed down by the providers to cover the extra costs?
  
  So it's OK for everyone to pay for it as long as it's not called taxes? Brilliant.
15. Re:Hmm... by Neitokun · 2010-03-12 02:26 · Score: 1
  
  How's it any different than going to SpeedTest.net. As far as I can tell, the only two differences are 1) broadband.gov doesn't give you a shiny little sig badge to wave your download speed around in and 2) SpeedTest.net isn't going to put pressure on Verizon/Comcast/etc. to provide better broadband.
16. Re:Hmm... by NotQuiteReal · 2010-03-12 02:28 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Where would that money come from?
  
  Reaching into one's own pockets to assist his fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else's pockets to do so is despicable and deserves condemnation. - Walter Williams
  
  --
  This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
17. Re:Hmm... by WrongSizeGlass · 2010-03-12 02:29 · Score: 1
  
  Zip 12345 is Schenectady, NY. You could have at least used '123 Fake Street'. It doesn't take much to fool the government but you at least gotta try a little.
18. Re:Hmm... by mikes.song · 2010-03-12 02:31 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I did it, and it says I have 26811 kbps down and 409 kbps up. I call BS. It has to be a conspiracy.
19. Re:Hmm... by Profane+MuthaFucka · 2010-03-12 02:34 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I like your thinking. This is the government asking for this after all, you can't even trust the government with your social security number! Giving them your address is just asking for trouble.
  
  --
  Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
20. Re:Hmm... by omnichad · 2010-03-12 02:37 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  So I'll reset my dsl modem afterward and get a new IP address. They'll still have to use their NSA computers for tracking me ;-)
21. Re:Hmm... by mister_playboy · 2010-03-12 02:38 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  First, you'll need to stop all other network activity during the test to get an accurate result. Second, don't get kB and kb confused... 1kB=8kb.
  Happy testing.
  
  --
  Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
22. Re:Hmm... by butchersong · 2010-03-12 02:38 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I believe his point was that the federal government is at the moment not capable of paying for ANYTHING. So yeah a consumer that wishes to have broadband paying for the service is preferable to the government borrowing more money to pay for something they wouldn't implement correctly anyway.
23. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 02:38 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  >>>instead of the taxpayer paying for it via taxes, the customers will pay for it
  That's right. At least as a customer, you can cancel the bill if you feel it's too high, or downgrade to a cheaper service. For example I downgraded from $60 to $15 when comcast raised their rates.
  - As a customer you have power to cancel or moderate your spending.
  - As a taxpayer you have zero power.
  - I prefer the former to the latter, don't you?
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
24. Re:Hmm... by omnichad · 2010-03-12 02:39 · Score: 1
  
  Not to mention you probably already have a driver's license, and that requires a current address. Does anyone seriously believe the government doesn't know where they live?
25. Re:Hmm... by somersault · 2010-03-12 02:40 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Meh, it worked. I doubt the US government is going to chase me down and imprison me for it. Well, I hope not. Hang on, there's someone at the do-
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
26. Re:Hmm... by Ed+Bugg · 2010-03-12 02:43 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  So you're proposing that instead of the taxpayer paying for it via taxes, the customers will pay for it via price increases handed down by the providers to cover the extra costs?
  So it's OK for everyone to pay for it as long as it's not called taxes? Brilliant.
  As much as you aimed that comment sarcastically, you are right on the money. Think of it as paying for something you actually use and is meaningful to you. Rather then paying for a service that you didn't use, but instead someone got to use.
  Or to put it another way. Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can sit in your parents basement getting high scores on Call of Duty since you have virtually no lag time thanks to my taxes?
  
  --
  -- Ed Bugg --You have freedom of choice, but not of consequences.--
27. Re:Hmm... by alen · 2010-03-12 02:46 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  do you think they will install malware on your PC?
  i've lived in the US for almost 30 years and came from east of the iron curtain. you tin foil people make me laugh.
28. Re:Hmm... by WrongSizeGlass · 2010-03-12 02:46 · Score: 1
  
  You conveniently chose only part of the statement.
  
  customers will pay for it via price increases handed down by the providers to cover the extra costs.
  The extra costs will be added to everyone's bill to cover your government mandated DSL program, not just the people who get it.
  
  Your 'customer action' approach would be that everyone downgrade their service when the providers increase their charges to cover a government mandated rollout?
29. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 02:47 · Score: 1
  
  +1 butchersong for being "insightful"
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
30. Re:Hmm... by NormalVisual · 2010-03-12 02:50 · Score: 1
  
  The privacy concerns aren't so much about knowing where you live, but rather being able to correlate an IP address/address range with that street address.
  
  --
  Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
31. Re:Hmm... by svtdragon · 2010-03-12 02:50 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Might be handy to look up national debt as a percentage of GDP. From historical experience, where we are now is far from untenable--and Bush's tax cuts cost us a great deal more, in terms of the deficit, than Obama's budget.
  
  Relax the "zomg deficit spending is teh baaaad" meme until we're out of the recession/under 10% unemployment, mkay?
32. Re:Hmm... by nomadic · 2010-03-12 02:56 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Yes because the government might figure out.....WHERE I LIVE? NOOOO!
33. Re:Hmm... by Ephemeriis · 2010-03-12 02:56 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Why? Well I'd like to see telco's held to their promised speeds as much as possible. If you are going to advertise one speed but only deliver a lower one, that's false advertising (or something).
  This is why I ran their test and submitted the results.
  If you go by my ISP's advertising you'll see they're offering 10 Mbps in my area. What you won't see is that regardless of which plan you sign up for, you're lucky if you can actually get 3 Mbps.
  So, by running their test, they've got something more accurate than what the ISPs will tell them.
  
  --
  "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
34. Re:Hmm... by Klaruz · 2010-03-12 02:56 · Score: 1
  
  The solution to broadband is ridiculously easy -
  - Congress should mandate with a simple law that the telephone company must provide DSL to any customer requests it (within six months). The twisted-pair lines are already there, except for the need to add a neighborhood DSLAM. If Verizon/ATT/whoever balk about expense, simply point to the billions they received circa 1996 and say "use that". Actually the expense should be quite low to upgrade existing phone lines to DSL lines.
  So you're proposing that instead of the taxpayer paying for it via taxes, the customers will pay for it via price increases handed down by the providers to cover the extra costs?
  So it's OK for everyone to pay for it as long as it's not called taxes? Brilliant.
  Did you even read what he said? We ALREADY paid for it with our taxes in the 90s, instead of building out broadband THEY STOLE THE MONEY.
35. Re:Hmm... by kent_eh · 2010-03-12 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  FTFblurb
  
  The agency is also asking those who live in a broadband 'dead zone' to fill out a report online, call, fax, email, or even send a letter.
  
  --
  
  ---
  "I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
36. Re:Hmm... by timlash · 2010-03-12 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  Aicrules also told the census that he lives in a mud hut in lower Manhattan as one of 47 Maasi warriors who emigrated from Tanzania in 1997 and all live off a household income of $879,321,487 generated by sending Viagra spam from the server farm located in the basement of their hut.
  
  --
  US2B
37. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  the rest of these violate the Bill of Rights (9 and 10).
  No, it doesn't. Just because you parrot something you heard on AM radio doesn't make it true.
  Enough already.
38. Re:Hmm... by Chelloveck · 2010-03-12 03:08 · Score: 1
  Initial reaction: Hey, I'm glad the FCC is keeping the providers' feet to the fire!
  Follow-up reaction: Hmmm, this would be a great ruse to associate physical addresses with network addresses.
  Follow-up to the follow-up: Or a great ruse to get you to install arbitrary tracking software...
  Where's that tin foil? I need a new hat.
  --
  Chelloveck
  I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
39. Re:Hmm... by zippthorne · 2010-03-12 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct
  It doesn't say they can't as, the other things. In fact, I'm not so sure it says they can require you to answer any of it, including the count, though I'm not sure why you wouldn't, since it determines the number of electors for your state.
  
  --
  Can you be Even More Awesome?!
40. Re:Hmm... by welcher · 2010-03-12 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  Stopping spending is exactly what caused the that massive recession that may or may not be over. Right now, we and the government need to spend. The government spending is replacing spending that should be happening anyway but is not because businesses have stopped. Ever notice that there is 10% official unemployment out there? Why do you think that is?
41. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  >>>The extra costs will be added to everyone's bill to cover your government mandated DSL program
  Only a couple pennies per month... maybe a dollar... hardly a great burden. And remember, those wires would only be run IF the customer requested it. I know several persons who are happy with their $7-10 dialup because they just use it for email to keep in contact, and have no desire to have a two-to-three times larger bill.
  .
  >>>Your 'customer action' approach would be that everyone downgrade their service when the providers increase their charges to cover a government mandated rollout?
  >>>
  I never said "everyone".
  Don't put words in my mouth.
  I said the OPTION would be there. The KEY is that a customer has a power taxpayers don't. The power belongs to the people to decide, "Do I want to pay $xxx per month, or stay with dialup?" rather than in the hands of some oligarch in D.C. - Don't you believe in Democracy?
  Well the ultimate democracy is the customer "voting" with his dollars whether or not to buy something. So to answer your previous question: YES being a self-ruling customer is preferred over being a tax serf. (IMHO)
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
42. Re:Hmm... by MaWeiTao · 2010-03-12 03:13 · Score: 1
  
  In case you're wondering, there's a Fake Drive in VA and a Fake Road in PA. No Fake Streets, unfortunately. There are two False Roads, however.
  I wonder how much trouble residents of those roads run into when they give their address.
43. Re:Hmm... by shiftless · 2010-03-12 03:14 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I, on the other hand, am paying for a 6/1 business cable plan (Comcast), and according to this broadband test, I am getting anywhere between 15-20 meg down and a consistent 2.5 meg up, with 20 ms ping +/- 1ms. Makes sense to me since I have seen downloads hit 1.6 MB/sec before. I know some people get the shit end of the stick with cable but I seem to have lucked out here. I earned it after so many years spent at my old place, out in the country with nothing but dialup.
44. Re:Hmm... by 0racle · 2010-03-12 03:19 · Score: 1
  
  Do you file tax returns? The government already has your address linked to your name, SSN and other identifiable information. This is just what internet speed is really available at a given address.
  
  I pay for 768k/384k, the slowest my ISP provides and the only one they would offer us, and it took months of teeth pulling just to see if it would work. Sales said yes, but every time the order passed on to their provisioning people, they said no. We really only get about 512k/256k. Oh and when we first looked at getting DSL where we are they advertised 1M download. Counting broadband penetration by what the ISP advertises in an area doesn't work, and it's pretty obvious the ISP's aren't going to be forthcoming with real data so the FCC has to gather it directly from users.
  
  --
  "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
45. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 03:22 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  No.
  It's a common misconception to say Bush was worse than Obama, but it simply isn't true. Under both Clinton and Bush the debt "only" increased ~5 trillion per year (from 1993 to 2000 and 2001 to 2008). Under Obama's existing and projected budget, the debt increased by about $25 trillion during 2009, $15 trillion in 2010, and $10 trillion for the years 2011, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Look up Obama's budget - it's there in plain balck and white.
  So you see, even after the economy's projected recovery, Obama still plans to increase our national debt about two times faster than either Clinton or Bush did. Bush added about 40 trillion while Obama's projecting 80-90 trillion by 2016.
  So yeah I agree Bush was an ass (I didn't vote for him), but Obama is doubly so (my humble opinion). If Obama's projection is correct, we'll have close about $200,000/home as the decade ends and that simply isn't sustainable.
  >>>under 10% unemployment, mkay?
  It already is.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
46. Re:Hmm... by fbjon · 2010-03-12 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  Well, let's wave it around on slashdot instead. I put my location as 12345 New York, and got:
  5270 kbps in
  720 kbps out
  133 ms lag
  3 ms jitter
  I live in Finland. Now I wonder how large a proportion of American slashdotters get better results, given all the talk of broadband sucking over there? (I indicated in the address field that it's a foreign, invalid test, btw)
  
  --
  True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
47. Re:Hmm... by wolfsdaughter · 2010-03-12 03:25 · Score: 1
  
  It looks like you think that the national debt should be proportioned EQUALLY among all citizens...
  How about dividing the national debt based on percentage of wealth?
  Like, letting those who own 98% of the resources pay for 98% of the debt?
  
  --
  "Are they made from real Girl Scouts?" ~Wednesday Addams
48. Re:Hmm... by KlausBreuer · 2010-03-12 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  "fill out a report" ... "they promise not to release location data" ...
  Yeah, right. Sure I'll help you. For free, too. Seeing how well you're taking care of business for us, the citizens.
  
  --
  Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
49. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 03:29 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can go to the library and read books thanks to my taxes? I only buy books - I have no need for a library.
  Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can drive on improved roads thanks to my taxes? I work from home and have a big car - I have no need for pothole-free roads.
  Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can send your child to a school funded by my taxes? I have no children, and if I did they would go to a private school.
  Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can be assured of eating safe food, thanks to the FDA's use of my taxes? I have my own farm - I have no need for food regulation.
  Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can get medicare thanks to my taxes?
  Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can be safe thanks to the military funded by my taxes?
  Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can drink soda made from HFCS, subsidized by my taxes?
  Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can have onion routing, thanks to DARPA funded by my taxes?
50. Re:Hmm... by omnichad · 2010-03-12 03:31 · Score: 1
  
  So I take it you have a static IP address? I would love to have one of those. Otherwise, I can just reboot my modem and move on.
51. Re:Hmm... by Achromatic1978 · 2010-03-12 03:32 · Score: 1
  
  Insured? No and it's BY MY OWN CHOICE so STOP RAMMING IT DOWN MY THROAT.
  Awesome.
  I suppose in amongst your
  
  Too small
  income you keep and/or have money set aside so if one of your
  
  more than 0 but less than 100
  cars causes injury or damage to others, you can provide adequate compensation and restitution, right? Likewise with your home, other property, and indeed yourself? Because you'd never accidentally or negligently do something that may cause such a thing, of course. All privilege, no responsibility, right?
52. Re:Hmm... by Achromatic1978 · 2010-03-12 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  (Thus ends the legally-allowed questions - the rest of these violate the Bill of Rights (9 and 10).)
  A second reply... "And what in the name of blue fuck does asking your age, sex, income, etc, on the census have to do with either the Ninth or Tenth Amendment?"
  Nine: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
  Interpretation by the Court has generally been regarded by the courts as negating any expansion of governmental power on account of the enumeration of rights in the Constitution, but the Amendment has not been regarded as further limiting governmental power. The U.S. Supreme Court explained this, in U.S. Public Workers v. Mitchell 330 U.S. 75 (1947): "If granted power is found, necessarily the objection of invasion of those rights, reserved by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, must fail."
  Ten: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
  According to the Tenth Amendment, the government of the United States has the power to regulate only matters delegated to it by the Constitution. Other powers are reserved to the states, or to the people (and even the states cannot alienate some of these). In modern times, the Commerce Clause has become one of the most frequently-used sources of Congress's power, and thus its interpretation is very important in determining the allowable scope of federal government.
  Seriously, you might ostensibly reside in these United States, but what planet are you on?
53. Re:Hmm... by svtdragon · 2010-03-12 03:38 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Under Obama's existing and projected budget, the debt increased by about $25 trillion during 2009, $15 trillion in 2010, and $10 trillion for the years 2011, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Look up Obama's budget - it's there in plain balck and white.
  Yes--due largely to the unfunded liabilities that the Bush administration incurred before Obama even took office. See also: Medicare part D, estate tax repeal, Bush's tax cuts for the top 1%. Their full cost is playing out *now*.
  
  And you're assigning a numerical value per household, which is at best tangential to the issue of the debt/GDP ratio. See here and the plots here.
54. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  >>>Don't tell the conservatives that if they would have listened to bill Clinton the debt would be mostly paid off.
  Actually if you look at Bush's 2001 budget, which he projected to 2010, he DID listen to Bill Clinton. He even set-aside a "trust fund" for the surplus monies to save social security from going empty. Bush was following a plan to pay-off the national debt just as Clinton had done.
  But then the New York attack happened..... oh well. I was against the war, but the American people demanded revenge, and Congress voted for it. So here we are.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
55. Re:Hmm... by cayenne8 · 2010-03-12 03:39 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  On the other hand, seems like a nice way to voluntarily pre-fill the fed's database with IP tied to user tied to address.
  I'm sure that would make for a nice little database addition to what they already have.
  Sorry, not interested. I'd rather them have to make at least 'some' effort in their dragnet searches....
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
56. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 03:42 · Score: 1
  
  >It doesn't say they can't ask the other things
  Yes it does. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." So they are allowed to ENUMERATE for the purpose of assigning representatives in Congress. They are NOT allowed to ask personal questions about your income or how many cars you own or whatever. Your local State government may ask those questions - the U.S. government may not because it was never given the power.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
57. Re:Hmm... by hanabal · 2010-03-12 03:42 · Score: 1
  
  problem is that the won't sell the Miami condos and Ferrari's they bought with the money to pay for the upgrades. so the end result will be more expensive broadband
58. Re:Hmm... by cayenne8 · 2010-03-12 03:42 · Score: 1
  
  "I, on the other hand, am paying for a 6/1 business cable plan (Comcast), and according to this broadband test, I am getting anywhere between 15-20 meg down and a consistent 2.5 meg up, with 20 ms ping +/- 1ms. Makes sense to me since I have seen downloads hit 1.6 MB/sec before. I know some people get the shit end of the stick with cable but I seem to have lucked out here. I earned it after so many years spent at my old place, out in the country with nothing but dialup."
  Interesting. I've got a basic Cox cable business acct. I have avg. about 9-10 meg down, and about 5-9 meg up....no caps, I can run servers, and a low level SLA for about $69/mo.
  I've been pretty happy with them for some time now.
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
59. Re:Hmm... by Arthur+Grumbine · 2010-03-12 03:43 · Score: 1
  
  ...Under both Clinton and Bush the debt "only" increased ~5 trillion per year (from 1993 to 2000 and 2001 to 2008). Under Obama's existing and projected budget, the debt increased by about $25 trillion during 2009, $15 trillion in 2010, and $10 trillion for the years 2011, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.... Bush added about 40 trillion while Obama's projecting 80-90 trillion by 2016.
  You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
  I'm very much against runaway stimulus spending, as well, but you seem to be off by more than an order of magnitude.
  
  --
  Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
60. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 03:47 · Score: 1
  
  >>>...so you don't have homeowner's insurance, health insurance, or even car insurance?
  For myself? No, no, and no. Although I am considering getting catastrophic insurance ($10,000 deductible) in case of cancer or other major illness.
  As for the rest of your message, I read it, and it indicates to me you don't believe in either freedom or liberty. "50+" is called tyranny of the majority to squash the minority underfoot. I prefer to let the minority (of one) run his OWN life and decide what products he wants to buy. It's called individual sovereignty. And liberty.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
61. Re:Hmm... by Rockoon · 2010-03-12 03:49 · Score: 1
  
  The rational inference is federal debt as a percentage of federal tax revenue because thats the resource that the federal government has. The GDP does not belong to the federal government, or to the states.
  
  --
  "His name was James Damore."
62. Re:Hmm... by jketch · 2010-03-12 03:50 · Score: 1
  
  So you're saying that Obama somehow managed to run a deficit of 166% of GDP in 2009. That aside, yes, the deficits have been far higher in 2009 and 2010. Do you know what else has been higher in those years? Unemployment. Also, wages are far down. Without taking legislative action of any kind the deficits would have blown up from increased unemployment payouts and decreased income tax revenue. The stimulus bill that all conservatives love to hate so much is not all that much of a long term contributer to debt because it phases out after 2 years. Hell, at $100 billion/year the Iraq War alone has added as much to the debt already as the stimulus bill ever will.
63. Re:Hmm... by infosinger · 2010-03-12 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  Actually if you look at who is paying the bulk of the taxes, this is mostly true already. The top 25% pay 85% of the taxes.
64. Re:Hmm... by NormalVisual · 2010-03-12 03:54 · Score: 1
  
  They're available, but I don't really have a need for one, and my router tends to keep the same address for months on end anyway. I did say "address/address range" though, and as in my case, not every ISP has short lease times, and rebooting the modem accomplishes nothing if the DHCP server decides to reuse the IP it previously had cached for that MAC address.
  
  --
  Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
65. Re:Hmm... by infosinger · 2010-03-12 03:55 · Score: 1
  
  No reason you can't dither your address a bit. Pick an address of someone 1/2 mile from you or so and choose a phony name. You district still gets the money and you didn't give away anything (except your taxes). Why do I get the feeling that this will be just as successful as the stimulus bill.
66. Re:Hmm... by Itchyeyes · 2010-03-12 03:56 · Score: 1
  
  Our national debt is nearly $130,000 per American home* and projected by Obama's budget to increase +$10,000 more each year. We. Need. To Stop. Spending. Otherwise we'll have ~$200,000/home by the end of this decade, and all go bankrupt. As Cosby might say, "C'mon people! This isn't hard to figure out."
  Regardless where one stands on the budget issue, cutting the broadband stimulus would be nothing more than a token gesture at solving our problems. The US 2010 federal budget is $3.5 trillion. The broadband stimulus is $7.2 billion. Cutting the broadband stimulus would be analogous to an average household with a $46,000/year income and $140,000 in debt cutting back from a $50/month ISP plan to a cheaper $42/month ISP plan. Sure, every little bit helps. But in the grand scheme of things it's not going to solve your problems.
  If you're concerned about the federal budget, then what you should be worried about is the 4 programs that consume fully 60% of it: Social Security, Defense, Medicare, and Medicaid. We could cut all other federal spending by as much as 75%, and without cuts in those 4 programs, we'd still be running a deficit. Without tackling those programs there's almost no hope for returning the Federal budget to a stable position.
67. Re:Hmm... by jketch · 2010-03-12 03:56 · Score: 1
  
  It's not like the IRS doesn't get address updates every single year.
68. Re:Hmm... by Cwix · 2010-03-12 04:01 · Score: 1
  
  You can actually also blame the 1.3 trillion 01 tax cut and the 1.5 trillion 03 tax cut, along with the general belief that deficits dont matter. (If I remember correctly that was said by dick cheney quoting regan in 04)
  
  --
  You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
69. Re:Hmm... by svtdragon · 2010-03-12 04:02 · Score: 1
  
  No, but economic growth as measured by GDP nets higher tax receipts. The point is that for any given deficit, the faster GDP grows, the smaller it becomes in real terms.
70. Re:Hmm... by StopKoolaidPoliticsT · 2010-03-12 04:03 · Score: 1
  
  We can cherry pick all the statistics we want to meet our agenda.
  
  The Bush tax cuts RAISED GDP and federal revenue. Deficits increased because spending increased faster than the revenue gain. If I earn more money but I spend twice as much as I take in, I'm going to go deeper in debt. Likewise, my debt to income ratio will increase.
  
  As for debt numbers, they don't tell the full story. There are trillions of dollars worth of obligations we owe but don't have the money for. Right now, a portion of Social Security benefits is coming out of the general fund (8 years earlier than predicted) because the Social Security Trust Fund has been raided since the Johnson era to pay for the Great Society and Vietnam war to pretend that we weren't spending so deep into the red.
  
  In the future, we owe $14.2 trillion in Social Security, $18.8 trillion in Medicare-D and $74.8 trillion in Medicare and the funds to pay for them don't currently exist. As we run trillion dollar deficits, how exactly do you propose that a surplus will magically appear in the budget to pay for them? Ignoring this years "glitch" in Social Security, Medicare goes bankrupt in 2017 and Social Security in 2018. We owe an additional $108 trillion in obligations on top of the $12.5 trillion debt. But let's keep focusing solely on what we owe today and ignore what comes due tomorrow. It's all sunshine and lollipops. Let's spend some more.
  
  Oh.. and Keynesian economics says to deficit spend in the bad times and make it up with a surplus savings in the good times. We NEVER make surpluses (and even the "surpluses" of the late 90s were an Enron accounting trick, debt continually grew every year).
  
  --
  Stop Koolaid Politics
71. Re:Hmm... by D+Ninja · 2010-03-12 04:11 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can sit in your parents basement getting high scores on Call of Duty since you have virtually no lag time thanks to my taxes?
  Well, um...I'm still getting lag time, so apparently you're not working hard enough...
72. Re:Hmm... by MozeeToby · 2010-03-12 04:14 · Score: 1
  
  Oh God No! The government might get such vital information as your home address. Unless the speed test is uploading a copy of everything on your computer, you give the government much more information every year just filling out your taxes.
73. Re:Hmm... by Khyber · 2010-03-12 04:17 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  As often as cable modems break and cable networks switch IP addresses (unless you pay extra for the static IP) I pretty much fail to see how they'll build any reliable database from the cable side of things, as far as IP addresses are concerned (which are not reliable identifiers anyways.)
  I'm on my 10th IP address in two days and my THIRD cable modem in two months, just to give you an indication.
  
  --
  Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
74. Re:Hmm... by IICV · 2010-03-12 04:22 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire
75. Re:Hmm... by timeOday · 2010-03-12 04:24 · Score: 1
  
  Our national debt is nearly $130,000 per American home* and projected by Obama's budget to increase +$10,000 more each year. We. Need. To Stop. Spending. Otherwise we'll have ~$200,000/home by the end of this decade, and all go bankrupt. As Cosby might say, "C'mon people! This isn't hard to figure out."
  Pick your poison, it's either federal debt or higher unemployment. Having able-bodied people sit at home when they could be doing something productive is incredibly wasteful - US GDP Per Worker is about $70K.
  At some point, yes, deficit spending must be stopped. But it's not as if that makes the problem go away. Shutting down schools and public transit, for instance, may have longer term costs that outweigh the short-term savings.
76. Re:Hmm... by JWSmythe · 2010-03-12 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  I'd be more than comfortable doing it from work or a friends house, to show the speeds. Then again, it's not *MY* address that I'm giving away. :) This sounds like a wonderful way to build up a database associating physical street addresses to IP's. I think your tinfoil hat is aligned properly if you're a bit concerned about this.
  I trust the government and any disclaimer that they'd put on a web site, for almost the full duration it took to read the disclaimer. There's absolutely no reason to believe that with a warrant (or a warrantless search that's become so popular) that your associated data won't come back to bite you. Come on. "The user at IP 1.2.3.4 is suspected to have committed [enter charge here], request their physical address from broadband.gov. It would be so much faster, easier, and less obvious than asking the ISP for those records.
  All things considered, *MY* address doesn't even exist. I'm one of the millions who have found themselves more transient than all American 2.5 kids, 3br house and 2 cars, who own their own houses (and are mortgaged for the rest of their lives). My address (and IP) right now is different than it will be in a few hours. Hell, even my phone number is transient. Is my home number a friends house, or the prepaid cell of the week? It's by far intentional. I'd love to have a stable location with someone I can do some long term projects. My plans can't ever be beyond just a few days, before I'm packing everything back up in the car, and changing locations again.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
77. Re:Hmm... by Ed+Bugg · 2010-03-12 04:30 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Welcome to the Libertarian party.
  
  --
  -- Ed Bugg --You have freedom of choice, but not of consequences.--
78. Re:Hmm... by Archangel+Michael · 2010-03-12 04:33 · Score: 1
  
  If you taxed the "rich" 100%, it still wouldn't touch the budget debt. Bushes Tax cuts were bad, but not nearly as bad as three quarters of a century of Social Security Pyramid Schemed, half a century of Medicare, and all the TRILLIONS we've spent on the war on poverty.
  I agree that cutting taxes on the rich didn't help, but the only REAL solution is to raise taxes on the people who currently aren't paying any, cut spending (entitlements), and stop the pork barrel spending.
  Of course Obama's Health Care reform isn't really about Health Care, it is about creating another bankrupt entitlement, and passing the debt off to our children.
  PEOPLE do you not realize that you're selling your children into slavery? And it isn't just the USA that is facing this problem, it is happening all across the world.
  So yeah, I blame Bush and the (R) as much as I do the Pelosi, Obama, Reed and the other (D).
  And yes, I was against the bailouts. GM should have failed, same with AIG and Goldman-Sachs. Nothing is "too big to fail", and failure is like a forest fire, it cleans out the dead underbrush.
  The Bailouts just passed the buck down to your children.
  
  --
  Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
79. Re:Hmm... by charleste · 2010-03-12 04:33 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I am paying for 16/9 and getting 4/4. After repeatedly complaining, having them troubleshoot their hardware, et. Al, they have PROMISED to check the "neighborhood node", replace the immediate (in my neighbors back yard) node, as well as the routing servers, and given me $20/month credit for 6 months. Of course they haven't replace or repaired any of the nodes (the one in my neighbors yard looks like someone took a baseball bat to it), but I have received the credit. So I'm all for letting the FCC enforce quoted speeds for ISPs. And NO, I cannot use anything other than cable because the DSL node is too far away, I don't get GSM coverage at my home, and SkyBeam is too unreliable here. No other choice except dial-up or buying my own pipe.
80. Re:Hmm... by John+Hasler · 2010-03-12 04:34 · Score: 1
  
  Lie. They are not checking the addresses for validity.
  However, their contractor seems to be Slashdotted.
  
  --
  Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
81. Re:Hmm... by tibman · 2010-03-12 04:35 · Score: 1
  
  Businesses screw you a lot more than the government. You have to choose your allegiance.. Corporate America or the Government. In this case you have to opt-in to choose the Government.
  
  --
  http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
82. Re:Hmm... by Thaelon · 2010-03-12 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  The census isn't a threat to your privacy.
  It asks fewer things this time around than ever before.
  Sitting presidents have been denied access to detailed information the census found.
  
  --
  Question everything
83. Re:Hmm... by serialband · 2010-03-12 04:41 · Score: 1
  
  They've made record profits off the taxpayer by not expanding while getting kickbacks from the government. If you feel that the cable companies and telcos don't need to expand, then I want my tax money back. We have already paid them to expand their broadband services and they cheated us.
84. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  CORRECTED: ...Under both Clinton and Bush the debt "only" increased ~0.5 trillion per year (from 1993 to 2000 and 2001 to 2008). Under Obama's existing and projected budget, the debt increased by about $2.5 trillion during 2009, $1.5 trillion in 2010, and $1.0 trillion for the years 2011, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.... Bush added about 4.0 trillion while Obama's projecting 8.0-9.0 trillion by 2016.
  Sorry I made an error.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
85. Re:Hmm... by JWSmythe · 2010-03-12 04:51 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Check the fine print. It's written in 1px tall letters, but not necessarily every available to you.
  The advertised rate is the maximum data rate that would be possible with your account.
  They may have the pipe between your house and their first pop at the advertised speeds, but that won't necessarily be available through their network. They cannot assert the reliability of any 3rd part web sites, nor connectivity on any network beyond their own.
  Additionally, they probably don't (read: never) have enough capacity on their network to take 100% of advertised rate for all users simultaneously. Providers always oversell their bandwidth. They have since the dialup days. "Ok, we have 1,000 56k modems. Therefore we should have 56Mb/s available. Great, we'll run it over this T1, and blame line noise on their end for any slower speeds."
  Bandwidth calculations for sales are very dependent on the fact that some of the customers will never use their service. Some will only use it intermittently. Those who use too much capacity will be throttled or cancelled.
  When cable modems were first coming out, RoadRunner was using the same provider as my work. I could download stuff from work to home at 10Mb/s. That lasted for a few months, and then I suddenly found it capped at 3Mb/s. Ok, still, I'm happy, this was years ago and my other choice was a 56k modem. Then I found it capped at 1.5Mb/s. I was starting to get annoyed, so I called to complain. "My connection is getting slower and slower." They told me it couldn't have possibly been 10Mb/s, they never provisioned anything like that. Hmm. They also said the advertised rate of 3Mb/s is only a maximum. If other people in the area are using service at the same time as me, I should expect slower times. No one ever sees their maximum advertised throughput. If I'd like, I could upgrade to "Business" service for 10x as much, which has a higher advertised rate, but still does not have a guarantee for throughput. It's in the fine print, in the addendum that I wasn't provided a copy of. In the cellar. Behind the locked door marked "Beware the Leopard". In the disused lavatory. In the bottom drawer of a locked file cabinet. Clearly it was my fault for not understanding the terms of the contract, therefore I need to shut up and pay my bill like a happy little customer.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
86. Re:Hmm... by dawich · 2010-03-12 04:52 · Score: 1
  
  Mine changes at least 3 times a week, and it changes in several octets, so I'm not sure their database is going to do much.
87. Re:Hmm... by Nerdposeur · 2010-03-12 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  If you are going to advertise one speed but only deliver a lower one, that's false advertising (or something).
  YES. Although technically, they tell the truth - they say "up to" some speed, which is really a promise NOT to give you more than that, but says nothing about what they WILL give you. I'd like to tell them I'll pay "up to" X dollars for that, and vary my payment as I please. "Eh, it was kinda slow this month - I'm paying you $5."
  I wish they were required to advertise an average speed or something that we can measure and hold them accountable for.
88. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  Grow up people. I'm tired of the finger-pointing.
  I'm not interested in Bush/Obama partisan BS.
  I didn't cast a single vote for any of them,
  therefore I will defend NEITHER of them.
  I hate Bush probably more than you do because he betrayed fiscal conservatism, but facts are facts. Obama's projected budget from now to the end of 2016 will increase our national debt about TWICE as fast as the last eight years. End of story. It's in plain black-and-white if you just look at Obama's budget. It doesn't have to be that way. Obama could cut spending if he wanted to, but he *doesn't want to*. He wants to INCREASE spending.
  And I don't care if you have a Bromance with Obama (he is rather cute and smart) because there's no way this can be allowed to continue, and the Democratic Congress or Republican Congress or Libertarian congress (or whoever is in charge during the next ten years) should *stop spending* not going out and searching for more ways to drive us closer to bankruptcy. Otherwise we're going to end-up like Germany in the 1920s, or Zimbabwe more recently, where it takes a wheelbarrow of dollars to buy a loaf of bread. (And it appears Iceland/Greece will reach that point soon.)
  A $130,000 per home debt, climbing at $10,000 per year, is not sustainable. It doesn't matter whose fucking fault it was - it matters that we STOP SPENDING before we end up bankrupt like Iceland or Greece.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
89. Re:Hmm... by GeorgeS · 2010-03-12 05:02 · Score: 1
  
  Try that later tonight when everyone gets home from work :)
  
  --
  "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than have to have a frontal lobotomy."
90. Re:Hmm... by Rockoon · 2010-03-12 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  No, but economic growth as measured by GDP nets higher tax receipts. The point is that for any given deficit, the faster GDP grows, the smaller it becomes in real terms.
  So your claim is that GDP is a good proxy for tax revenue, therefore GDP is a good indicator of how bad the federal debt is.
  
  While my claim is that we should use the actual figures of actual tax revenue, instead of a proxy of them.
  
  Why would you insist on using a proxy for tax revenue when actual tax revenue data is available?
  
  If things aren't getting worse, than why isn't this graph flat? Thats a fucking hockey stick right there.
  
  --
  "His name was James Damore."
91. Re:Hmm... by xs650 · 2010-03-12 05:10 · Score: 1
  
  "Anyways, it's hard to imagine they won't be discarding outliers, and (regardless of intentions) your dishonest result will be an outlier."
  
  I would be expecting the ISPs to be stuffing the ballot box, so dishonest results won't be outliers.
92. Re:Hmm... by Selivanow · 2010-03-12 05:10 · Score: 1
  
  Anyone that paranoid can just change the MAC address of their router when they reboot. Bingo! New IP :>
  
  --
  -- ...trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. -Bruce Schneier
93. Re:Hmm... by Canie · 2010-03-12 05:13 · Score: 1
  
  Anecdotal at best but I started a small forum (~250 users globally; most in the US; middle-aged women) last fall. I periodically review by IP and either all of my members have static IPs (no way) or their DHCP server is simply renewing the same IP for all of them. With the exception of one AOL user, those that have more than one IP associated with their login are quite obviously coming from work during the weekday and then from home the rest of the time.
  With a static IP I figure I might as well do the test, especially since I'm in one of those under-served areas where we are supposed to have 10/2.5 but it actually got slower when we were informed that they had upped us from 1.5/0.5.
94. Re:Hmm... by JWSmythe · 2010-03-12 05:15 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  We'll be at your door momentarily to collect you.
  When the agents knock on your door, don't try to run. It won't do you any good. Do feel free to resist though. It gives us an excuse to use violence.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
95. Re:Hmm... by ak_hepcat · 2010-03-12 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  So, don't give them a valid address.
  There is no consistency checking on the form.
  123 main street
  nowhere, ak
  99999
  worked fine for me.
  If they're not gonna sanitize or validate, then why should i give them sanitized and validated data?
  Additionally, there's no information on where their servers are located. So, the 311ms rtt is a huge
  disservice. Especially given that there's no indication on load at their end.
  All in all, it's a POC, and i wouldn't trust the data as far as I could throw it.
  
  --
  Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
96. Re:Hmm... by slashdotjunker · 2010-03-12 05:17 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  That's exactly why you bust your butt for 60 hours a week. You do it so that he sits in his parent's basement and gets high scores on Call of Duty instead of going out and mugging you in Central Park. Every large society is going to have some dead weight. It is a problem that cannot be ignored. Either you provide social services for the dead weight, or the dead weight turns to crime, or you euthanize the dead weight. Personally, I hate crime and I don't want to even think about the moral and procedural issues of deciding who gets to live. Thus, I pay my taxes. I don't like it, but it's the only solution we have that works.
97. Re:Hmm... by vitaflo · 2010-03-12 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  As a ham, the FCC already has all my information. So for me personally, it's not that big of a deal.
98. Re:Hmm... by nine-times · 2010-03-12 05:27 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  You do know that people use the Internet for things other than entertainment, right?
99. Re:Hmm... by nine-times · 2010-03-12 05:32 · Score: 1
  
  Well, aicrules seems to be engaged in an act of deception in order to distort public information for the purpose of furthering his personal political agenda. Maybe Walter Williams has a clever quip justifying that sort of thing?
100. Re:Hmm... by cynical+kane · 2010-03-12 05:32 · Score: 1
  
  That saying isn't "witty" at all. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/witty
101. Re:Hmm... by autophile · 2010-03-12 05:33 · Score: 1
  
  Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur. -- Unknown
  
  --
  Towards the Singularity.
102. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 05:38 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  >>> I'm all for letting the FCC enforce quoted speeds for ISPs.
  What do you need the FCC for? You can enforce the speeds yourself using existing mechanisms. Simply drag Comcast into court for "breach of contract". You might even be able to get a class-action suit for your local neighborhood where Cmcast was licensed.
  Unfortunately you'd probably lose. Why? The contract you signed, if it looks like my contract, says "upto" a certain speed. Not a guarantee. Which means Comcast has done nothing wrong. A little immoral perhaps, but no different than how Walmart, Microsoft, or other corporations act. And no illegal.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
103. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 05:56 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  >>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can go to the library and read books thanks to my taxes?
  You shouldn't.
  >>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can drive on improved roads thanks to my taxes?
  You don't. Everybody pays a fair share for roads, based upon how much gasoline they use. Although it's called a "road tax" or "gasoline tax", it's as close to a use tax as the U.S. has. Everybody who drives pays roughly an equal amount to keep that smooth road functional.
  >>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can send your child to a school funded by my taxes?
  You shouldn't. Like college the money should be funded by the parents, except in hardship cases (like welfare) where the state can provide help so the child grows-up educated citizen rather than illiterate welfare bum.
  >>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can get medicare thanks to my taxes
  You shouldn't.
  >>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can be safe thanks to the military funded by my taxes?
  Because the military protects the GENERAL welfare of every single home. Hence you should pay for it since you benefit from its protection.
  You should not have to pay for a single tax, or program, unless it's authorized by the U.S. Constitution or your local State Constitution. And even then, only if YOU benefit from it (general welfare) not for the redistibution of wealth to sloths.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
104. Re:Hmm... by zero0ne · 2010-03-12 06:02 · Score: 1
  
  Why would the Fed's have to use the FCC database? They already have complete access to the ISPs logs.
105. Re:Hmm... by TemporalBeing · 2010-03-12 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  Unfortunately you'd probably lose. Why? The contract you signed, if it looks like my contract, says "upto" a certain speed. Not a guarantee. Which means Comcast has done nothing wrong. A little immoral perhaps, but no different than how Walmart, Microsoft, or other corporations act. And no illegal.
  Unless he has a business contract; then it probably does say a specific speed.
  
  --
  Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
106. Re:Hmm... by s73v3r · 2010-03-12 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  Or we can try to get a better picture of what the national broadband picture looks like, and hopefully enact regulation that at least makes the ISPs be a little more truthful in what they offer. What good is an ISP saying they can deliver "up to" 16 Mbps down, when all they can really deliver is 4? Its nothing short of deceptive, and it needs to stop.
  All they need to do is not inflate their numbers so much. If they were to give the number they knew most of their subscribers were seeing 90% of the time, then people wouldn't be so angry about their lies.
107. Re:Hmm... by s73v3r · 2010-03-12 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  So what you're saying is that the "Advertised" rate is a baldfaced lie. So why are we letting them get away with that?
108. Re:Hmm... by s73v3r · 2010-03-12 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  See, your ISPs appear to be honest about the speeds you get. The rest of ours typically aren't. That's one of the things we'd like to see change. And market forces aren't going to do it.
109. Re:Hmm... by wiredlogic · 2010-03-12 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  Well I'd like to see telco's held to their promised speeds as much as possible.
  I'm doubtful that there are any residential broadband providers that promise anything. All marketing materials will be found to include the wonderful lawyerly weasel words "up to" before any quoted estimate of potential speeds with their service. My DSL service dropped from 4.4Mbit down to 2.4Mbit down (upload speed remained the same) after a line quality issue cropped up at a junction box off my property. There's nothing I can do to complain about it because I only purchased "broadband" which is defined to be anything over 128Kbit (ISDN) by the FTC.
  
  --
  I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
110. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  >>>Stopping spending is exactly what caused the that massive recession that may or may not be over.
  False. Overinflated housing prices is what caused an economy that was "hotter" than what it really was. And no amount of government spending is going to rebuild the bubble. It never should have existed in the first place.
  Where the economy is now is where it's supposed to be. All the government is doing is creating a financial collapse of the dollar. Can YOU afford a $130,000 debt? Can you pay that back? I sure as hell can't and the creditors know that, which is why they want to abandon ship. ("We will not loan you any more money," said China.)
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
111. Re:Hmm... by Beorytis · 2010-03-12 06:14 · Score: 1
  
  We. Need. To Stop. Spending.
  Good article: Smart Debt and Stupid Debt.
112. Re:Hmm... by MstrFool · 2010-03-12 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  I'm on Comcast and I have to wonder at the results. Testing with the gov site I get results that are at least twice as high as tests run with any other service. They are still less then half of advertised speed, but they are consistently far better then I get any place else. Looks like Comcast if trying to pad the results by giving preference to that site. Yet an other reason for net neutrality needing to be enforced, so that the /real/ information can be gathered rather then the modified data the ISPs want to have seen.
  
  --
  Question reality.
113. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  >>>Like, letting those who own 98% of the resources pay for 98% of the debt?
  I'd be okay with that, but I'm also not stupid. Microsoft has already announced they would move to India if the U.S. tried that stunt, and I'm sure many corporations would follow suit.
  And we'd be left wihout jobs.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
114. Re:Hmm... by svtdragon · 2010-03-12 06:20 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I agree that cutting taxes on the rich didn't help, but the only REAL solution is to raise taxes on the people who currently aren't paying any, cut spending (entitlements), and stop the pork barrel spending.
  Because the lowest 20% have *so* much leftover income to contribute to taxes. And "pork barrel spending" comprises less than 1% of the Federal budget. Most goes to entitlements and defense--and entitlement spending, namely Medicare, is growing because our health costs are twice as much per-capita as nations with universal healthcare.
  
  Of course Obama's Health Care reform isn't really about Health Care, it is about creating another bankrupt entitlement, and passing the debt off to our children.
  Except for the part where it reduces the deficit in the next decade per the CBO, and reduces the deficit still *more* for the decade after. And so on.
  
  PEOPLE do you not realize that you're selling your children into slavery? And it isn't just the USA that is facing this problem, it is happening all across the world.
  Think about this for a second: if everyone, across the world, was selling their children into slavery, then who, exactly, would be buying them? By its very nature, a debt must be owed to a person or collection of people (either directly or by proxy). The nature of a debt is such that it belongs to a debtor and is owed to a creditor. Who, exactly, in this world you've dreamed up, is left to lend?
  
  And yes, I was against the bailouts. GM should have failed, same with AIG and Goldman-Sachs. Nothing is "too big to fail", and failure is like a forest fire, it cleans out the dead underbrush.
  You left out the part where their failure takes down our entire banking system and leaves a liquidity vacuum even bigger than the one we currently have, thereby cutting off the supply of money to anyone who might need to borrow it and slowing our economy to a complete and utter halt. But that's okay, the market will correct itself, right?
  
  Oh, shit! I forgot. The market is what got us here in the first place. My bad.
115. Re:Hmm... by Vancorps · 2010-03-12 06:21 · Score: 1
  
  I think you don't quite realise the actual difference between paying for a government granted monopoly or a government run service. If you believe in democracy then the government run service is ideal as you can vote on issues with the service and propose amendments. Those people happy with dial-up because they just check their email are missing out on a world of new abilities that are necessary to keep them competitive with the rest of the world. Is this really something we should want to encourage? That's an honest question and my bias is probably pretty obvious.
  The main issue is that we've already given these giant telecoms tons of incentives and tax breaks and outright grants to build infrastructure and they used some of the money but a lot of it went to corporate bonuses and yacht money. Hundreds of billions of dollars was just thrown at them and hundreds of billions were wasted. So they can't currently afford to role out new infrastructure necessary to keep us competitive and neither can our government. What is the right choice here?
  Fortunately I live in Arizona where local ISPs have kept up with the times as I have 100meg Internet here at my office due to be upgraded in the next 12 months. At home I have 50meg cable and I routinely get close to those speeds. The solution will probably be to form a government telecom in places like Florida which are ATT strongholds to create proper competition in those markets. ATT is really pissing me off right now as I have to put on a show in FL in a couple weeks and the best Internet I can get there is 3meg DSL?! This government service wouldn't be mandatory and could even run a small profit as long as profits were to be reinvested into telecom infrastructure or grants to get more and more rural communities access.
  This would serve as warning for other areas too, poor quality Internet service will be met with new government backed competition. This would do wonders for my area keeping our local ISPs moving forward for fear of a new big pocket competitor. This would also help balance the politics getting involved as political ideology would make the government less competitive although I suppose its possible that some philosophies in some areas will make them more competitive. Either way its a win as more people gain access to almost infinite amounts of information.
116. Re:Hmm... by cayenne8 · 2010-03-12 06:22 · Score: 1
  
  "Not to mention you probably already have a driver's license, and that requires a current address. Does anyone seriously believe the government doesn't know where they live?"
  Not everyone...hell, I was bouncing around so much for 5 years after Katrina...I have addresses all over the place. My DL says an address from like 3+ years ago...car registration has address from 1.5 years ago...etc.
  And I'm not for going down to sit at the DMV for half a day just to change the addresses...I'll do each when an expiration is about to hit and forces me to do so...
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
117. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 06:24 · Score: 1
  
  >>>We could cut all other federal spending by as much as 75%, and without cuts in those 4 programs, we'd still be running a deficit.
  Oh I agree. I'd mutate the SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and whatever Healthcare idea Pelosi passes into a *needs based* system like Welfare that only serves as a safety net, not an entitlement. For example: If you earned more than 5 million lifetime income, you'd be ineligible to receive funds.
  Of course I'd still cut broadband and everything else - 75% all across the board. High-speed internet is a *luxury* not a necessity. I have dialup on my laptop and it works just fine to get my work done.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
118. Re:Hmm... by s73v3r · 2010-03-12 06:27 · Score: 1
  
  I'm going to disagree with you on education. Having an educated populace benefits everyone, not just those with children. Well educated populations typically have lower crime rates, and higher prosperity rates. You could decide that the public shouldn't pay for it, but then there would be less of a chance for those already in lower income areas to get an education.
119. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  >>>Having able-bodied people sit at home when they could be doing something productive is incredibly wasteful -
  No what's wasteful is the Stimulus Bill spending about $150,000 (average) for some guy to pave potholes, or sweep streets, or smash windows & replace them with new ones. That's about three times more than what the job is really worth - talk about a poor bargain. "Good news! You can buy this computer at +300% higher than retail price!"
  I'd run away from a deal like that. It's a very, very poor way to spend our grandchildren's money.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
120. Re:Hmm... by s73v3r · 2010-03-12 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  And when they decide the best way to self-sufficiency is violent crime? Which was the point of the post you quoted.
121. Re:Hmm... by cayenne8 · 2010-03-12 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  "As often as cable modems break and cable networks switch IP addresses (unless you pay extra for the static IP) I pretty much fail to see how they'll build any reliable database from the cable side of things, as far as IP addresses are concerned (which are not reliable identifiers anyways.)
  I'm on my 10th IP address in two days and my THIRD cable modem in two months, just to give you an indication."
  Really? Wow.
  Yes, I have a static IP connection on my business acct. (only $69/mo, no caps, I can run servers, low level SLA, static IP, etc)..and I've alway bought my own cable modems, and I'm only on my 2nd EVER...and that's because the one I had before was in storage from Katrina and I needed a connection before I could dig through and find the old one. I think they are the Motorola Surfboard ones? I honestly don't think I've every had one fail that I can recall?
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
122. Re:Hmm... by Vancorps · 2010-03-12 06:37 · Score: 1
  
  I'm curious, given that in my immediate family I have one almost 30 year old sister without any health insurance and one 33 year old sister without health insurance you really wan to say that healthcare reform is just about creating more entitlements? I find your stance offensive given that my 33 year old sister has three kids who couldn't get insurance if she was going to be on the policy. So my brother-in-law and the three kids get insurance while her pre-existing thyroid condition keeps her from being covered.
  This is unacceptable in every industrialised nation except for these United States of America and you're saying its acceptable how? If my personal story doesn't mean anything I would assume it doesn't given your stance that its about passing debt and selling children into slavery despite all the evidence suggesting that it would actually decrease our national deficit I would at least expect you to realise that there are 30 million plus Americans without coverage and thousands going broke even with coverage due to medical bills.
  Congress has failed on every level, Bush couldn't have done anything to hurt this country if congress had actually done their job, the same is happening with Obama now. The bailouts you are so cavalier about are astonishing too. The only problem I saw with the bailouts was that there wasn't enough oversight into how the money was spent but GM going under would have put many 10s of thousands or more out of work at a time when unemployment numbers are already uncomfortably high. Let us not forget that many millions more would have lost their homes. There are lots of consequences had we not bailed them out as disgusting as the whole situation was.
123. Re:Hmm... by tibman · 2010-03-12 06:39 · Score: 1
  
  It's not illegal where you are to drive without insurance? No health or home insurance are fine because that only affects yourself. But car insurance affects other people too. The insurance covers your legal liability if you destroy public property, injure someone, stuff like that.
  It all seems to vary from state to state.
  
  --
  http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
124. Re:Hmm... by AnotherUsername · 2010-03-12 06:50 · Score: 1
  
  Since you seem to wholeheartedly believe this, I suppose I should expect a check from you based on the time you spent in public school? I mean, I paid for you to go to school, and that means you got something for nothing. Pay up.
  
  You should also send a check to me for any time you spent in my state, and thus fell under the protection of police, fire, and ambulance protection. I paid for it, and the various services were on call for you if you needed them.
  
  My area has a higher gasoline tax than many other areas, which helps pay for better roads. If you have driven through my area without stopping for gas, you are getting something for nothing.
  
  Before you send the money, I must tell you that I do not take personal checks.
  
  --
  I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
125. Re:Hmm... by Foolicious · 2010-03-12 06:52 · Score: 1
  
  Either you provide social services for the dead weight, or the dead weight turns to crime, or you euthanize the dead weight.
  Holy false trichotomy, Batman!
  
  --
  Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
126. Re:Hmm... by svtdragon · 2010-03-12 06:55 · Score: 1
  
  The basic premise is this:
  
  The economy has a certain potential output at any given time, in the case that it's at full employment and fully utilizing all available resources. But when the economy isn't operating at 100% utilization, the gap between the real output and the maximum potential output (called the "output gap") grows.
  
  To throw in a computer analogy, this is sort of like the gap between your internet connection's theoretical maximum throughput and what you're utilizing at an instant in time, in the sense that once that instant has passed, you can't go back and reclaim that bit of bandwidth that you paid for but didn't use. Hence the aggregate GDP is not as high as it could have been had there been full utilization.
  
  Right now our economy has an output gap of about $1 trillion (per the plot here). The integral over the time period between when the two lines on the plot diverged and today represents lost productivity.
  
  Since right now private demand isn't adequate to utilize the resources available at 100%, the government should be pushing money into the economy to employ these resources and close the output gap until private demand picks up.
  
  As far as the debt is concerned, as a percentage of GDP it will shrink as the GDP grows, hence its real cost will be less than the initial outlay--in essence, we get an increase in productivity and GDP for cents on the dollar. This costs us *less* in real terms than it would cost us to continue to let the output gap grow.
  
  Make sense now?
127. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 06:57 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  The census isn't a threat to your privacy.
  No, just to your freedom.
  "The U.S. Census Bureau Gave Up Names of Japanese-Americans in WW II"
128. Re:Hmm... by Foolicious · 2010-03-12 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  See, if you would have just ended the sentence at "unemployment" instead of adding the ", mkay?" your message would have been much more effective, even with the sarcastic and pejorative "might be handy" and "zomg deficit spending is teh baaad". But providing simple information is insufficient, apparently; info must always be provided in a manner where it is clear that anyone who disagrees is unarguably a dimwit, fool, personal enemy or some variety of blind partisan.
  
  --
  Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
129. Re:Hmm... by ginbot462 · 2010-03-12 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know who was at the "do-", but it was nice of them to let you hit preview and submit, all I ever get is
  
  --
  Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story :: Battlefield Earth : Organized Religion
130. Re:Hmm... by Katmando911 · 2010-03-12 07:12 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe some of those things SHOULD be privatized to pass the cost on to the customer instead of the taxpayer.
131. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 07:12 · Score: 1
  
  TRIVIA:
  You commented about using Speedtest.net results, rather than the FCC trying to setup their own survey. Their results show the U.S.A. at 7.7 Mbit/s overall. That's about 1M slower than the Russian Federation, but 1M faster than the EU, 2M faster than Canada/Australia, 4M faster than our main competitor China, and 5M faster than Brazil or Mexico.
  i.e. The U.S. when compared to other continent-sized federations/areas is holding a solid second place. Not bad at all.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
132. Re:Hmm... by svtdragon · 2010-03-12 07:13 · Score: 1
  
  I've tried both ways. Oddly, it turns out that adding some variety thereof gets you modded ++.
  
  Really, it boils down to this: after you repeat yourself so many times and nobody seems to hear, it just becomes exhausting. Doesn't mean it doesn't need to be said, but when Google can debunk these arguments in thirty seconds, I often wonder why I bother.
133. Re:Hmm... by Ed+Bugg · 2010-03-12 07:15 · Score: 1
  
  You should also send a check to me for any time you spent in my state, and thus fell under the protection of police, fire, and ambulance protection. I paid for it, and the various services were on call for you if you needed them.
  Actually everyone already does. It's called a Sales Tax. So if I stayed any length of time in your fine area, I have already paid for the possible use of your quality police, fire and ambulance. Fortunately I was not in need of any of those services, thus I wish a refund of the money I placed in the hands of your fine city.
  
  My area has a higher gasoline tax than many other areas, which helps pay for better roads. If you have driven through my area without stopping for gas, you are getting something for nothing.
  Fortunately for me, as I passed through your area, I stayed on the Interstate which is partially funded by my federal income tax. I find the many years I've been funding your roads is highly disproportionate to the time spent driving on them and I request a refund of the money that I have not used.
  
  --
  -- Ed Bugg --You have freedom of choice, but not of consequences.--
134. Re:Hmm... by spazdor · 2010-03-12 07:17 · Score: 1
  
  If they were to give the number they knew most of their subscribers were seeing 90% of the time, then people wouldn't be so angry about their lies.
  Not to mention, it would create an opportunity for actual competition to happen in the market, forcing its players to actually try and provide better value for money, like the FreeMarketarians keep insisting will happen.
  
  --
  DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
135. Re:Hmm... by WrongSizeGlass · 2010-03-12 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not advocating we the taxpayer pay for this, I'm only contending that a government mandate that the telcos provide DSL to anyone who asks is not practical. Yes, it's a shame that not everyone has access to the same level or quality of broadband service. You can replace 'broadband service' with countless other services, options or opportunities and it will affect a different section of the population. No one ever promised that everyone would get the same chances.
  
  Past government involvement in private enterprise hasn't always worked out so well. Recent government involvement in private enterprise hasn't exactly worked out that well either. Why on earth would I think future government involvement in private enterprise is going to produce a different result? This is a prime example of Einstein's definition of 'insanity'.
136. Re:Hmm... by King+Coopa · 2010-03-12 07:39 · Score: 1
  
  You're looking at this all wrong. For an ISP to upgrade its infrastructure to provide more coverage and better speeds would not reflect a "a couple pennies per month...maybe a dollar", it would be significantly more that. So much more that it wouldn't be economically viable for everyone to keep the same service and, like you said, forced to downgrade or cancel their service, thus leaving no funding for the new infrastructure and nothing getting done. I think that was the point WrongSizeGlass was referring to.
  
  Now, if tax money were used for the rollout then it would reflect a "pennies per month" shared across the board. I understand that some people don't like to see their money going to help someone else instead of them, but when it amounts to loose change for everyone instead of $10-$20 a month for a few (which gives you less subscribers/less money overall and no money for the infrastructure) then there's a very small burden to you and I. The benefit of full scale broadband is greater than the burden to the public, we ALL benefit.
  
  Your refusal to support this seems to me that you don't believe broadband for the masses is a good thing. Government spending is in place to encourage economic growth and benefit the entire nation as a whole. I think that now, in the year 2010, having fast internet has moved beyond a source of entertainment and is progressing into a necessity that the US economy needs to stay competitive.
  
  What I mean by this is the internet makes you smarter; it's access to the best source of knowledge, and it's FREE (minus the cost of internet service and infrastructure). Providing the country with knowledge makes the country smarter, a smarter country spurs more technical advancement, more technical advancement give you: flying cars, space elevators, a cleaner planet, etc...
137. Re:Hmm... by pdabbadabba · 2010-03-12 07:52 · Score: 1
  
  You should not have to pay for a single tax, or program, unless it's authorized by the U.S. Constitution or your local State Constitution.
  Well then good news! That is, indeed, the law of the United States. And it is overwhelmingly adhered to. Your problem, I take it, is that you do not agree with what courts have said that the constitution allows. For that, my friend, I'm afraid there is no cure that I can offer you, except maybe to read the opinions you have a problem with. In many cases you will find them quite sensible if you understand the law and approach them with an open mind.
  Of course, I am NOT saying that I agree with every opinion ever to be written by the supreme court. What I am saying, though, is that the reasoning in almost every opinion I've read at least commands respect.
  
  --
  caritj.org
138. Re:Hmm... by u-235-sentinel · 2010-03-12 07:58 · Score: 1
  
  So it's OK for everyone to pay for it as long as it's not called taxes? Brilliant.
  Uhhh... You do realize you already are being taxed for it now right? Remember Clinton's NII bill in the 90's? Conservatively we've already paid over $200 billion and were supposed to get 45 meg up/down fiber to the home by 2015. So, how do you think they are doing? Have your fiber yet or are you like everyone else and still waiting?
  
  --
  Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
139. Re:Hmm... by timeOday · 2010-03-12 08:04 · Score: 1
  
  Well, obviously, you can't remodel your kitchen for just the cost of hiring a handyman. Nor can the government build a new road for just the cost of labor. Simply dividing the cost of a project by the number of people employed is a misleading and almost meaningless figure - unless the projects truly have no value or future economic return. But that's not true, there's plenty of worthwhile work to do.
  The issue of how to make life best for our grandkids is not so obvious. We can certainly give them less debt and lower taxes by neglecting education, infrastructure, and security, but it's far from clear that would improve their standard of living.
140. Re:Hmm... by Aqualung812 · 2010-03-12 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  RTFA before posting. It just maps IP to street address.
  
  --
  Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
141. Re:Hmm... by KharmaWidow · 2010-03-12 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  my gut reaction too! Government says - everyone come let us run scripts on your computer/connection.... Cannot result in something good.
142. Re:Hmm... by DarkKnightRadick · 2010-03-12 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  That would be nice.
  
  --
  "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
143. Re:Hmm... by Qzukk · 2010-03-12 08:43 · Score: 1
  
  The failure is in the belief/fact that health insurance is necessary to keep you alive. Sadly, as long as enough people believe it, it's true, and rather than getting healthcare reform aimed at reducing the cost of healthcare so that people can afford it without needing insurance to pay for it, we get "reform" that is effectively an insurance company bailout (eg mandates etc).
  Health insurance is functionally broken until it works like in Eve: when your body breaks insurance gets you a new body. Until then, it's basically useless for its advertised purpose.
  
  --
  If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
144. Re:Hmm... by svtdragon · 2010-03-12 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  I would say that my evaluation of the buffer to apply between Presidents is dependent upon the kind of policy in question: foreign policy can be changed at the drop of a hat, since it falls solely to the executive to determine. I would not, however, blame Clinton for 9/11--nor, on the other hand, would I blame Bush. I'd blame a whole half-century of US middle-eastern foreign policy.
  
  But when you're talking about existing foreign engagements, the lag will have to increase for logistical reasons. Pulling out of wars is tricky.
  
  I attribute our engagement in Iraq solely to Bush (since Obama did all in his power to draw down troop levels as soon as he assumed office). Obama will have to take some blame for Afghanistan costs, and in particular the cost of the troop escalations he proposed. However, we still may not have been in that situation if not for Bush.
  
  However, economic issues require more lag, but that lag will be variable depending on the budgetary impact and timing of the policies put into place. On top of that, one has to factor in congressional control, since the President can't pass laws.
  
  As an example of budgetary lag, Obama's healthcare plan, should it pass, won't take effect until 2014. (Tangentially, at that point, when projecting Obama's budget I would, personally, start to include its deficit reductions in my calculations, simply based upon the President's attempted agenda. If it turns out that it fails, well, I'd assume next year's budget will account for that.)
  
  In any case, if Obama loses in 2012, his healthcare policies will impact his successor's budget. By the same token, the estate tax holiday is this year. This will have much more of an impact on Obama's budget than it did on Bush's, even though Bush proposed it.
  
  Fairness is in order; in general, I'd give probably a year or two worth of buffer between presidencies as far as economics are concerned. We started on the downward trajectory under the latter part of Bush's term, and Obama largely stopped the downturn while not doing enough to turn it back *up* again. I blame him for not putting forward enough stimulus to close the output gap.
  
  For the most part, I blame our economic woes on Reagan, for instilling in an entire generation the idea that government can never provide solutions to a problem and "unions are bad". Those sentiments led, respectively, to bank deregulation (responsible for the current crisis) and the absorption of the GDP gains of the past 30 years by the top 0.1% of the population while the real inflation-adjusted wages of the lower 20% and middle 60% have remained stagnant.
145. Re:Hmm... by MobyDisk · 2010-03-12 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  We got into this bad economy by financing mortgage debts greater than the value of the property, under the assumption that the housing market would grow and that mortgage debt would become a smaller percentage of the property value.
  Our plan to get out of the bad economy is to finance national debt greater than the GDP of the economy, under the assumption that the economy will grow and the national debt will become a smaller percentage of the GDP.
  Does anyone else see something wrong with this plan?
146. Re:Hmm... by JWSmythe · 2010-03-12 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  Probably for the same reason that we let car manufacturers show that a car can do 180mph. It's not that you'll do it, but in theory you could. How many people test out their top speed, and then complain when the car is incapable of it?
  Of course, if say a drill manufacturer advertises that a variable speed drill will spin up to 10k RPM, it'd better do 10k RPM. :)
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
147. Re:Hmm... by cayenne8 · 2010-03-12 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  "RTFA before posting. It just maps IP to street address."
  And just how difficult is it to cross with another database with Name mapped to Address?
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
148. Re:Hmm... by Patch86 · 2010-03-12 11:12 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This whole "up to" thing seems like a barely legal joke to me.
  If I ran a dairy delivery, and I offered my customers "packages" of either "up to 2 pints of milk, up to 3 pints, or up to 4 pints", and then proceeded to deliver them 1 pint, 1 1/4 pints, or 1 1/2 pints, do you know what would happen? I'd be bitch slapped by the Trade Descriptions Act quicker than you can say "but did you read the fine print?". You're not allowed to offer something that you have no intention of delivering, and that's that.
  It seems like the ISPs are in one of those strange legal loop-holes that so regularly plague the technology industries. It seems that the second someone introduces something "on a computer", the regulators completely lose their minds...
149. Re:Hmm... by snarfer · 2010-03-12 11:17 · Score: 1
  
  So you think "spending" on things people need is the problem, when all the borrowing has happened since the huge tax cuts for the rich?
  meanwhile countries like China are building out a modernized infrastructure. We're losing the competition because we stopped "spending" -- maintaining infrastructure - back in the 80's.
150. Re:Hmm... by BikeHelmet · 2010-03-12 11:32 · Score: 1
  
  I'm Canadian. I pay for 3mbit/640kbit ADSL. I get 2.6mbit/460kbit. Not too bad, considering where I live.
  I would participate in something like this if it came to Canada. I know out east a lot of people were paying Bell for 25mbit and getting ~1.5mbit.
151. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 11:47 · Score: 1
  
  >>>If you believe in democracy then the government run service is ideal
  Well let's consider other government services and whether or not they run "ideal" for the customers?
  - Medicare? Nope. Almost bankrupt.
  - SS? Nope. Same. Plus if you die before retirement all the hundreds of thousands you handed-in to that "retirement account" disappears. Even if you manage to retire but die early, like my grandma at age 68, then too bad. You still didn't get back all that you put in. (It's like a Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.)
  - Post Office? Nope. Almost bankrupt.
  - Amtrak? Nope. Same reason and also slow as heck (a cross country journey takes 6-7 days; by car it's only 3).
  - EZpass? HA. Nope. It was supposed to save money by charging me only ~80 cents instead of 1 dollar. Now it COSTS me $20 a year just to have the thing in my car. Broken promises, and of course complaining about it doesn't do any good. Politicians don't hear the voices of the citizens.
  .
  I could go on and on, but I think you get the gist of my thinking regarding government-run services. Hell if the government ran computers, we'd still all be using 8 bit CPUs. ("8 bits is all the people need," declared president bush on a recent stump speech.) No thanks. I prefer the power that Choice gives me.
  If women can choose to abort human fetuses, then I ought to be able to choose what provider I want, not some damn Soviet Union-style Tribant ISP rammed down my throat. (Although I hear some people like that.)
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
152. Re:Hmm... by mike_of_the_weeds · 2010-03-12 11:53 · Score: 1
  
  As often as cable modems break and cable networks switch IP addresses...
  And I have been using the same cable modem for nearly 5 years. I don't pay for a static IP but I have only have 3 different IPs in that entire time frame. Go Go Anecdotal Evidence!
153. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 11:59 · Score: 1
  
  >>>Now, if tax money were used for the rollout then it would reflect a "pennies per month" shared across the board
  You clearly have no idea how government works. I do because I've worked for them, and the inefficiency is ridiculous. I see tons of people sitting around doing nothing, but they don't get fired because it would reflect poorly on the politician during re-election. So there they sit surfing the net and getting paid $30-40 an hour to do it.
  Verizon/ATT/et cetera would comply with the law to install DSLAMs, grudgingly, and they'd do it as efficiently as possible. Probably just one tech handling each install (per neighborhood).
  In contrast government would probably have 5 guys. One to confirm the money is not ill-spent and fill out voluminous amounts of paperwork, another who works for the Senate to go-around patting everyone on the back for a job well done and reminding them to vote in November, another who has no real job but he's part of the "stimulus bill" and doing "workfare" so he spends his daying surfing the net in Uncle Sam's Broadband HQ..... and finally two guys to do the actual job of hooking up the DSLAM. (They won't actually need two guys, but per government regulations it's a "two man job" and therefore two are assigned to a job that only needs one.)
  That's government in a nutshell, and it absolutely is NOT as efficient as a private company that has two choices: pinch pennies or die. 5 men versus 1 man. The private company will do it cheaper.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
154. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 12:04 · Score: 1
  
  >>>I paid for you to go to school, and that means you got something for nothing. Pay up.
  I'd be happy to send that money to you, but since I'm already paying school tax, police tax (funded by income tax), ambulance fees, and gasoline/road taxes. So I've already repaid/am paying for the benefits I received.
  In fact I'm MORE than paying my share, since I'm in a high bracket with a higher progressive tax.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
155. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 12:11 · Score: 1
  
  >>>Your problem, I take it, is that you do not agree with what courts have said that the constitution allows.
  No because the courts (specifically the Supreme Court) are part of the U.S. government, and threfore biased in favor of more U.S. Government power, not less. It is as illogical as asking Bill Gates to decide if Microsoft should be fined for violating antitrust law. It seems rather obvious what the answer will be.
  The only true mediator is an entity outside of the Beltway..... like the 50 state legislatures. THEY created the constitution and they should be the ones declaring which U.S. Government laws are constitutional or unconstitutional, not the biased U.S. Government.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
156. Re:Hmm... by blackraven14250 · 2010-03-12 12:11 · Score: 1
  
  I'm going to guess that stated speed would be 3.5/3.5......
157. Re:Hmm... by blackraven14250 · 2010-03-12 12:13 · Score: 1
  
  Give them an address down the street. That way, they know about your area's shitty access, but there's no violation of your personal privacy.
158. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 12:14 · Score: 1
  
  >>>Make sense now?
  Because $130,000 is still $130,000.
  And in 2017 when the economy is roaring again, and the debt is about $200,000/home (per Obama's own budget projections), it will still be $200,000/home.
  You tried, but there's simply no way to make this look good.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
159. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 12:19 · Score: 1
  
  >>>(Tangentially, at that point, when projecting Obama's budget I would, personally, start to include its deficit reductions in my calculations, simply based upon the President's attempted agenda.)
  >>>
  You talk a lot when you should be googling instead. Obama's budget is on the web, and you can read it for yourself. HE projects +1 trillion additional debt every year through 2016. And that's assuming the healthcare bill passes and saves money..... if it fails it will be even worse.
  You don't need to "tangentially project" into the future. Obama and his team have already done the work for you, and even they admit the U.S. debt will grow about twice as fast as under either Bush or Clinton or even Reagan.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
160. Re:Hmm... by X0563511 · 2010-03-12 12:20 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like further baseball-battage to the node will fix that non-replacement issue. Just make sure you do it at night :P
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
161. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 12:22 · Score: 1
  
  >>>Except for the part where it reduces the deficit in the next decade per the CBO, and reduces the deficit still *more* for the decade after. And so on.
  Boy when 2017 arrives and the national debt has risen from ~$12 to almost $20 trillion, won't you be surprised? Even your beloved Obama acknowledges this will happen in the budget he submitted to Congress. Yes we can blame Bush for the first 1-2 years of that, but the remaining 7 are all on Obama's back.
  Obama has NO interest in cutting spending. He WANTS to increase our national debt, and admits as much in his budget.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
162. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 12:26 · Score: 1
  
  >>>I have one almost 30 year old sister without any health insurance and one 33 year old sister without health insurance
  All they have to do is go BUY some. I just got a quote from Nationwide and it was only $100 a month for catastrophic health insurance. If they don't have the money, let them cancel the cable tv, or cellphone, or internet (or all three) and then they'll have the $100.
  Ya know..... I'm really sick of people who whine "I have no money" and aren't willing to do what it takes to balance their budget. I spend a mere $5 on my phone, $15 on internet, and nothing on television (it's antenna based). I sacrifice. Why can't these other lazy SOBs sacrifice?!?!?
  (Yes I'm starting to get a little hot under the collar.)
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
163. Re:Hmm... by svtdragon · 2010-03-12 12:28 · Score: 1
  
  And there will be population growth, so that there will be more homes, which makes it less per home, and people will make more/GDP will be higher, which makes it (in terms of real value) less per home, and both of the above will mean there will be more tax receipts with which to pay it off faster.
  
  Look at all of the massive budget cuts they had to do in the postwar period, especially in Europe. Except that in reality, that didn't happen: they all instituted massive social safety nets, and the growth of the middle class (ours is shrinking, but hopefully Obama's tax policies will fix that) and the corresponding tax receipts and GDP growth reduced the real value of the debt to manageable terms as a percentage of GDP.
  
  And they thrived on that model--look at the growth rates between 1950 and 1970.
164. Re:Hmm... by blackraven14250 · 2010-03-12 12:28 · Score: 1
  
  I stayed on the Interstate which is partially funded by my federal income tax.
  You also used your own interstates, which is where you can say the majority of your money went, since you don't feel like being a citizen of the US and being in the game of "US vs. the World" with the rest of us.
165. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 12:30 · Score: 1
  
  >>>huge tax cuts for the rich?
  95% of the U.S. government's income comes from the top 5%. It's true - see irs.gov for the stats. I think you ought to send "the rich" a thank you letter instead of criticizing them.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
166. Re:Hmm... by blackraven14250 · 2010-03-12 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  It's only false because he didn't mention that the dead weight, on the individual level, can turn to productive members of society. That's individually though, and not on the large scale, where you really aren't going to get rid of every last bit of dead weight. Think of the dead weight as entropy.
167. Re:Hmm... by pdabbadabba · 2010-03-12 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  Have you read Art III 2 of the constitution?
  And do you really think the states would not be biased in the opposite direction? What happens if states disagree with each other in their constitutional interpretations?
  And why would the courts, a totally separate branch of the federal government, care what powers are granted to the executive and congress? Maybe they would tend to be biased in favor of growing federal judicial power, but that is not at all what we're talking about.
  
  --
  caritj.org
168. Re:Hmm... by svtdragon · 2010-03-12 12:38 · Score: 1
  
  It would be pretty presumptuous of him to include his as-yet-unpassed health reform bill in this year's budget, wouldn't it? He said this before the joint session of Congress:
  
  Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem.
  And it's true.
  
  His budget decreases the deficit by 60+% over 3 years. It will stabilize at about 60% of GDP which is not bad by historical standards. From there, you're right, we'll have to tackle the long-term picture including social security, etc. But his budget is, in fact, a step in the right direction.
169. Re:Hmm... by snarfer · 2010-03-12 12:40 · Score: 1
  
  Wow, someone who claims that the wealthy pay too much in taxes -- even though the top tax rates have been cut so dramatically that we have had to borrow trillions of dollar to make up for it.
  I wonder if you know that the top 1% now take in a higher percentage of all income in the country than ever before?
  I wonder if you know about how many don't even pay ANY taxes? See this about a couple with $108 million income, arranged so they pay no taxes at all: http://www.speakoutca.org/weblog/2010/02/108-million-inc.html
  I wonder if you know that the top 1% now own about 80% of everything in the country?
  I wonder if you know that this massive increase in income and wealth is enabled by the infrastructure that was built by our taxes?
170. Re:Hmm... by s73v3r · 2010-03-12 13:03 · Score: 1
  
  Possibly, but there are many more factors preventing competition in the ISP space, including the fact that anyone who wants to start one probably is going to have to dig up the roads to start.
171. Re:Hmm... by s73v3r · 2010-03-12 13:05 · Score: 1
  
  So why is it ok for cars, but not ok for your variable speed drill? Or, better yet, why should the manufacturer of a drill be obligated to provide the true speed of the drill, whereas an ISP is not obligated to provide the true average speed of the connection?
172. Re:Hmm... by Mr.+Freeman · 2010-03-12 13:33 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  "if it looks like my contract, says "upto" a certain speed. Not a guarantee"
  
  This is EXACTLY why the FCC is doing this in the first place. They're going to compare the advertised "up to" speed and see how often you can actually get that.
  
  The problem with this test is that it only measures the speed for about 20 seconds. I have comcast which means "power boost" kicks in for about the first 30 seconds of your download, then you get normal speed, and then my speed seems to fucking tank on torrents after about 5-10 minutes sometimes.
  
  Basically, everyone from comcast will score BETTER than advertised speeds because of the way the test is done despite the fact that comcast is complete shit.
  
  --
  -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
173. Re:Hmm... by Mr.+Freeman · 2010-03-12 13:36 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Yes, this COULD be a scheme to get your personal information. I consider this to be unlikely, however, because they're ALREADY WIRETAPPING THE ENTIRE FUCKING COUNTRY. Then don't even need a warrant, they just need "probably cause" and to fill out a 1 page form to get any and all of your data from any ISP in the USA.
  
  They don't need some new sneaky plan to get your data, they already have it.
  
  --
  -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
174. Re:Hmm... by Mr.+Freeman · 2010-03-12 13:45 · Score: 1
  
  "No because the courts (specifically the Supreme Court) are part of the U.S. government, and threfore biased in favor of more U.S. Government power, not less"
  
  Oh jesus fucking christ. This is getting absurd. THE PEOPLE elect the president who appoints the judges. THE PEOPLE are not biased in favor of more US government power and therefore this bias doesn't exist.
  
  --
  -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
175. Re:Hmm... by Ed+Bugg · 2010-03-12 13:49 · Score: 1
  
  This legislation doesn't curb anyone's rights. Nothing in the bill restricts or infringes on any rights enumerated in the Constitution,
  So when some guy walks into your business and says "Pay be $100 per week and I'll make sure that your protected from flying spaghetti monsters and if you don't I'm breaking your legs." He's not restricting or infringing on your rights.
  
  I'm not a particular fan of mandates, either, but I understand that in the end, it will be a boon for everyone in the country to have some sort of health insurance.
  No what would be a boon for everyone is if the price of health care was affordable.
  
  And let's be honest here, 10K in catastrophic insurance is a drop in the bucket if you get cancer.
  He said deductible. The first 10K he pays out of pocket. It's the rest the insurance pays.
  
  --
  -- Ed Bugg --You have freedom of choice, but not of consequences.--
176. Re:Hmm... by Khyber · 2010-03-12 13:52 · Score: 1
  
  Tell me - do you live in an area with constant brownouts where you constantly lose your IP lease and power surges fry your equipment?
  Those aren't too nice for equipment, and the UPS stays dedicated to my servers and the router - the internet can die AFAIC.
  
  --
  Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
177. Re:Hmm... by Ed+Bugg · 2010-03-12 13:59 · Score: 1
  
  (Thus ends the legally-allowed questions - the rest of these violate the Bill of Rights (9 and 10).)
  A second reply... "And what in the name of blue fuck does asking your age, sex, income, etc, on the census have to do with either the Ninth or Tenth Amendment?"
  I think his point was towards all the people who seem to keep saying "The Constitution doesn't say they can't do this". Your quotes point out that the Constitution states the federal government is not allowed to do anything not mentioned in the Constitution, and asking about age, sex and income doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere around the part of the census. In the past they've had to justify something as part of the Commerce Clause. In modern times they (national government) seems to have forgone any need to even rationalize what they are doing as a power granted by the Constitution.
  
  --
  -- Ed Bugg --You have freedom of choice, but not of consequences.--
178. Re:Hmm... by Profane+MuthaFucka · 2010-03-12 15:23 · Score: 1
  
  Yea, but at least they never find out how much I earn.
  
  --
  Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
179. Re:Hmm... by bhiestand · 2010-03-12 15:31 · Score: 1
  
  A $130,000 per home debt, climbing at $10,000 per year, is not sustainable. It doesn't matter whose fucking fault it was - it matters that we STOP SPENDING before we end up bankrupt like Iceland or Greece.
  Car analogy incoming! That's like saying you should slam on the brakes as hard as you can when you see an obstacle ahead of you on the road, regardless of how wet the road may be or whether you might be safer steering around it.
  I know you're a total conservative, and I get that because I've been there. But you really should know that the worst thing you can possibly do in the middle of a deep recession is cut spending+raise taxes. If we drastically cut spending last year and raised taxes we'd probably be in a depression right now.
  That said, I think we all agree that the budget ultimately needs to be balanced. Most of us just subscribe to some model resembling Keynesian and think now really isn't the best time.
  
  --
  SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
180. Re:Hmm... by spazdor · 2010-03-12 16:46 · Score: 1
  
  Possibly. But there are plenty of people out there who can resell fiber and copper lines, and it would at least force them and the wireless people onto an even playing field.
  
  --
  DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
181. Re:Hmm... by JWSmythe · 2010-03-12 16:48 · Score: 1
  
  I guess it really depends on if the average consumer is going to try the advertised max on a regular basis or not. I don't think it's right in any of the cases for them to misrepresent their products. That is why the phrase "Caveat emptor" came into existence. This has been going on long before you or I were alive, and I'm sure absolute truth in advertising will never become a reality.
  If advertising were to be believed verbatim, I would believe that using Axe hygiene products would have women chasing the user to the ends of the earth. I would find it hard to differentiate from normal life, since it already happens with or without Axe products. :)
  I'd love for the requirement *and* enforcement in truthful advertising. Then you won't ever see anything like these.
  Ok, maybe that last one is more representative of the general Slashdot community. But the rest of them were bad ads. :) It's not hard to find. Pretty much look at any ad,and realize that they're stretching the truth somehow. Either that, or the soap I use, the beer I drink, and the car I drive are all going to get me laid more, make me richer, and happy. :)
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
182. Re:Hmm... by welcher · 2010-03-12 21:04 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, the housing bubble burst, that caused a massive financial crisis because banks had heinously overexposed themselves to unsustainable risk, credit stopped, people and companies stop spending. Recession. Government spending is not trying to reinflate a bubble. It is ensuring that the economy returns to producing somewhere near its capacity. The important number to look at is the cost of debt repayment as a proportion of GDP. While borrowing is quite high at the moment, interest rates are very low, so the cost of servicing the debt is not prohibitive. And if the economy returns to full production soon (eg, those unemployed return to employment), we'll see a quick growth in GDP so the ratio of debt to GDP will quickly reduce (see what happened to the massive public debt after WWII). The whole point of fluctuating exchange rates are to stimulate production where necessary - a weak dollar would be very good for the economy right now. And to answer your question, can I afford a $130k debt? Well, seeing interest rates are around 1-2%, I could easily pay off the required interest. But public debt and personal debt are different - I dont personally owe a portion of the public debt and neither do you. Start worrying about real things like lack of public services and unemployment rather than macro-economic measures like public debt.
183. Re:Hmm... by zippthorne · 2010-03-13 03:11 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, come on. The text already clearly allows them to create a form for you to send in. Placing some standardized positions on that form for people to provide more information about themselves if they want to is not an undue extension.
  Now, if we're talking about compelling people to fill out the form, I'm not sure the wording allows them to actually compel people to even answer the first question, "How many?" Let alone any other questions.
  Further, since we're using income tax rather than levying the states "equally" it's a vestigial clause. How does enumerating the people for the purpose of burdening the states make any sense when you just tax the people directly? Why can't they just use already existing records which are more up to date (tax records update every year, for instance.)
  
  --
  Can you be Even More Awesome?!
184. Re:Hmm... by Rockoon · 2010-03-13 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  I see. You think presidents set the budget and spend money. Got it. For you, its just Bush vs Obama and has nothing to do with congress spending money like there is no tomorrow.
  
  Oh wait.. the congressional budget office literally predicts that for this government there is no tomorrow, with unfunded liabilities in the hundreds of trillions.
  
  Thanks for being an Us vs Them tool tho.. thats great.. that will win people over when the revolution comes.
  
  --
  "His name was James Damore."
185. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-15 02:08 · Score: 1
  
  >>>anyone who wants to start one probably is going to have to dig up the roads to start.
  No not really. Must cities and suburbs have metal pipes that carry the cable, DSL, and other service lines. A competitor simply needs to run his fiber through that government-owned metal pipe.
  The REAL blockage is the government itself, which gives Comcast and Verizon an exclusive license and therefore no other competitors can enter. The government is the problem (per usual).
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
186. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-15 02:14 · Score: 1
  
  >>>THE PEOPLE are not biased in favor of more US government power and therefore this bias doesn't exist.
  Actually they are. Every time the People vote to give themselves free stuff, they present a bias in favor of more government and towards serfdom.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
187. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-15 02:17 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah Europe's really doing great.
  Iceland - bankrupt
  Greece - bankrupt
  And the other states like the UK and France are teetering on the brink.....
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
188. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-15 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  >>>It would be pretty presumptuous of Obama to include his as-yet-unpassed health reform bill in this year's budget, wouldn't it?
  Yes it is.
  And yet that's exactly what he did:
  He assumed in his budget that the Health Bill passed in 2010
  and included the corresponding "savings" from it during years 2011 to 2017.
  Even so, he still shows +1 trillion in added debt each of those years.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
189. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-15 02:24 · Score: 1
  
  >>>Government spending is not trying to reinflate a bubble. It is ensuring that the economy returns to producing somewhere near its capacity.
  >>>
  In other words it's trying to reinflate the bubble (a level higher than the economy truly supports).
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
190. Re:Hmm... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-15 02:29 · Score: 1
  
  >>>Wow, someone who claims that the wealthy pay too much in taxes --
  STRAWMAN ARGUMENT. I never said that. Please don't put words into my mouth.
  On the contrary I think the amount of taxes the wealthy pay is just fine, and figure they (Bill Gates, Trump, Apple Corporation, et cetera) can take care of themselves without my help. My main concern is those $100,000 or below, who I don't think should have to pay any U.S. income tax. But anyone above that? Let them fend for themselves.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
191. Re:Hmm... by Itchyeyes · 2010-03-16 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  High-speed internet is a *luxury* not a necessity.
  
  True. However, the question of whether or not the Federal government should fund such a program is not a question of necessity. After all, there are many necessities that the Federal Government is more than happy to leave to markets to furnish us with.
  Rather, the question we should be asking ourselves is, "does this program confer positive externalities on society which markets would otherwise overlook?" For example, I might value a flu immunization at $50. However, when I am immunized there is a benefit to those around me that I do not receive, since I remove a potential source of transmission for them. Suppose the total net benefit to those around me is also $50, then the total value of me getting immunized is $100. However, since I don't realize that additional $50 of value, I would not be willing to pay more than $50 for the shot, even though prices as high as $99 still result in an economically efficient outcome. Thus immunizations are a good target for government funding, since the market alone will lead to inefficient outcomes.
  Similarly, we should consider whether universal high speed internet access conveys any positive externalities on society. I'll admit that I haven't actually given it much thought and can't think of many good arguments off the top of my head. It's certainly a good topic for thought, though.
192. Re:Hmm... by yacc143 · 2010-03-22 21:17 · Score: 1
  
  Well, cars that are sold in Europe (around Germany) get that testing from time to time.
  (And yes, sometimes cars can fail badly, because nobody thought about this.)
  I had this happen once with a Chrysler New Yorker, which has a transmission that is not designed for >100mph speeds.
  (which is stupid, I talked with a mechanic specialized in transmissions, they are just using a to small cooling system. Saves them for some pennies, even a post sale upgrade is less than 100, but Chrysler prefers to repair the transmissions all the time.)
  And once a certain German car failed, because of a repair (sad what happens when a new car collides with a train, the car being new, the insurance paying quite a bit for the repair) , that was done in a country with a speed limit. Retrospectively, I guess if I limited myself to the common 90mph around, but then, why should I have a car that blocks at 156mph and limit myself to crawling at 90mph?
193. Re:Hmm... by JWSmythe · 2010-03-23 05:02 · Score: 1
  
  I know about the "crawling at 90mph". I know my car will do in excess of 150mph. From what I've read, it may or may not be limited by the computer to 165mph (the stock tires were only rated to 168mph). As it turns out, you need an awful lot of empty road at 150mph. When you're traveling a mile every 24 seconds, pesky little things like other cars and wild animals crossing the road can become troublesome. I guess I'm getting old, because I'm cruising around at the speed limit for the most part now. I do love having the power, if I need it. Like, pulling out into the stream of traffic on a highway, I can take a safe spot and be up to speed in just a few seconds. The good ol' grocery-getter will try to do the same thing, and end up slowing the traffic down and/or get hit.
  I do know Chrysler did a lot of that with inferior products. They'd reduce the quality of some parts, so they were still perfectly serviceable to 99% of the drivers, but they are cheap and inferior if used beyond the designed scope. Unfortunately, this has become infectious, and many (MANY) other manufacturers have put in cheaper parts where good parts were called for. For example, I helped a friend with his brakes when I was a kid. The piston in the brake caliper was made of plastic. Hmmm, high temp area. Must be reliable. Why use an inferior material. I was helping him because the brakes failed on that side (notably that wheel), and the plastic piston had broken. More recently, I was helping someone with their minivan, and it wasn't a matter of which parts were failing, but which parts were still serviceable. It had less than 100k miles on it, and I can't say much more than the body (the parts that hadn't sun faded and/or cracked) was the only good part. From what I recall, the timing chain went, which destroyed the engine. The steering was catastrophically loose. The brakes were leaking at three wheels. The automatic seat belts failed and had to be re-secured. The air conditioner had a leak and failed a year or so before. The transmission had been slipping. The doors didn't sit right (weak hinges or rollers). Even the seats appeared that a 600 pound gorilla had been sitting in them, which wasn't the case. I offered to do the engine repair, and gave the price for just parts (free labor). I then compared it to the current book value of the vehicle in "excellent" condition. I didn't even include the other required repairs (steering and brakes), and it was already going to cost about 3x more than the book value of it. I basically told her, "for 3x what it's worth, I can get it driving right. You could go buy another one, but expect the same problems not too long after you buy it."
  Don't let that go to bash Chrysler totally. They do make some good vehicles. They just push a lot more crap vehicles out than the good ones. I'm sure that helps their profit margin.
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
194. Re:Hmm... by yacc143 · 2010-03-23 07:55 · Score: 1
  
  That was not Chrysler bashing (if at all it was US-cars bashing, and not even that in a mean way, it's just that for a typical US-car the chances that somebody will drive it for long times over 90mph is rather limited).
  The basic problem is that cars done for markets that have a speed limit will claim to have a higher top speed, but are mostly not designed to survive these speeds for a long time.
  E.g. my Audi A6 was also repaired in a non-German Audi shop in a way that made it really dangerous in a German Autobahn environment. OTOH, German cars in this class are usually designed for this, e.g. the built in hands free speaker in said car works really well even at extreme speeds, I once had a chat with my wife where I've been doing over 125mph for over half an hour and she did not guess at my speed.
  Btw, while high speed driving can be dangerous, low speed limit cruising is personally way more dangerous. I never had a case of getting sleepy while high speed driving (admittingly, if you get tired at such speeds, you stop without discussion and nap), while the scenario "German border, brakes, cruise control, some minutes, snor" is classical for me personally.
195. Re:Hmm... by JWSmythe · 2010-03-23 09:07 · Score: 1
  
  Thanks. :)
  I do agree, high speed driving tends to be safer, although it is counter-intuitive.
  In the past, I used to drive ... well ... quickly. I we all pay careful attention to what's around us, because any distant obstacle can come really quick.
  Going slow, we're driving with the cruise control on, or following the taillights ahead of us. People don't really pay attention to what's around them.
  I drove up beside an old friend I hadn't seen in a while. I didn't realize it was her until I was passing. I dropped back and waved. It took her a few minutes to realize who I was, and then she sent me a text next time she stopped. :) At least we don't text while we're driving, only stopped. :) I haven't found a good earpiece for my phone yet where I could talk comfortably while driving, so I don't generally use my phone while I'm driving.
  Every accident I've been in was a fairly low speed accident, because someone did something stupid around me. The last one was a good example. I was going fairly slow (approx 20mph), which was appropriate for the area. A lady was in my blind spot on the right. She accelerated up and moved over 2 lanes into me. She didn't see me either. The guy behind me said it was amazing, he thought she'd realize she was doing something stupid. She actually pushed me into the median, so even the initial impact wasn't enough to get her to turn away.
  I'm of the firm belief that if I stay away from the other cars on the road, they can't crash into me. :) I should move out to Wyoming or North Dakota. There's more people in the metro area I live in, than in either one of those states (or even both combined). I'd try Alaska, but I don't want to put my car versus a moose, nor do I want to drive 8 months of the year in the snow. :)
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Windows firewall by Pharmboy · 2010-03-12 01:55 · Score: 2, Funny

Windows firewall pops up a warning in the middle of the test, which will likely mess up the results since it will cause a delay. Not sure I like unblocking an application that the government is sponsoring either.

--
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
1. Re:Windows firewall by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2010-03-12 02:04 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  If you don't like the idea of a government-sponsored network testing application accessing the network why would you even bother to download and execute it?
  
  The activities of any network speed tester should attract the attention of a competent firewall, since they will necessarily involve doing some uploading and downloading. If this makes you nervous, just don't execute the code(or, if you have the java chops, examine it first and make sure that the filler data used for the upload portion of the test isn't actually an encrypted dump of interesting information from your computer).
2. Re:Windows firewall by Rallias+Ubernerd · 2010-03-12 02:30 · Score: 1
  
  I'd like to beg to differ... oh whats the point. The government is trying to do its job for once. They are calling this whole thing "providing for the general welfare".
3. Re:Windows firewall by moosesocks · 2010-03-12 02:51 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Not sure I like unblocking an application that the government is sponsoring either.
  Run a packet sniffer, and if you find anything particularly damning, there will be plenty of media outlets that will want to buy the story from you.
  Honestly, between Comcast and the government, I know which of the two I'd trust.
  
  --
  -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
4. Re:Windows firewall by Pharmboy · 2010-03-12 08:46 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  You (and others) seemed to have taken my words a bit out of context. I ran the program, then reblocked the ports. I'm not paranoid about the 'gubmint being out to get me', but I think anyone with any sense of history knows that it is always best to be a bit leery when it comes to governments, which are typically run by people who enjoy power. This is the same government who approved the DCMA, software patents, and the Patriot Act. My sense of "liberty" is obviously not the same as most elected politicians.
  If all else fails, I always remember that everything that Hitler did was legal. I'm not afraid of the U.S. government, but I'm smart enough to always be skeptical of the motives of many who are literally enjoying power.
  
  --
  Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
5. Re:Windows firewall by John+Hasler · 2010-03-12 09:52 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  In contrast to the government I have no personal reason to distrust Comcast, never having had any dealings with them (and not crediting Slashdot rants about how evil they are). However, trust is not necessary. Both are often quite predictable and in this case the chance that the FCC is hiding something nefarious in this test is so small as to provoke laughter at those who are worried about it.
  Besides, any trojan would be aimed at Windows anyway.
  
  --
  Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Why the need of an addy? by Taco+Cowboy · 2010-03-12 01:56 · Score: 2

Can't they trace the IP instead?

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
1. Re:Why the need of an addy? by tpstigers · 2010-03-12 02:05 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  They can trace the IP, but it will lead them to your provider, not your house. I think the idea here is to learn about speed according to geographic location (i.e., neighborhood) rather than by provider.
2. Re:Why the need of an addy? by jgreco · 2010-03-12 02:11 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  They want to determine coverage. You cannot derive street-level coverage of broadband from IP addresses easily. As it stands, one of the problems with broadband is that you do not get universally consistent coverage, for example, at home, the 3/768 DSL offering of one of the CLEC's failed testing and they provisioned it for 1.5/512 instead. Had we been half a mile closer to the CO, 3/768 likely would have worked. There will be someone else a little further out who can only get it as 768/384.
  The real problem will be for the FCC to get enough people to run this to get a meaningful map. I doubt that they'll get enough for it to really matter.
3. Re:Why the need of an addy? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 02:21 · Score: 1
  
  The real problem will be for the FCC to get enough people to run this to get a meaningful map. I doubt that they'll get enough for it to really matter.
  I would have said they'd get a decent amount by having it Slashdotted. But since they're asking for relatively close (as in your home) addresses, I figure most Slashdotters are too paranoid to give the info they want.
4. Re:Why the need of an addy? by trum4n · 2010-03-12 02:37 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Problem is, everybody has to grow up. You address is public already. CHILL. Run the damn test so the FCC can rape comcast and FIOS already so we get the speeds we are paying for!
5. Re:Why the need of an addy? by skids · 2010-03-12 02:55 · Score: 1
  
  It would be interesting to see a geographical breakdown of response rates ...superimposed with political and psychological epidemiology data. Sort of a map of the Paranoid States of America.
  Of course you'd probably have to control for rates of technical literacy or something, so it'd end up worthless.
  
  --
  Someone had to do it.
6. Re:Why the need of an addy? by skids · 2010-03-12 02:57 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  The very fact that they are asking means they don't have it already, or are not confident with the freshness of the data they have.
  
  --
  Someone had to do it.
7. Re:Why the need of an addy? by ottothecow · 2010-03-12 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  What is to stop comcast from taking their unused IP's and filling out the form from addresses where they fail to provide decent service?
  
  --
  Bottles.
8. Re:Why the need of an addy? by hawk16zz · 2010-03-12 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  Last time I checked, when you traced an IP you got something like this, pool-XXXX.pitt.east.verizon.net. And that wasn't even using a tracer, that was from my IRC client.
  
  --
  Take me where I cannot stand...
9. Re:Why the need of an addy? by shiftless · 2010-03-12 03:25 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, and which states would you consider least likely to have fast broadband or numerous internet connections? (I just ran the test and my 6/1 meg cable connection tested out at 15/2.5.) Everybody and their mom here owns a laptop or desktop computer and everyone has at least some type of internet access, even if they can't get broadband out in the sticks. Can you guess what state I'm from or mine and my family's political leanings?
10. Re:Why the need of an addy? by geoskd · 2010-03-12 03:25 · Score: 1
  
  What is to stop comcast from taking their unused IP's and filling out the form from addresses where they fail to provide decent service?
  The fact that getting caught doing so is a felony, and will involve jail time for those involved.
  
  -=Geoskd
  
  --
  I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
11. Re:Why the need of an addy? by Faylone · 2010-03-12 03:25 · Score: 1
  
  If they were caught doing that, and even assuming that they didn't have charges pressed for fraud, Comcast is slated to have to deal with the FCC approximately FOREVER. They would be wise to not try and piss them off with a stupid stunt like that.
12. Re:Why the need of an addy? by kenh · 2010-03-12 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  so the FCC can rape comcast and FIOS already so we get the speeds we are paying for!
  Picking a few nits, you are getting the speed you are paying for - you aren't getting the speed you were promised/thought you were promised.
  All the FCC is gonna do is get the ISPs to scale down their promises, not lower monthly bills (to match your actual speed) or raise connection speeds (to justify your payment) based on what you think you were promised.
  Too many consumers fail to grasp the meaning of "best-effort" and "up to" - all the ISP needs to prove is that the quoted speed is POSSIBLE, anything beyond that are the consumer's assumptions - nothing more.
  
  --
  Ken
13. Re:Why the need of an addy? by skids · 2010-03-12 03:30 · Score: 1
  
  Response rates. As in number of responses per eligible responder. I'm sure they have a good hold on the latter.
  
  --
  Someone had to do it.
14. Re:Why the need of an addy? by hanabal · 2010-03-12 03:31 · Score: 1
  
  from my IP address you would think I am in Gilford, England. At least that's what all the IP location software I've used says. Where I am is far from Gliford
15. Re:Why the need of an addy? by bberens · 2010-03-12 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  That's just because verizon chose, on their own volition, to give you that DNS name. There's no standard for naming, and you could be using a proxy.
  
  --
  Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
16. Re:Why the need of an addy? by hanabal · 2010-03-12 03:38 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  seeing as they don't ask for name or SSN or any other way of identifying you, it doesn't help whether they already have it or not. They need some way of tying results to location. If they asked for your name and phone number they could run it through the database they already have to determine your address as it is publicly known. but I think asking for that info would be worse. So they do the easiest thing and ask for address. Then they have a really easy job of tying results to location and the information you provided on its own is pretty harmless.
  Come on, this is a chance for you to help the Government slam the telco's. Which many slashdotters have been asking for for ages. Do it.
17. Re:Why the need of an addy? by Jackie_Chan_Fan · 2010-03-12 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  Fios 25/25 = 25/25 :)
  Love it but I want more speed! MORE! 200mb/200mb !!!
18. Re:Why the need of an addy? by cynyr · 2010-03-12 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  they have your name and address, what they don't have is the speed of the internet at your location. so in the end all they have is that for a short period of time(who in the home market pays for a static IP?) you had a certian IP, and it had X, Y, and Z available to it at the time. Why am i tempted to turn on the QOS in ddwrt to run the test? is that bad?
  
  --
  All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
19. Re:Why the need of an addy? by augahyde · 2010-03-12 03:59 · Score: 1
  
  An IP address can easily be hidden through proxies, etc. Besides, what does 192.168.1.2 show? That's a non-routable IP address.
20. Re:Why the need of an addy? by murphyd311 · 2010-03-12 04:12 · Score: 1
  
  I wonder, of those complaining, how many filed a tax return this year?
21. Re:Why the need of an addy? by srealm · 2010-03-12 04:19 · Score: 1
  
  I'm on FiOS ... 20 mbit up and down. And sure enough each speed test I've done, both the FCC one there (though using 'alternate' (MLABS), because their default one didn't show accurate upload speeds), and independent ones like speedtest.net have consistently shown me actually GETTING 20mbit both ways. Nothing wrong with my FiOS. But then, I expect that, because it's a dedicated line unlike cable, so I don't have to share my bandwidth with my neighbors.
22. Re:Why the need of an addy? by Hatta · 2010-03-12 04:21 · Score: 1
  
  Run the damn test so the FCC can rape comcast and FIOS already so we get the speeds we are paying for!
  Aren't you optimistic. Chances are they'll just use this information to redefine broadband as anything faster than the lowest 10% of respondents. Then they can claim that 90% of Americans have broadband without doing any work at all. But maybe I'm just cynical.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
23. Re:Why the need of an addy? by Idbar · 2010-03-12 04:37 · Score: 1
  
  FIOS? I have absolutely no complains about them, but I'll let you know my results. I've move lots of data and I can confirm I got the 16Mbps they sold me.
24. Re:Why the need of an addy? by Ferzerp · 2010-03-12 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  Dedicated, eh?
  Define "dedicated" please.
  Are you under the impression that you have a dedicated 20Mbits reserved on all of Verizon's edges or have you bought that tired old line that where links are aggregated matters more than how oversubscribed the weakest link is?
25. Re:Why the need of an addy? by Bengie · 2010-03-12 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  you HAVE to share your bandwidth at some point. The internet is full of choke points. Cable is "fine" if they ISP doesn't over subscribe.
  FIOS is actually very similar to cable. You do have a "direct" connections, but you connect and share the same router/hub as your local neighbors. The only real difference is the connection to your local hub isn't shared.
  Your connection:
  --Dedicated Fiber -- --Dedicated Fiber --
  My connections
  --Shared COAX-- --Dedicated Fiber --
  Your internet connection is based on the weakest link, and my shared COAX is far from the weakest link. All of my intra-ISP hops do not fluctuate almost at all. Peak hours or not, my first few hops have the exact same pings/bandwidth. My ISP actually has it's own bandwidth tester and it's located on the edge of our ISP right before it hits the Chicago router and I get the same speeds any time of the day.
  So it comes down to, how fast is your ISP's internet connection.
26. Re:Why the need of an addy? by LoverOfJoy · 2010-03-12 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  They should be required to list the peak speed, the low speed, and the average speed for each rate offered.
27. Re:Why the need of an addy? by Bengie · 2010-03-12 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  if you use a proxy, your reported speed can't be faster than the proxy's speed. Also, if you report that you live in Washington and you connect to a proxy who's IP is from Sweeden, I'm sure that's easy to filter out. You can tell which CITY an IP is coming from. If you use a proxy that isn't in your city, it will be culled from their database.
  Also, it won't report your private IP. It will report the last internet facing IP to send your packet, which in most cases is your NAT/Router.
28. Re:Why the need of an addy? by shawb · 2010-03-12 05:52 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  How's the work on The Guide going?
  
  --
  I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
29. Re:Why the need of an addy? by davester666 · 2010-03-12 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  What would prevent ISP's from just not throttling connections to the couple of addresses the FCC is using for these speed tests, artificially boosting their so-called 'speed'? Hell, they might even turn up throttling in general just so their equipment can give more bandwidth to these specific sites.
  
  --
  Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
30. Re:Why the need of an addy? by JWSmythe · 2010-03-12 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  I was working on an Internet mapping program, to show where the routers between points significant to the company I was working at were. It's not just that there is no standard for naming, it becomes amazingly chaotic. I had made a huge set of rules based on what we could extrapolate of the names. Sometimes they are obvious, but some were downright cryptic. I had set up a huge ruleset to try to convert hostnames to cities. It was fairly (but not completely) accurate.
  I'll just use New York in the following examples of naming I had found. Oddly enough, the city I'm sitting in right now doesn't show up as a listed host in any of these. :)
  T airport code of the nearest airport (which I prefer)? (Ex: NYC, JFK, or LGA for New York)
  A 3 letter code for the city? (NYC)
  A 2 letter code followed by an aribtrary letter? (NYA, NYB .. NYZ)
  A 2 letter code followed by an aribtrary number indication a site location ID used internally? (NY1, NY2 .. NY9)
  A 1 letter city followed by a 2 letter state? (NNY)
  or some other arbitrary name or internal code...
  or just an IP which they'd have mapped, hopefully on something better than a piece of scrap paper in the network ops room. :)
  Here's a few I just got on a traceroute. I'm leaving off the first bit if it just identifies a port, and the domain so I don't offend too many providers. Removed pieces are indicated by underscores.
  Chicago, IL
  ___.CT8-Chicago.___
  ___.chi-bb1-link.___
  ___.chicago-il.us.xo.___
  ___.hostway-115910-chi-bb1.c.___ (sorry the city identifiable part has their name)
  Dallas, TX (also coded Dallas, DAL, DALTX, DTX, DFW...)
  ___.dls-bb1-link.___
  ___.dfw10.tbone.___
  ___.DTX-Dallas.___
  ___.pr0.dfw10.tbone.___
  Tampa, FL (also coded Tampa, TB, TPA, TPB, and TFL)
  ___.tampfledc-rtr1.tampflrdc.___
  ___.tampabay.res.___
  Toronto, ON, Canada
  ___.TTT-Scarborough.___
  ___.TTT-Scarborough.___
  Washington DC (also coded WDC, and DC and frequently with nearby Virginia city names)
  ___.washington-dc.us.___
  ___.te2-2-bbnet2.wdc002.___
  Others, unknown.
  ___.ptr.us.___ (only identifies it's a PTR record, and contains no geographic info)
  ___.z204-47-65.customer.___
  The same kind of chaos exists for the actual host names. I had a problem with my servers not being able to send notifications to AOL users. They required "real" hostnames. I took all the IP's, converted them to roman numerals, and then put that in the PTR files (and matching zone files) AOL said they weren't unique enough (basards), so I reversed the octets which made them look more unique. When I called them again, they were satisfied. Like, 192.168.1.100 would be CXCII.CLXVIII.I.C . To satisify the AOL want for uniqueness, it became C.I.CLXVIII.CXCII.example.com . I was always entertained when someone would try to read the hostname back to me. I'd stop them eventually as they were tripping over letters and say "just read me the numbers." :)
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
31. Re:Why the need of an addy? by spinkham · 2010-03-12 06:02 · Score: 1
  
  My provider gives me my rated speed for ~5 seconds, then limits the connection to ~1/5 the rated speed after that.
  Unfortunately, this is long enough for the FCC test to say I'm getting what I'm paying for, though my perspective is slightly different...
  
  --
  Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
32. Re:Why the need of an addy? by JWSmythe · 2010-03-12 06:03 · Score: 1
  
  I love the conspiracy of it, but in reality they probably just need the address to properly grade the results. For DSL, if you're within so many feet of the last CO you should get so much throughput, degrading as distance increases. Cable degrades by population density. Dialup (which I don't think they're testing) degrades by distance, usually inducing line noise. FiOS, may degrade in a similar fashion to cable, but I've never seen it happen in practice. All of them (obviously) degrade when the provider uplink(s) have been saturated.
  To show that there is a problem, you can't just say "Provider X is bad". They want to show that it is misleading the customers as a whole (no one gets the advertised speeds), or as a subset (folks in Harlem get much less than advertised, but in Manhattan get better than advertised). But, all the advertising has been careful to prepend "Up to..." before the advertised speeds. You can get "up to" 1Gb/s, but you'll only ever see 3Mb/s. :)
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
33. Re:Why the need of an addy? by s73v3r · 2010-03-12 06:14 · Score: 1
  
  I personally would see that as a reasonable justification for ending Comcasat, possibly breaking them up into much smaller, regional companies, with a mandate that the never be allowed back together again. Hell, I'd probably break up the regions in such a way that some of the "baby Comcasts" would have to compete against each other.
34. Re:Why the need of an addy? by s73v3r · 2010-03-12 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  Which is why the way broadband is rated needs to change. Instead of selling by the theoretical maximum, which many users probably won't get, they should go by the speed that most of their customers in that tier see 90% of the time. Possibly rounded down to get a nice, even number, instead of 4.38789473 Mbps.
35. Re:Why the need of an addy? by ottothecow · 2010-03-12 06:17 · Score: 1
  
  Well the baseline broadband speed limit on comcast would be on the config that gets pushed to your modem over tftp on boot. AFAIK, this cap is unable to be changed for specific speed increases.
  Maybe they will give everyone higher speeds during the testing period...it might kill load balancing and hurt the top speeds of the people who already pay for top end service, but it would definately raise the average. I don't know if comcast offers a super low speed connection, but RCN can do 1.5Mbit and there is no way that bumping all the 1.5 meg customers to 10Mbit or higher would kill the service (as the 1.5Mbit is less speed than even basic comcast had 6 years ago and pretty much exists to grab price sensitive customers and convince them to pay for faster service)
  
  --
  Bottles.
36. Re:Why the need of an addy? by assassinator42 · 2010-03-12 08:14 · Score: 1
  
  IIRC, my hostname on AT&T U-Verse used to contain the VRAD number (can be used to narrow a location to within 3000 feet) in addition to obvious abbreviations for the city and state. It appears now they removed the VRAD number and blocked it from responding to a traceroute.
  All of the geolocation services I've tested return a location at least one city away, although whatever Google uses for local search results comes the closest.
37. Re:Why the need of an addy? by JWSmythe · 2010-03-12 09:40 · Score: 1
  
  They're very hit and miss. I liked MaxMind GeoIP. It did pretty well, but sometimes they have no real way of knowing. For example, I had a cage in a datacenter in Los Angeles, with multiple GigE drops from a Tier 1 provider. From there, I had a T1 loop run to another city 11 miles away (roughly 5 "cities" away) and I managed the routers at both ends. I routed a /25 over that. From there, I had a point to point wireless connection my house 1 mile away. Usually if you queried something to ask where the IP resided, it was at the Tier 1 providers corporate office. If you called that provider (with sufficient cause), they'd say that it was routed to customer X (us) in Los Angeles. That would put you in downtown, 12 miles away from the real location of my IP.
  There is no requirement to report where lines are routed to. Some providers play nicely, and will say at least the city an IP block resides. Sometimes it's close. Sometimes it's not. When I first got my FiOS line in the southern US, Google would automatically redirect me to google.ca , and show "local" Canadian results with a priority over my local results. Like, if I searched for "pizza delivery" because I was hungry, I'd get a bunch of Canadian delivery results. :)
  Right now where I'm sitting, it's a business Road Runner line. I just tried it, and it returned Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, and Domino's, and map results for a dozen places 20 to 30 miles from here. :)
  I won't bother testing with the VPN fired up to bring me elsewhere, that's just cheating. :)
  
  --
  Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
They need to give us better motivation by antifoidulus · 2010-03-12 01:58 · Score: 3, Funny

ie have the applet download some porn and measure how long it took!

--
Monstar L
1. Re:They need to give us better motivation by Turzyx · 2010-03-12 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, and the title should have read
  
  FCC Asks You To Test Your Right-hand Speeds
Test server slashdotted already? by ptbarnett · 2010-03-12 01:59 · Score: 5, Informative

I ran the test and the measurements were 10% of the speed of my FIOS connection.
It offered me the opportunity to rerun the test using Ookla as the host. That returned 25 megabit/sec down and 15 megabit/sec up -- which is what my connection is supposed to do.
They apparently need to implement some sort of queue, so that they don't saturate their own connection with too many simultaneous tests.
1. Re:Test server slashdotted already? by Fieryphoenix · 2010-03-12 02:16 · Score: 1
  
  I got similar data rate measurements from both engines, but the latency with MBLAB was 450 ms, jitter 420, whille Ookla was 25 ms, jitter 8.
2. Re:Test server slashdotted already? by Idbar · 2010-03-12 02:34 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  And it's convenient that the test, which allegedly requires Java, also complains that I need to upgrade to the last version of flash. I'm guessing not many iPhone/AT&T results in this poll.
3. Re:Test server slashdotted already? by dogmatixpsych · 2010-03-12 02:39 · Score: 1
  
  My results were almost exactly what yours were. It's a bit too variable to be entirely trustworthy.
4. Re:Test server slashdotted already? by srealm · 2010-03-12 04:24 · Score: 1
  
  I had the reverse, it selected Ookla for me, and my download speed was dead on, but my upload speed at 10-25% of what it should be.
  I told it to switch to MLabs, and then it returned the correct rates (20/20) for my FiOS connection. I guess that's why they have two hosts - more than likely, one on each coast.
5. Re:Test server slashdotted already? by precariousgray · 2010-03-12 05:06 · Score: 1
  
  I just experienced the same thing, though because I only have 1000/384 DSL, the latency was off in my case. It reported ~250ms latency, ~300 jitter; with Ookla, those figures became 32 and 1, respectively.
  
  Someone should have tested the test before releasing it.
  
  --
  not much, just being forced to manually insert line breaks into my comment
6. Re:Test server slashdotted already? by Jeff321 · 2010-03-12 09:40 · Score: 1
  
  There's an app for that!
if I were them by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 02:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

I would selectively throttle http://www.broadband.gov/ to 110% of the nominal bandwidth being paid for :)
1. Re:if I were them by Sparr0 · 2010-03-12 02:33 · Score: 1
  
  Someone at Comcast seems to already be on this. My connection goes to shit when I use BT, including latency and packet loss, but magically my numbers on that particular test stay nearly ideal.
2. Re:if I were them by eth1 · 2010-03-12 02:40 · Score: 1
  
  This was my first thought, too... Wondering how long it would take every ISP in the country to put this testing traffic to the top of their QoS & traffic shaping priorities.
Re:The problem with "broadband" in the U.S. by Taco+Cowboy · 2010-03-12 02:02 · Score: 2, Funny

Then there is the problem of Italian influence, and the known fact that Italo-islamic spies have placed cable splitters in all the main telecom hubs of the U.S. and Mexico
This is SERIOUS SHIT, if it is true !!
Can anyone confirm the above claim, please ??

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Yet another thing to do by sunking2 · 2010-03-12 02:02 · Score: 1

Why not just add it to the census. :)
Mine is by dontgetshocked · 2010-03-12 02:04 · Score: 1

Download 10467 Upload 1770 Latency 52 Jitter 4 Dont know if that is good or bad,provider is Comcast
1. Re:Mine is by Bengie · 2010-03-12 14:05 · Score: 1
  
  My ISP advertises 1/5 for me. On the broadband speed test I got 1070kbps up and 10mbps down.. power boost.. :-| 20ms latency and 2ms jitter. Tried both options and got the same results and I just tested at 7:30p which is during peak hours.
  I don't have fast speeds, but nice reliable connection and I get the exact speed I'm advertised.. although, my ISP just applied for bankruptcy.
Classic failures by jgreco · 2010-03-12 02:05 · Score: 2, Informative

An iPhone (yes there's an iPhone app) test and a laptop test on the same wifi reported wildly different numbers.
Selecting a server 800 miles away rather than the one in the same city yielded much improved numbers (by whole number multiples).
Speedtest.net already has an extensive database, and appears to be part of the backend of this. It's too bad the FCC couldn't have just handed them a small pile of cash to summarize the existing data, which would probably have been better at rapidly producing results.
1. Re:Classic failures by ari_j · 2010-03-12 02:09 · Score: 1
  
  This is the same administration that sent us all mail to tell us that they will be sending us mail in the near future. Not exactly surprising when they reinvent another wheel, even if it's another agency this time.
2. Re:Classic failures by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 02:35 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  This "test" is typical of government programs. Expensive, doesn't work right, and ends-up not fulfilling its promises.
  Remember EZpass in 2000? When I signed-up the government told me it would save time and money. Instead of $1 for a toll, I paid 90 cents, which saved a lot of cash over a month's time. Then in 2005 they eliminated the savings, but I kept the EZpass for convenience. And now in 2010 they want me to PAY $20 more each year than the cash drivers. I'm getting rid of my EZpass. It's typical politician doubletalk where they promise "savings" and then eventually end-up costing you MORE not less, than the old cash-based system.
  This FCC test is likely costing a mint, and it clearly doesn't work, and will generate bad results to justify spending billions of dollars. Plus I suspect even if it did work properly and showed less than 5% of American don't have broadband via DSL, cable, satellite, cellular, or wifi..... the politicians will still claim it justifies spending billions of OUR dollars in order to buy votes.
  Yes I'm a cynic. I trust the government about as much as I trust Microsoft or Comcast. Actually - less. At least MS or CC can't force their way into my home.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
3. Re:Classic failures by maxume · 2010-03-12 02:42 · Score: 1
  
  Apparently, the increase in response rates cuts down on the number of home visits required, saving money.
  
  --
  Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
4. Re:Classic failures by PPalmgren · 2010-03-12 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  Could you imagine the outcry among speedtest users if speedtest gave information to the gov't for this? It would damage their reputation, and it would damage the FCC's reputation as well for collecting data through a back-channel rather than through request. This isn't even weighing in speedtest's privacy policy and the fact that ISPs have already optimised their burst performance around benchmarks like speedtest.
5. Re:Classic failures by SQLGuru · 2010-03-12 02:53 · Score: 1
  
  Don't forget about instances where a toll in instituted to pay for the road. Once the road is paid for, the toll is continued because the budget now depends on it. I know it happened in New Orleans, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the only place where that has happened.
6. Re:Classic failures by jgreco · 2010-03-12 03:03 · Score: 1
  
  In Illinois, the I-Pass system (linked to your EZpass, IIRC) was implemented and to encourage adoption, they doubled the cash tolls. Drivers from surrounding states who do not have an I-Pass end up paying a lot more.
  Of course, the Illinois Tollway is a great example of a system where a toll was instituted to pay for the highway, and then not only did it not go away, but they've actually raised the tolls (several times I believe).
7. Re:Classic failures by jgreco · 2010-03-12 03:29 · Score: 1
  
  Speedtest already makes this sort of information available, take a look under "World Results."
  I'm not sure what you're seeing in their privacy policy that would prevent them from sharing the information.
8. Re:Classic failures by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  >>>they doubled the cash tolls
  Good to know. Maybe I'll keep my EZpass rather than pay double cash tolls. (I drive to Illinois/Indiana often enough to make it worthwhile.)
  Another bogus situation with toll roads is that you are "trapped" on the road and forced to pay $3.00 gasoline to the current state-granted monopoly. If you get off you'd find a cheaper station at about ~$2.70, but then that increases the cost of the toll charge (two separate transactions are higher than one). What a ripoff when government gets involved.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
9. Re:Classic failures by ari_j · 2010-03-12 03:55 · Score: 1
  
  I don't recall claiming that it was. I actually recall pointing out exactly the opposite. Good job, though. You almost succeeded in anonymously insulting a stranger on the internet, up until you actually posted your comment.
10. Re:Classic failures by ari_j · 2010-03-12 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  An increase in response rate would cut down on home visits, saving money. But the 2010 census budget is almost to 3 times what it was for the 2000 census (at about $15 billion), which tells me that a few home visits aren't more than a drop in the bucket compared to the $15 million bus tour.
  
  Also, and more critically, there is a missing logical step between sending extra correspondence and an increased response rate. What about getting an extra letter telling them about the upcoming form makes people more likely to fill out a form sent to them by the Census Bureau than they otherwise would have been?
  
  The people who are most unlikely to respond are illegal immigrants, estimated around 12 million in number. Sending them additional mail seems unlikely to help. Home visits are just as unlikely to result in an accurate count, since the same people are hard enough to find when you have a name, address, and search warrant.
11. Re:Classic failures by jketch · 2010-03-12 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  Tolls on highways are actually one of the more economically efficient forms of tax, at least if the highways are crowded and you can do it in a way that doesn't impede traffic too much (which EZpass more or less accomplishes.) This is because when an additional car gets onto a busy road, it imposes an economic cost on every other car on that road by increasing congestion, having to merge onto the highway, etc. A toll set at the proper level can alleviate this effect by ensuring that cars do not enter the highway unless it the value they gain from being on the highway is greater than the cost they impose on the other cars.
12. Re:Classic failures by maxume · 2010-03-12 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  Well ranty, I really don't know (that's why I said 'apparently). I imagine the census has posted lots of information on it, but you wouldn't believe that either, so I'm not going to bother trying to find it.
  
  --
  Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
13. Re:Classic failures by ari_j · 2010-03-12 04:24 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, the census letter. And I didn't mean to imply that it was a new thing this time around, although my reference to the current administration of course has that effect. It's just another example of, as the subject line of this comment thread calls it, a "classic failure." And one would hope that we could do better for the environment than sending out 300 million warning letters that likely have no effect and sending out a $15 million bus tour (with an estimated carbon footprint of 225 metric tons, according to one report I saw earlier today). But the bus tour at least might reach people who wouldn't get the form in the mail, unlike the warning letter. :)
14. Re:Classic failures by Cwix · 2010-03-12 04:27 · Score: 1
  
  Thats why I refuse to use toll roads, unless its going to save me more than an hour or two. Ill also avoid them like the plague, if travelling them the distance costs more then a few dollars, I remember one toll road I took in colorado, that costed me like 15 dollars to go like 100 miles or something stupid.
  
  --
  You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
15. Re:Classic failures by jgreco · 2010-03-12 05:04 · Score: 1
  
  I-Pass is accepted on EZpass toll roads, so one alternative might be to pick up an I-Pass instead. I don't know if there is any surcharge for out-of-network tolls at this point, though I believe they've been discussed.
  At least in Illinois, the last two times I happened to check, the gas prices were competitive. I just checked right now. Gas at the Deerfield Oasis is currently $2.85 (GasBuddy, 4 hours old) while a lot of the stations on US-45 a little to the west are actually $2.89, with a few $2.82's nearby. It's not always like that, but it's been a long time since I've noticed a severe price difference.
  http://www.illinoisgasprices.com/map_gas_prices.aspx?z=8&lat=42.254700&long=-87.900024&ft=A&tl=48
16. Re:Classic failures by PPalmgren · 2010-03-12 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  I lacked a bit of clarity in my post. I was trying to ramble of a list of possible reasons the FCC decided to do their own collection. Key word possible, as I didn't research into any of them.
  Neither of us are going to know the reasons behind the decision, but we can speculate. I don't think the FCC would be dumb enough to avoid such an obvious solution without good reason. I still think both the reputation ramifications and the ISP's already optimising against that channel could be valid reasons.
One of the more accurate tests I've run by garcia · 2010-03-12 02:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

I've tried the numerous broadband speed testers out there. Depending on where they are and who they are I have received results as low as 1/5th my actual bandwidth to twice as much. Sometimes I wondered if they were really trying at all. I generally judge my downstream on an average of what I get when I do an aptitude update ; aptitude upgrade as it seems to be inline with my actual advertised speeds. As far as downstream, I use my machine via SSH daily and the speeds I get through that. Pretty consistent.
This test was pretty much dead on accurate. I was 9993/975 (I have 10/1). The test was painless, easy, and the only thing I didn't particularly care for was the fact that they wanted your exact address. Wouldn't a simple portion of your address work well enough (e.g. 1xx Main St 90210) instead of the entire thing? Even if they were looking to aggregate the information by Zip+4 that should be enough, right? Who needs it any lower than that?
1. Re:One of the more accurate tests I've run by dancingmilk · 2010-03-12 02:14 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Half an address should be enough for anyone!
2. Re:One of the more accurate tests I've run by hoyty · 2010-03-12 02:15 · Score: 1
  
  I have to agree for me at least. It gave me 33 down and 38 up which is pretty close to my FIOS 35/35. Even with the problems outlined in the linked review I think the collected data placed against a given providers claims would be useful on a large scale. I wonder if the collect the ISP based on ARIN data?
  
  --
  Hoyty
3. Re:One of the more accurate tests I've run by YojimboJango · 2010-03-12 03:17 · Score: 1
  
  Wouldn't a simple portion of your address work well enough (e.g. 1xx Main St 90210) instead of the entire thing? Even if they were looking to aggregate the information by Zip+4 that should be enough, right? Who needs it any lower than that?
  Except for in neighbourhoods like mine where I have the option for Charter Cable (@3m/768k) and AT&T DSL (@768k/128k), while two blocks south west has Comcast and AT&T Uverse, and about a mile north is Comcast and Verizon Fios. We all share the same zip+4 (or very close to it), but the neighbourhood has very solid boundaries for who competes with who. We have four companies competing in the same zip code, yet there's no place where Charter competes with Comcast, and there's no place where AT&T competes with Verizon.
4. Re:One of the more accurate tests I've run by noidentity · 2010-03-12 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  Round your address to your block, e.g. write 1200 Main instead of 1234 Main. Of course they'll be able to poinpoint you by the fact that they have all the other addresses on the block, then this odd 1200 which doesn't exist. Being paranoid is tough.
My Results by Muad'Dave · 2010-03-12 02:05 · Score: 1

Comcast in Hanover County, VA 23059:
down: 20347 kbps
up: 3144 kbps
latency: 20 ms
jitter: 1 ms
Tested with Ookla - running firefox.

--
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Browser sensitive! by Rockoon · 2010-03-12 02:06 · Score: 1, Flamebait

Users are randomly assigned the Ookla or M-Lab application.
Note: the M-Lab application currently does not work with Safari, Chrome, and Opera web browsers.
Really? So the 3 most standards compliant browsers arent supported?

--
"His name was James Damore."
1. Re:Browser sensitive! by garcia · 2010-03-12 02:23 · Score: 1
  
  Worked fine in Chrome for me *shrug*.
2. Re:Browser sensitive! by jittles · 2010-03-12 02:34 · Score: 1
  
  I tried to run it as well and it required Flash 9 or higher to run. I refuse to install Flash so I guess I can't help them out any.
3. Re:Browser sensitive! by Rallias+Ubernerd · 2010-03-12 02:35 · Score: 1
  
  They don't allow standards-compliant browsers to do the test because they hold Java to its security regulations of not allowing it to access any page except for one on the same server that referenced the applet.
4. Re:Browser sensitive! by Artifakt · 2010-03-12 03:02 · Score: 1
  
  The M-lab version also didn't work for me (Firefox, but on Kubuntu). Ookla seems to work (25 M down, 2.5 M up, 50 ms latency sounds about right). Go figure.
  
  --
  Who is John Cabal?
Will anything come of this? by newcastlejon · 2010-03-12 02:09 · Score: 1

Is this a prelude to the FCC clamping down on ISPs' habit of overselling or are they simply gathering data for it's own sake?

--
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Comcast Network Engineers will be busy by sjlutz · 2010-03-12 02:11 · Score: 1

Surely, those Net Admins at Comcast will be looking at this and figuring out where the test is connecting to, and then modifying their configurations so that their filtering/slowdown settings do not interfere with a users ability to get FULL speed just to the testing site.
1. Re:Comcast Network Engineers will be busy by cojsl · 2010-03-12 02:28 · Score: 1
  
  Surely, those Net Admins at Comcast will be looking at this and figuring out where the test is connecting to, and then modifying their configurations so that their filtering/slowdown settings do not interfere with a users ability to get FULL speed just to the testing site.
  Now, to figure out how to use broadband.gov as a proxy..
2. Re:Comcast Network Engineers will be busy by OzPeter · 2010-03-12 02:42 · Score: 1
  
  Surely, those Net Admins at Comcast will be looking at this and figuring out where the test is connecting to, and then modifying their configurations so that their filtering/slowdown settings do not interfere with a users ability to get FULL speed just to the testing site.
  Now, to figure out how to use broadband.gov as a proxy..
  Well all you have to do is to hack into the website and install your own proxy software. Then shortly after that you will find that all your broadband speed issues have disappeared - along with a few other things of course.
  
  --
  I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
3. Re:Comcast Network Engineers will be busy by jmak · 2010-03-12 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  Once again, America is playing catchup. The Chinese already send all their data through a government proxy.
4. Re:Comcast Network Engineers will be busy by u-235-sentinel · 2010-03-12 08:07 · Score: 1
  
  Surely, those Net Admins at Comcast will be looking at this and figuring out where the test is connecting to, and then modifying their configurations so that their filtering/slowdown settings do not interfere with a users ability to get FULL speed just to the testing site.
  That would never happen. Concast is a good company with high quality people taking care of your every need. They should be applauded for providing a 3-6 meg pipe to every home. Just because it's a shared pipe doesn't mean anything. If everyone ran it at the right time throughout the day, it would look great. Just make sure you guys don't all run it at the same time on the same node. That would piss them off and you like your network pipe right?
  I SAID YOU LIKE YOUR NETWORK PIPE RIGHT!! ;-)
  
  --
  Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Geolocation? by MortenMW · 2010-03-12 02:14 · Score: 1

Im able to run the test from outside the US. This data con not possibly be considered trustworthy.
1. Re:Geolocation? by LordVader717 · 2010-03-12 02:41 · Score: 1
  
  That would be trivial to weed out as your IP will be completely wrong. Also, under the assumption that most visitors will provide correct information, they can simply exclude unrealistic samples.
2. Re:Geolocation? by PincushionMan · 2010-03-12 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  That would be trivial to weed out as your IP will be completely wrong. Also, under the assumption that most visitors will provide correct information, they can simply exclude unrealistic samples.
  Wait, we are talking about the government here, right? You know, the one that had stimulus money coming in from districts that didn't exist...
Frozen by Tteddo · 2010-03-12 02:23 · Score: 1

It froze Firefox at 74% on the latency test, twice. Firefox 3, Ubuntu 8.04.
Re:The problem with "broadband" in the U.S. by Kozz · 2010-03-12 02:29 · Score: 2, Funny

Then there is the problem of Italian influence, and the known fact that Italo-islamic spies have placed cable splitters in all the main telecom hubs of the U.S. and Mexico
This is SERIOUS SHIT, if it is true !!
Can anyone confirm the above claim, please ??
Minus the profanity, this pretty much typifies one of every three emails I get from my grandmother.

--
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
I bet - ISP will "improve" speeds for that side by paziek · 2010-03-12 02:30 · Score: 1

My bet is that ISP will see that someone is trying to do a test on that single site and just give it higher priority and such.
Gonna turn into bullshit survey, not much different from when it would be infested by /b/tards.
1. Re:I bet - ISP will "improve" speeds for that side by javaxjb · 2010-03-12 03:42 · Score: 1
  
  If history is any guide, Comcast certainly will. I had business class service which through a succession of mergers and reallocation was provided by Time Warner, AT&T and finally Comcast. Download throughput was great. I could download Linux CDs in 8 minutes or so -- at least until Comcast came along and throughput dropped dramatically (none of this via torrents) and I just assumed the remote sites were overburdened. But, I could never find alternates that gave better performance. I tried a few performance testing sites and the benchmarks were showing everything was up to spec. I eventually decided to try the municipal wireless service (at a paltry 1-2M cap) because it would save me about $80 per month for throughput that would hopefully match what Comcast actually provided. I ran simultaneous tcpdump logs of downloads from the same remote servers and found that the wireless real-world throughput was almost double Comcast's. But, when I went to the testing sites Comcast was something like 8x faster than wireless. Needless to say, I canceled Comcast service. This was a few years ago, so things may have changed (but I'm not going to switch back to find out).
  
  --
  Programmers in mirror are brighter than they appear
Rural electrification by tepples · 2010-03-12 02:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

Given the reference to a "broadband dead zone" in the summary, I imagine that this, combined with the census, will be used as justification for a communications counterpart to the late 1930s rural electrification project that made up part of President FDR's New Deal.
1. Re:Rural electrification by weiserfireman · 2010-03-12 03:14 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Give this man a cookie. In 1994 the REA was abolished and replaced with the Rural Utilities Service. They are most definately trying to justify their existence by trying to be involved in Federal broadband initiatives.
Locked up by methano · 2010-03-12 02:30 · Score: 1

I think the site got slashdotted. Firefox, on my Al 2007 iMac (Snow Leopard), locked up. Will try again later.
surprised at the speed by jschen · 2010-03-12 02:35 · Score: 1

Admittedly, it's 6:30 in the morning, when most of the apartment complex in San Diego (UTC area, 92122) is still asleep. Nonetheless, for basic high speed from Time Warner Cable, I'm quite surprised by the speed. I've always been happy with the speed they provide, but I didn't realize that it would burst so high. Of course, other than broadband.gov no one is pushing data down my connection at those speeds anyways.
Download speed: 29836 kbps
Upload speed: 964 kbps
Latency: 17 ms
Jitter 2 ms
1. Re:surprised at the speed by jschen · 2010-03-12 03:56 · Score: 1
  
  On the other hand, at work at a top research institute, I get the following. I routinely see these speeds downloading journal articles even during the middle of the day, when more people are online. I suspect the IT department caps each individual's external connection (to a very reasonable level).
  Download speed: 9321 kbps
  Upload speed: 8588 kbps
  Latency: 40 ms
  Jitter: 2 ms
Re:The problem with "broadband" in the U.S. by N1tr0u5 · 2010-03-12 02:36 · Score: 1

Confirmed! I was at the same Tinfoil Hat of America meeting with the OP!
The FCC, A Captured Regulatory Agency by sonicmerlin · 2010-03-12 02:40 · Score: 1, Flamebait

This is a waste of time, and simply another one in the current Democratic FCC's array of disappointments. This kind of voluntary speed test information gathering is worthless, since there's no way to vet the contributors' address claims. It's really just for show, just like the rest of the FCC's attempts to regulate.
The problem right now is the FCC's policies, and from what I've heard its upcoming National Broadband Plan, are wimpy, non-confrontational, and will do nothing to change the status quo in the current duopoly broadband industry. Genachowski, the head of the FCC, early in the NBP creation process took government intervention off the table, essentially maiming any hope the agency had of accomplishing anything. They have no anti-trust powers or backing from Congress. The agency itself is just too weak to accomplish anything.
The worst example of this is the FCC commissioned a study to be conducted by Harvard's Berkman center to determine why US internet had lagged behind. In the conclusion of the study, the foremost recommendation was the reinstitution of line-sharing, which had proved to be hugely successful in expanding broadband in European countries. Yet despite its own commissioned report, the FCC's head of NBP creation, Blair Levin, refuted the usefulness of line-sharing, fearing the FCC would simply be tied up in court over it for years and years, just as Comcast did when it was punished by the FCC for secretly throttling people's P2P traffic.
Until the FCC is given some real power there's no hope for changing things. Unfortunately due to Congress being gridlocked over more important things like healthcare, we won't see this until at the earliest 2012, and only if Democrats maintain a majority in both House and Senate.
1. Re:The FCC, A Captured Regulatory Agency by sonicmerlin · 2010-03-12 21:47 · Score: 1
  
  The IP's geographic area is meaningless for mapping data. It's not nearly granular enough, and the self-reporting mechanism just begs for fraud and false data. In addition there's also the huge issue of self-selection sampling bias, which any statistician will tell you automatically invalidates this silly program's data.
  I suspected my inclusion of anti-Republican politics would net a flamebait or troll, but facts are facts. Under Republican FCC's and Congress, the 1996 Telecom Act was gutted and provisions put in place to encourage competition eliminated. The Democratic FCC hasn't done a whole lot better and in fact has been a huge disappointment, but without greater power the constant fear of litigation tying up their decisions in court and the need for Congress to approve any plan they enact is understandable.
Re:Needs Flash by omnichad · 2010-03-12 02:49 · Score: 1

No - I think they just don't know the difference. "Oh, it's a program? It must be Java." I didn't see Java even get loaded when I ran it. Just Flash.
And illogical by mdsolar · 2010-03-12 02:49 · Score: 1

The frist test I got said it was Ookla then I could try M-Lab but at the end of the supposed M-Lab test the results page said it was Ookla and I could now try M-Lab. Also needed to hit the "start test" button twice in each case. Still some bugs to work out before the program really starts up in 5 days.
Re:WARNING by Jon+Abbott · 2010-03-12 02:52 · Score: 1

I ran Little Snitch while running the broadband speed test, and it did not appear to be sending private data as you claim. Do you have any proof?

--
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Excellent! by L4t3r4lu5 · 2010-03-12 02:52 · Score: 1

So, who doesn't think their ISP has just read this article and added a bypass to all of the "traffic shaping" systems just for this application? A quick show of hands!

Nobody? Hmmm... That's odd.

--
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Better Test? by Caviller · 2010-03-12 02:53 · Score: 1

This is fine and all...except that the ISPs just move the test servers to high priority and make it look like everyone is getting their advertised speeds.

If they want a real test they should connect to 5 random test servers with daily changing IP addresses, scattered all over the country, and perferabably all on differnet networks( LV3, Sprint, etc...) while downloading a 100Mb bittorrent file, and then adding all the speeds together to come up with the actual throughput. That would atleast be a more true test of what the ISP's customers are actualy getting.
Re:Dividends by archer,+the · 2010-03-12 02:58 · Score: 1

One thing I've seen posted in several past /. comments is that the government gave millions of dollars to telecoms to improve telecomm infrastructure. Instead of doing that, the telecoms paid huge dividends to the stockholders. Supposedly. (I have no documentation other than to post links to old /. comments.)
I'm wondering if commodore64_love is referring to this.
No by zogger · 2010-03-12 03:04 · Score: 1

He is saying that this was already paid for long ago, and that telcos failed to live up to their side of the deal. They got huge amounts of cash incentives to provide broadband all over, and stopped way short. They hit the low hanging fruit and that's it, just stopped. They used the cash for like bonuses and money to buy up smaller telcos, etc. They need to be called on it and go ahead and fulfill what they promised to do years ago. And that means they get *ordered* to do so by the government. If that means they slash all the execs pay by 90% to pay for the upgrades, too bad. If that means some of those same millionaire execs get to testify in shackles going to and from congressional hearings from a jail cell, because of this massive fraud and ripoff that occurred, too bad. And so on.
Test is Accurate by MrTripps · 2010-03-12 03:10 · Score: 1

We have been measuring our bandwidth closely using numerous methods. The test at broadband.gov match what we get from other tools.

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"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
Re:WARNING by PincushionMan · 2010-03-12 03:19 · Score: 1

[sarcasm]Just those pesky GNUPG and PGP private keys. You trust the gov't right?[/sarcasm]
I believe this is a case of (tcp) dumps or it didn't happen...
Naive by Goldenhawk · 2010-03-12 03:20 · Score: 1

> Congress should mandate with a simple law that the telephone company
> must provide DSL to any customer requests it (within six months).
> The twisted-pair lines are already there, except for the need to
> add a neighborhood DSLAM.
If only. You're being naive.
When our neighborhood was first built out around 1990, Verizon ran a single fiber optic line from the telco to the hub on the corner of the main road. All of our neighborhood twisted pair copper lines run to that hub - and are all concentrated for the trip to the central office over that one light pipe. So there's no way for anyone in our neighborhood to ever get DSL, since we don't have twisted pair to the telco, even though we're well within the total distance constraints of DSL.
Since nobody in our neighborhood really wants Verizon digging up all our yards again to run fiber to the house, and there's no way on earth Verizon is going to run a bunch of copper from the telco to our hub, ain't nothin' gonna change anytime soon. So anyone who wants broadband is stuck with cable modem.
So to summarize, the presence of fiber optic technology has permanently prevented us from getting either DSL OR fiber to the home.

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--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
1. Re:Naive by petermgreen · 2010-03-12 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like a bullshit excuse to me.
  Why can't they just put the DSLAMs in the hubs?!
  
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  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
2. Re:Naive by commodore64_love · 2010-03-12 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  >>>You're being naive..... All of our neighborhood twisted pair copper lines run to that hub - and are all concentrated for the trip to the central office over that one light pip
  >>>
  You insulted me by calling me "naive" so now I will insult you via a demonstration:
  CURRENT SETUP:
  Fiber--- Hub --- copper telephone lines
  UPGRADE:
  Fiber--- DSLAM --- copper telephone lines
  HAHA! Obvious isn't it? In fact that's pretty much what Verizon did for my neighborhood two years ago, and it works great. I now have high speed internet instead of dialup.
  
  --
  "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Slashdotted by Anarki2004 · 2010-03-12 03:23 · Score: 1

Looks like broadband.gov is feeling the slashdot effect.

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The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2010-03-12 03:23 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Great job! by MaWeiTao · 2010-03-12 03:32 · Score: 2, Informative

This site doesn't instill a whole lot of confidence in the government's plan for national broadband. First the site has difficulty loading, it took a few minutes before I got in. So I try the test and Firefox locks up. Eventually I get an unresponsive script warning.
Not over wifi? by smd75 · 2010-03-12 03:36 · Score: 2, Informative

Im seeing a problem with this. As most people aren't going to think to not test it over Wifi. Why would this be a problem? Wifi running at 54mbps is much slower than wired connections at 1gbps. Theyre not going to get accurate data unless people are taking advantage of all the fastest connections to the internet.
I tested this, over wifi, im only getting about 10% of my connection speed, while over ethernet, Im getting what I am paying for if not a bit higher

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Im a troll because I disagree with you.
1. Re:Not over wifi? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-12 04:08 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Both 54mbps and 1gbps are much faster than the 2-20mbps that most residential internet connections support. Sounds to me like your wireless router is braindead.
Brighthouse shenanegans by neurovish · 2010-03-12 03:37 · Score: 1

I already see Brighthouse giving some priority routing to bradband.gov. Almost every site I run a tracepath against goes through xxx.xxx.dfw10.tbone.rr.com, at which point the latency drops off a cliff. When I run a tracepath against broadband.gov, the route shoots straight up the eastern seaboard with the best latency times I've seen from any site all month.
Extremely inaccurate for me, inflating the numbers by Above · 2010-03-12 03:52 · Score: 1

I have a 8Mbps down, 1Mbps cable modem. I've used a number of testing services before, and it performs well showing 5-7 down and 600-800k up on most testing services. Speed seems incredibly consistent over time.
However, the FCC test just told me it transferred data at 28Mbps down and 3Mbps up. I've never gotten numbers over 8Mbps anywhere else in the 3+ years I've had this service. There is also no where for me to indicate this is bogus. It would be nice if they also collected what people were told they had by the marketing folks so outliers could be identified, and we could compare actual rates to the marketing rates.
How about everyone else? Accurate for you?
Well my data was totally bunk by vsage3 · 2010-03-12 04:09 · Score: 1

I pay for a 3Mbit / 0.5Mbit connection and this software showed I downloaded at a whopping 22Mb/s. I see this all the time when doing things like use www.speedtest.net but I do NOT see these speeds for sustained periods. It seems like my ISP (Clearwire) has some sort of very short download acceleration scheme to game these types of tests. Not that I am not satisfied with Clearwire, but the FCC's testing methods should really take stuff like this into account.
1. Re:Well my data was totally bunk by glebovitz · 2010-03-12 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  Comcast does this also. They call it something like speed boost. I get a sustained 7 Mbps, with an initial 10Mbps.
2. Re:Well my data was totally bunk by Bengie · 2010-03-12 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  Ditto here. I got a 5/1 connection but with "power boost". Each connection stream gets a free 10 seconds of 30mbit at the start of the connection. I usually get 15mbit from New York, 20mbit from Chicago and 28mbit from my state for speed test.
  Overall, I like power boost. It's not limited to just 10 seconds either. If my download caps at 10mbit, the "boost" will continue on for 30 seconds instead of 30mbit for 10seconds. I'm not sure where the cut-off is, but it's not a fixed amount of time, but a fixed amount of boosted data. I've seen Steam drag on a 7mbit download for quite a while. Eventually it tappered off to my 5mbit and jumped around between 4.9-5.1mbit.
  My ISP claims the boost is per connection/stream. I know I can chain several downloads, one after the other, and maintain my boosted speed. I wonder if P2P style downloading could get around my 5mbit cap or ma'b my ISP has a second cap that will trigger if the boosted speed is too high for too long.
  My speed might not be faster, but I get exactly my rated speed at all times of the day and very low pings anywhere in the USA.
Re:DO YOU WANT THE GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF INTERNET by Ipeunipig · 2010-03-12 04:13 · Score: 1

They already took your Trans Fats from restaurants... What did you expect was going to be next?
Re:The problem with "broadband" in the U.S. by Cimexus · 2010-03-12 04:13 · Score: 1

Haha ... "Score: -1, Funny". Nice work :P
what about my phone by drougie · 2010-03-12 04:14 · Score: 1

As a frustrated AT&T subscriber in NYC (I suppose that's a bit redundant) I would like to shock the government with some tests of America's fastest 3G network in midtown Manhattan during the day but this website with all that fancy javascript and registration stuff doesn't seem too friendly for this.
Currently I use dslreports but I'm not sure if AT&T somehow throttles or bursts or shapes data that appears to be speed tests nor do I know if the random data this site blasts out gets compressed through AT&T. The only speed test for my phone I know is reliable is by tethering through WMWifiRouter and downloading a Debian iso. Not very convenient and I'm just mesmerized that the likes of PCWorld actually claims that in NYC their testing of AT&T averaged >1500Kbps / >700kbps down/up when yesterday I got 16kbps and 32kbps with ridiculous latencies on the street in the 50s and 40s both around 1pm and then 6pm. I guess they're testing on Mondays at 2am.
Any other mobile friendly sites for testing would be appreciated along with any other at&t rants.

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Calling out bogus battery capacity claims.
Re:The problem with "broadband" in the U.S. by Cwix · 2010-03-12 04:19 · Score: 1

Im sorry, I understand the feelings. I just always send these people to stuff like snopes.com

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You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2010-03-12 04:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Tail Wagging Dog by bxwatso · 2010-03-12 04:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

I find it odd that, after the FCC has spent tens of billions of dollars promoting and installing broadband as a social service, they are now doing a study of who has broadband and where. It is almost as if they have been putting policy before the facts, a common Washington fault.
Just the first step by rickb928 · 2010-03-12 04:50 · Score: 1

The first step to rolling out universal coverage.
At taxpayer expense.
It seems inevitable. Rural Electrification was a tremendous blessing, allowing dairy farmers to cool milk and improve quality, and giving other farmers a few more hours a night to have a life. Telephones (the original cyberspace, thank you, perhaps superceded only by telegraph, the precursor to Usenet) also solved many a problem. So universal Internet will be the logical extension of that. Yes, VOIP for rural America might be worth it alone. Think of it as an uplift of the POTS cable plant. Some part of America sure need that. The existing POTS cable plant is getting pretty old and decrepit here and there.
Much as I hate being billed for universl Internet *AGAIN*, it is probably a good thing. Certainly more value to me than universal Federal healthcare or a national biometric ID card.
I don't really begrudge rural Americans the access to broadband (read 'actually useful') Internet access, but I've lived a fair amount of my life in 'rural America'. There are tradeoffs:
You can't just pop around the corner for late-night pizza. You can't get it delivered at all.
It takes some planning to buy ice cream at the supermarket.
Getting the oil tank filled can become a neighborhood effort, or you pay much more per gallon.
Letting your car run low on gas becomes an adventure.
Cell service is not just spotty, you lose the call three times before your party answers, and batteries go quick as your phone spends a lot of its time searching for signal. Roaming to the #@@hole local provider that refuses to make an agreement with your national provider makes your wallet feel like Grand Central Station.
Satellite TV is always a challenge. Every few years you need to move the dish as your treasured cedar hedge grows another few feet. At some point the mast is high enough to sway in high winds (as in frequently) and give you more snow than February.
Broadcast HDTV is pointless. You need an array to get a decent signal.
Then again:
The nights are so quiet you are deafend by it for the first few weeks. Until the peepers come out in spring.
Drive-by shootings are largely jackers thinking that shiny windcatcher on your deck is a deers eyes. Fortunately, they are fairly accurate shooters. Unfortunately, they mostly use .308s and 30-06s.
Your annoying in-laws rarely visit.
You are no longer at the beck and call of your boss. He can't get through.
Instead of spending the nights watching pr0n, you spend the nights making pr0n.
You can walk around the backyard looking as if you are making pr0n. Nobody sees or cares.
Your annoying neighbors are at least a half-mile away.
Calling in sick because you can't shovel out the end of the driveway is plausible. Not doing any work because satellite Internet makes the VPN unusable is a blessing.
And satellite TV is overrated. You get to read a lot more.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
10k? by gbutler69 · 2010-03-12 05:06 · Score: 1

$ 10k will barely cover a broken leg. Don't even start on Cancer or anything serious. Somebody needs a clue-stick. I say that people should be able to choose not to have health insurance. If they so choose, and are unable to pay when they become ill, then they should not be treated, period. No free E/R. No free clinics. Nothing. Either have the cash, credit cards, or insurance. Don't say, "I want the freedom to not have insurance" and then expect to be treated. Simple as that.

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Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Interesting... by gbutler69 · 2010-03-12 05:09 · Score: 1

That's just about exactly what I got here in Akron, Ohio, USA.

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Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
We in Sweden have this already by FenixBrood · 2010-03-12 05:09 · Score: 1

http://www.bredbandskollen.se/ Tool to test your connection - No Java required Sweden Number One! Sweden Number One! Sweden Number One!
We really need this by StonyCreekBare · 2010-03-12 05:35 · Score: 1

I live in the outskirts of a major metropolitan area, the San Francisco Bay Area. I cannot get what a slashdoter would consider broadband in any form. The local Telco insists they want to sell me 6 Mbit DSL and that they can serve me. But they simply cannot. The local DSLAM is over 18,000 feet from my door, and it is full with no available ports. Further, the lines that serve me have load coils on them which the Telco refuses to remove. Because of the load coils, even dial-up sucks. I have been fighting them, begging them for ten years to give me service. Further, they have a cell phone site less than 1000 feet from my door, could put a DSLAM there and serve me nicely but refuse. Yet hardly a week goes by that I do not get a letter or phone call trying to sell me a service that they do not have and cannot deliver. As for Cable? They are not within 2 miles of me. We need some oversight to force the Telco to actually provide the service they claim to be able to. By removing load coils and upgrading the DSLAM they could probably give me 384 KBPS. Not quite real broadband, but better than what I have now. But they refuse. By putting a DSLAM in the cell phone facility, they could easily give me 6 mbps, but refuse. They have dark fiber that is sitting unused in the cell site, but won't sell me service. Yet they constantly bug me to buy their nonexistent service. I am not usually a proponent of government intervention, but I do not see any other way to force them to deliver service. They want the relatively easy low-hanging fruit, but refuse to upgrade the infrastructure to serve the more marginal cases.
Not really by xirusmom · 2010-03-12 05:41 · Score: 1

Unless you have a commercial connection, they won't give you a static address anyway. So do the test, then restart your server...new IP for you.
1. Re:Not really by xirusmom · 2010-03-12 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  better yet, restart the server before and after the test. So they will have on Ip completely different from what you have been using as well.
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2010-03-12 06:01 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Gaming the test? by Walter+White · 2010-03-12 06:03 · Score: 1

Am I the only one who thinks that broadband Internet providers will render the tests sort of useless by prioritizing traffic to the test sites? It seems to me that it is in their interest to make it look like they are providing what they advertise and their previous shenanigans WRT traffic shaping (resets for BT for example) demonstrate their willingness to do so.
1. Re:Gaming the test? by PPH · 2010-03-12 06:36 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps the FCC would be better off aggregating BitTorrent bandwidth data. Or just drop the rumor that they are using this as a baseline for broadband performance and see how the telecoms respond.
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
Up to Xbps by Gresyth · 2010-03-12 06:16 · Score: 1

The thing everyone misses when they gripe about their ISP and the down/up speeds is that the ISPs all advertise bandwidth "up to" the rate they are selling. NO ISP can guarantee bandwidth as there are too many factors beyond their control that affect it. No ISP advertises a set value, its always, "up to" Xbps. The "up to" is usually in the fine print or an * but that is our responsibility to notice under current laws.

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Tech Support: "No, sir...clicking on 'Remember Password' will NOT help you remember your password."
Paranoid States of Technical Illiterates? by Beorytis · 2010-03-12 06:17 · Score: 1

...Paranoid States of America.
...rates of technical literacy or something...
What about the FCC's effectiveness in publicizing the test?
Java applet crashed Firefox on Arch Linux by concernedadmin · 2010-03-12 06:24 · Score: 1

I successfully completed the download, upload, and latency tests. When the jitter test started, a Java dialog box appeared and I OK'd it. It then crashed my browser (Mozilla Firefox: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100207 Firefox/3.6). I repeated the process and confirmed that it was the Java applet that crashed my browser.
I couldn't download the compiled Java bytecode and reverse assemble it. Anyone else?
Re:Extremely inaccurate for me, inflating the numb by OldGeek61 · 2010-03-12 06:27 · Score: 1

Same here, we have an 8/2 connection and the FCC test told me I had a 21/4 connection. So I went to my standby test sites and both said 7.7 & 7.2 down and 1.4 & 1.5 up. Real accurate test.
How am I supposed to know? by Taibhsear · 2010-03-12 07:41 · Score: 1

How am I supposed to know which neighbor I'm mooching off of? It's not like their SSID has their address on it. ...uh, I mean... I just pay everyone with a router in the area for access... yeah, that's the ticket.
Actual European Internet speeds by TheSync · 2010-03-12 07:44 · Score: 1

I'd love to know what the actual average European Internet speeds are. While very high "last mile" speeds are available, I want to know what actual Internet speeds are.
One could run a bunch of GigE to people's houses, then hook the border router up to IP-over-carrier-pigeon and still argue the customers get a "1 Gbps connection"...
Not going to happen. by crhylove · 2010-03-12 07:55 · Score: 1

Requires Java on my machine, and I just don't hate myself enough to install that.....

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I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Re:The problem with "broadband" in the U.S. by Tubal-Cain · 2010-03-12 09:04 · Score: 1

There's no reasoning with some people.
My doubting Thomas of a stepfather argues that Snopes is ran by a single couple and therefore couldn't possibly have time to do a thorough check on all those stories. Apparently the bibliographies at the bottom of every page aren't good enough.
this thread called it. by liamuk · 2010-03-12 10:50 · Score: 1

It seems Verizon FiOS in new jersey has already uncapped broadband.gov. I get a dl speed of 20 mbps when the advertised is 15. They should set it up as a proxy...
Dang, they showed their hand. by Reeses · 2010-03-12 15:29 · Score: 1

Now Comcast (UVerse, etal) can cache the site or do some bandwidth shaping based on site address and make sure that site always gets the highest priority, thereby making it seem like we all have fast connections.
Dammit.

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Reeses