Washington Wants 10,000 Web Surfers

crimeandpunishment writes "This one sounds too good to be true: surf the Web, and you'll be helping the government. The FCC is looking for 10,000 volunteers to take part in a study to determine if broadband providers are really providing Internet connections that are as fast as advertised. The broad look at broadband will involve special equipment installed in homes across the country to measure Internet connections and compare them to advertised speeds." Here's where to go to apply.

Comments

As Admiral Ackbar says...

[TangoMargarine]

It's a trap! Are we actually supposed to believe that even if they *do* find foul play, the ISP's are actually going to get punished with any efficacy?

As a consumer...

[palegray.net]

I care about speed, but I also care about transfer caps. Note that I'm not saying we should legislate this (I'm about to pay for "business class" service without a cap), but I'm saying 250 GB a month doesn't cut it for me. I transfer large disk images (server backups, even compressed, they're big) several times per month , move virtual machine images around on a routine basis, use streaming video services in lieu of television, streaming audio on top of that, etc. The list goes on, and my #1 concern isn't the transfer speed anymore. It's the transfer cap.

Re:The Government?

[FlyByPC]

Well, you could do a reverse sting. Set up a bunch of torrents of Ubuntu Linux or some such totally Free content, then rename it as AvatarDVDRip.iso.torrent or something like that (with the content files renamed as well). Or use random data so it won't match the Ubuntu checksum, if they look for that. When they complain, you've got 'em.