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The FCC Says ISPs Aren't Hitting Advertised Speeds
MojoKid writes "The Federal Communications Commission has released the results of a year-long scientific study it conducted with regard to the upload and download speeds of thirteen American Internet service providers. Most of the ISPs hit 90 percent of their advertised upload speeds. Of the 13 providers tested, only four (or less than a third) averaged at or even above their advertised download speeds (Charter, Comcast, Cox, and Verizon Fiber). The tests were performed by a private firm that has run similar tests in the U.K. It measured performance at 6,800 'representative homes' nationally in March."
On my Verizon FiOS connection, I can regularly hit 25mbps on my 15/5 line for file downloads and speed tests.
I'm willing to bet that if I kept that up for extended periods it would drop down a lot, but it's fine for quickly downloading a Steam game once a month.
I know DSL, being an ATM-based technology and often subjected to PPPoE overhead, will score lower than rated. I have a 5 megabit connection but that's the sync rate. You can realistically expect to lose 9-10% just from the above overheads. That rather fits with the graphs I'm seeing.
I've seen some ISPs compensate by setting the sync rate above the advertised rate but most don't.
Verizon is evil in implementation of their contracts. They have good technology with outstanding network reliability. However, their policies and their hip-hop rapping store staff can suck it!
Comcast OTOH has good technology and a nice network too. They're pricey, but well worth the service IMHO. They customer service in India can suck my left nut, and those sub-contracted repair service men need to stay the hell away from my beer and peanut. But most importantly, they need to fix the problem the FIRST TIME AROUND. You here that Comcast, get your damn men to fix the problem. Your repeat truck-rolls are costing me time from work (to meet them) and you as well.
Life is not for the lazy.
They still are. They just hide their packet shaping from burst speed tests pretty well.
Apparently the ISP that supplies /. is one of the slow ones.
Time to offend someone
I'd like to know where they tested Charter at. If you're in a relatively sparse area they're great, but here in Madison, WI, they fucking suck. I have "21 meg" or some shit and at most I pull down between 2 and 5. Between the hours of 5 and 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening, it's damn near unusable because everybody in the city comes home and starts streaming Hulu and Netflix and I'll be lucky to pull down 700k, and the latency spikes like you wouldn't believe. The techs themselves tell me never to expect to hit the speeds I'm told I'll get, because that's not "real-world use."
So if I'm never going to get that speed in practical application, why again are they allowed to advertise said speed?
With Comcast, " averaged at or even above their advertised download speeds" means they sustained advertised speeds for all of 60 seconds -- right up until PowerBoost switched off.
I have NEVER gotten the 'upto' speed that any isp has ever sold me.
At least the crapcast i have now is sort of stable and about 3/4ths what i'm supposedly paying for.
But they drop connections at random. p2p... non p2p.. whatever. random.
And it's not cheap either.
So thanks crapcast for only sorta screwing me over and mostly ripping me off.
Geeze... going back in time... a 1.5 Mbit T1 connection, while actually a continuous 1.5 Mbit connection, never quite delivered that much speed when it was hooked to "the internet" and expected to move TCP/IP traffic. Same for 10 Mbit Ethernet (and that was never a true bidirectional 10 Mbits to begin with).
Protocol overhead always nibbles away at the edges.
Although I'm only one datapoint, my Optimum Boost (Cablevision) service north of NYC almost always hits the 50d/8u Mbps that I'm paying for ($15 over base service for the higher speeds). When I've had issues, they've always been catastrophic ones (no signal due to bad connector on the utility pole, etc.) rather than just slowdowns.
Aye, but there's also something this doesn't cover - region. Many of these companies perform differently if you use their service in different cities.
Where I live, you can regularly expect AT&T DSL to give you about +10% of advertised speed, and we have Wide Open West, which is good (but not listed there). The Insight and Time Warner list there probably overestimate the quality of service here where I live. Actually, since Insight (at least here) uses the TimeWarner infrastructure, it doesn't surprise me at all that they show so similar.
However, if we conversely go to a friend in another city, her Time Warner acually does meet advertised peak speed, and does so fairly regularly, but equally regularly goes down to DSL speeds.
The charts that are listed on the TFA are useless except on a per-city basis.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Hardware once again gets slammed for not being as advertised, meanwhile the software jerks can pump out bloated buggy code all day long and they're "craftspeople".
When I visit speedtest.net, I get faster speeds to Fiber Internet Center in Palo Alto, CA (21 Mbps down) than I get from Comcast in Denver, CO (9 Mbps down), even though I live within 30 miles of Denver and use Comcast for my 12 Mbps high speed internet connection. Anyone able to explain that one?
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
In the NW where Frontier bought the Verizon service I've done speed tests and on my "15/5" I have been getting 2.5/2 at maximum speeds since the switch. Note that the speeds are still advertised as 15/5 as opposed to something lower. I've run these tests over a years time period on a weekly basis. *shrug*
Well, I don't hit the advertised speeds. I am provisioned at 7mb down and 896k up. On a good day I get 6mb down but the upstream seems fairly consistent. However, this is a lot better than the leading cable company, Cox. Cox was a nightmare to deal with so I'll gladly put up with Qwest because I have no other choice. At least Qwest is less evil and doesn't engage in port blocking and require you to buy a small business package for a static IP to stop port blocking.
I have never had my comcast connection do better that 50% of advertised, even through the "marketingboost" first minute. Most of the people I know also have comcast and have observed the same. This study seems rather suspect.
There is much less incentive to throttle a 1Mbps link than a 10Mbps link. Sure, you've only got 1Mpbs, but at the same time, you've always got 1Mpbs. While your neighbors are pulling their hair out because they can only get 3Mbps out of a supposedly 10Mbps link, you're patting yourself on the back for getting exactly what you paid for.
In fact, I would bet that the more you pay, the more you will be ripped off, due simply to the amount of headroom they have to play with.
I have an "Up To 12 Mb" connection through my local cable company. I get exactly that. Somewhere between nothing and 12 Mb. I certainly never get more than that. But given that they advertise it as a "you might get as much as X bandwidth", I don't see how you can say they aren't giving me what they promised.
Now that we have long term wide spread data test can we start class action lawsuits about their speed claims?
IMO This should open each of the failing companys to lawsuits in each town they run ads in claiming servies they cant provide.
I think location is more important than the company. I've worked for Charter before, and they do a fantastic job in some places, but not so great in others (especially new acquisitions.)
My mom has Charter, and her advertised speed is 8Mbps down and 1Mbps up, but whenever I run tests on her connections, it's consistently about twice that.
I have Time Warner where I live, and I usually get about 80% of of my average speed (15Mbps rated, 12Mbps tested.)
With that in mind, Charter is probably better at maintaining their networks, and upgrading them when they can than other providers.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Most of the providers who hit their advertised speeds implement a burst-based traffic shaping.
For example, Comcast does full or over-full speed for first 10mb down and 5mb up.
It's nice that speedtest sites like speedtest.net show a graph of how speed changes, but their test sizes are still far to small and should exclude any detected burst speeds.
The only good way to test this is to actually transfer files and exclude the bursts.
Another thing that SHOULD be tested is the speed difference with single threaded transfers and segmented/multi-threaded transfers for both same continent and cross-seas.
Internet speed is relative and that is part of the problem.
I would love it if we got a real study, one with some depth, where they went around and tested every ISP during peak hours at several locations in their service area. I have a feeling that if they did that we'd see a much different story than this quasi-fluff piece...
Columbus area? I inquired via email when Insight was going DOCSIS 3 (like Time Warner already did in the downtown area from what I read) and about getting a replacement for my Moto DVR. I got directed to Sales and they seemed to ignore the network inquiry.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I guess it depends on area/signal. I have Comcast's 12Mb plan and I always get 1.2 to 1.5MB down (avg ~1.4MB, max 2MB). I usually max out while torrenting, but that's with encryption turned on. If you're lucky you'll be able to squeeze another 5-10Mb/s with a D3-capable modem.
I _can_ hit wirespeed from my ISP (AT&T DSL), but only during off-peak hours. During rushhour (late afternoon, evening, esp Sunday), I'm lucky to get ~1/4 wirespeed.
I'm sure this is AT&T overselling their infrastructure (Uverse) and has choked the uplink fiber from my DSLAM. YMMV -- not everybody will be choked. But I doubt the FCC measured this congestion.
stop stalking me please. I'm creeped out now :-P
(and, yes, Columbus)
Warning: calling WoW "expensive" is a bit of an understatement. Worth it to me, but maybe not to others...
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I'd agree with your statement if it weren't for the "quasi". That spoiled it for me.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
That's why they like to list their speeds as "Up To". That way you can't really complain if you don't reach it. They advertise a maximum and don't even need to reach half of that for their statement to be true.
When I had issues with my Comcast cable internet connection, it was taking me about 5 minutes to load Google's home page, 10 minutes for the nytimes.com home page. Slashdot took about 7 minutes. I went to three different independent speed test sites, which each confirmed I was getting less than 5% of the bandwidth Comcast advertised. I called them up and they directed me to a flash animation that looked like an analog gauge of a car speeding up onto the freeway, overshooting the advertised bandwidth, wavering a bit to make it look like it was actually measuring something and leveling off at exactly the advertised bandwidth. I reloaded it a couple times, and each time it was the exact same animation. The rep then said, "can you read me what it says on the dial? Looks like your connection is working just fine. The sites you are trying to visit must not have enough bandwidth to handle the connection." I asked if she'd ever heard of a little company named Google, and she said they must be having network trouble on their end.
Mine advertises 30Mbps and I routinely spike to 45Mbps, so I'm kind of on the other side of this coin. I have no idea how they get me so much speed out here in the country, but I'll take it.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Just switched from comcast to qwest. Have to say that their bandwidth positively SUX. We even have 20 mb vs. the 12 that comcast advertises. And yet, this is slower than comcast. Sad. Real sad.
Hopefully, they have better uptime than comcast (comcast has so many outages; glad that I ran my own bind; their always had issues in their DNS).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In a press conference this morning, 600 KB/s stated that "after months of being abused and hit, it's finally time to stop. We won't cooperate anymore until the ISPs stop hitting us." Soon afterwards, higher speeds also agreed with 600 KB/s and followed his example.
News at eleven.
I think Insight in Central Ohio is the only division of Insight that uses Time Warner... and the only division of Insight that seems to be falling behind (tech wise). ;)
No stalking needed on that one.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
wow....good for you charter!
How is this report any better than the thousands of self tests done by real people at dslreport.com?
https://secure.dslreports.com/archive
The FCC Says ISPs Aren't Hitting Advertised Speeds
An I'm, like, no shit, Sherlock? In other news, people get hurt in car crashes.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
DSL from AT&T here are very quirky. A buddy has one that gets close to 20% better then advertised, yet a business I do support for that is a half mile away struggles to get 50% of the listed speeds. Funny thing is that the business is susposedly closer to the telco then my buddy. I know there are many factors, but AT&T has supposedly "tested" all the lines and says its' all "ok". I always take that with a large grain of salt, because I have found AT&T likes to find a excuse and stick to it till you prove them wrong. It usually takes threats of dropping service to get them to actually do something, much like when their equipment goes bad and they want you to pay $80 for a cheesy DSL modem.
Yes Comcast is evil, I work in a Business Park and pay for their 20/5 service. When the Interenet connection is working I get 50/20. the other 40% of the time I get about 3/10 and right now I have about .15/10 ( thats point one five). Comcast has been out at least 7 times, and has been unable to resolve the slowness, I've replaced the modem and the cable from the demark to my wiring closet. The main problem is, their department don't talk to each other, and they keep no record of previous visits, the outside guy comes along and blames the inside wiring, and the inside guy blames the outside. They have to start over from scratch everytime I call in. They also never tell me what they thing the issue is, other than temporary problems. the inside guys i've worked with have been descent, although some young and a little unexperianced. The outside guys seem to be lazy loafers that care very little about the quality of their work. I am an IT Manager and I would fire them very quickly if they showed such incompetence and lackadaisical interest in their work. Even more, this morning I waited 20 minutes before I was able to speak to a phone rep., which is unexeceptable for a commercial account. I have to put the call on speaker phone so that I can continue with my work, and their system constantly changes from a whisper to blairing out commercial ads trying to sell me service, which I already have and that I'm currently having problems with. I'm about fed up. The Bells cost a whole lot more, but the service of the worst one is far better than comcast.
The only I got out from reading your post is your left nut.
Indeed. My provider is Metrocast Cable (out of New Jersey, but I am up here in Connecticut where they picked up a small cable company) and they have been upping the download rates fairly steadily (every 1-2 years we get another 1-2 Mbit.)
Often we will get the rate bump 3 to 6 months prior to them making it an official offering.
Also, they dont cap or throttle anything.
"His name was James Damore."
Did they send a burst of nops over port 80 for 1 second on tuesday at 4am? Any details on the tests would be great. Without something specific about the tests the information is bullshit. Give us something useful like sustained side by side TCP and UDP data transfers over multiple ports for at least 350 days. Here is the results of my "data". Cable and dsl do not meet their advertised marks while fiber does. My data --> cuz_i_sed.txt.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I have no problem with FIOS. I sustain very fast download speeds(and upload, for that matter). Reaching 25mbit is no problem(I have a 25/25 plan). Reaching past it isn't either. In fact, it's the best internet service I've ever had. Only service I'd put on par with it was MediaOne
Every advertisement I've seen says "up to X," which means "anything X or below, but not above." So, 90% of that speed falls within the advertised spec.
Nothing to see here except more big anti-business crap from this administration.
... cheat, steal, and lie. Old news. Move along.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
5Mbs both ways, and their customer service has been excellent. I've had them for internet about 13 yrs now.
So, is it reasonable to expect -as the summary apparently does- for average speed to be equal or even close to maximum speed?
Before participation: Time Warner/Roadrunner here in Southern California gave me less than a tenth of advertised speeds. Officially 7mbits down, 1mb up, the actual service was more like 400kbits. Up to 800kb, sometimes even over a whole megabite early in the morning. (Exciting!) After the initial burst, which hit over a megabit down fairly often, there were times when it slowed all the way to single digits in KB.
Under the Sam Knows program, the FCC lets the ISPs know which subscribers are part of the test. (Bit of a problem right there, I'd say.) A few days before we had the government router hooked up, no doubt when Time Warner got word of our new "status," our speeds suddenly shot up into the advertised range. I nearly swooned the first time I saw a download go by at over a megabyte. And, interestingly enough, they've stayed there. It wasn't just some random thing. We don't usually get 7mb, but 5-6mb is the norm now.
So the info that ISPs aren't delivering stated speeds even in the FCC study is interesting, given that they seem to be jimmying the results for all they're worth.
(Speed tests before the FCC program would show us getting multi-megabits that we never saw in real life. Two things there: burst-shaping, no doubt, and I've heard that ISPs have ways of recognizing speed test traffic and giving it bandwidth.)
I wouldn't brag about that if I were you.
FC Closer
This just in, I don't know of anybody who hits the 'advertised' fuel efficiency either
....To figure out the obvious?
The CEOs of the losers on the list will use these rankings as more fuel to implement usage caps on the "abusers" who are slowing the internet down for the rest of us.
It took me weeks of arguing with Frontier to get them to admit they were throttling my "unlimited" dsl to only 1.344 mbps. They kept saying they'd send a tech to test line quality, and then doing nothing. I finally got to talk to a real tech a couple weeks ago, who simply flipped a switch up to 6 mbps. Still a bit low considering I'm only two blocks away from the switch, but better.
Wow! I read most of the posts and quickly breezed through the rest -
not one mention of traceroute or hops (unless I missed it).
I believe what we're learning is that measuring speed is subjective and tricky.
I have 2 identical basic accounts with Comcast - one I get better throughput on (up to
3 Meg Bytes down, sometimes more) but less ability to connect to multiple IPs;
the other I get less throughput, but have no problem connecting to multiple IPs.
I don't know if its a firewall/modem/router issue. But it's a noticable difference between
the two accounts. Honestly, I don't know why - it's a puzzle to me.
The accounts are about 150 miles apart. Mostly the problem is when their DNS server
goes away - about once a week. But for the most part, I'm okay for what I'm paying
for and I seem to fare better than most accounts I've read here.
In France, http://grenouille.com provide open-source software for testing ISPs.
You can look at every ISP speed and refine the stats by town.
To participate just register, download a client and install it into your computer (they have at least hundreds running clients on every major ISPs).
It's surprising there is apparently no such project in the States
I work for a company that sells HSPA wireless. Soon we will be rolling out LTE to much of our liscenced service area. (hence Anon)
I have heard from upper level that the company intends to become the "ISP of choice" in the long term.
Meanwhile we do stupid shit like advertise 21Mbps, even though it's impossible for any customer to actually achieve that under ideal real world conditions.
The fine print is that it's 21Mbps theoretical max layer 1 downlink speeds. Before we add forward error correction, and the upper layers which actually make the connection useful.
The customer will be measuring real-world throughput at the upper layers, of course, and can never see the advertised speed.
Of course sales and marketing doesn't see this as blatantly false advertising.
(yes, I feel dirty taking the cheque sometimes, but my kids gotta eat, and they pay well. Still looking for a more ethical source of the same amount of income)
* Where one megabit equals one million bits.
Liberty in your lifetime
Weird. I've had their DSL before, I've had issues with their billing, but the actual DSL service/support in my area was excellent.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I recently watched a PBS special about broadband, which indicated the UK's system is setup so that most households have a choice of multiple broadband providers, where high speed starts in at least 2-digit megabits per second, and the monthly cost is almost trivially low (I forgot the actual costs that were mentioned).
Although the lines are owned primarily by an oligopoly of companies (AT&T, Verizon, and British Telecom were the three mentioned), they are required by law to lease the lines to competitors. Not only that, but Verizon, AT&T, and BT all wholeheartedly endorse the the concept of being required to lease their lines to competitors. Spokespeople for those companies all said that the required competition kept them working to improve their respective services.
The special also said that the companies are investing in massive new outlays of fiber optics across the country so that even very remote and sparsely populated outlying areas get fast Internet.
Now shift to the U.S., where Verizon and AT&T are fighting tooth and nail against regulations that would provide the same level of service and network expansion going on in the UK, and where 3mb DSL is considered high speed (by AT&T).
It just drove home how royally screwed we are in the U.S.
You're tanking in the polls. The Republicans hate you because you are not a Republican. The Tea Party hates you because you are not white enough. The progressives hate you because you've betrayed all of your campaign promises to them. The whole country hates you because the economy is tanking due to your collusion with the Republicans to transfer even more wealth to the corporate elite.
If you want any hope of re-election we have to throw the progressives a bone. You have got to make it look like you are fighting against your corporate sponsors without actually causing them any damage.
I've got it! ISP rates have barely dropped in 15 years yet the bandwidth they provide hasn't increased at all. Surely Moore's Law has dropped some of their costs substantially. Let's pretend to stand up for consumer rights by forcing our telco sponsors to make small increases in the bandwidth they provide. That won't cost the telcos a dime, yet it should make us look like we're anti-corporate.
Make it so.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I guess my submission was not significantly negative enough to make it through the moderator filter. I was surprised to see that the large majority of the ISPs are able to give 90% of their advertised rate during peak times. I'm with Charter and despite being on their lowest tier, I get close to 20Mb on a regular basis.
As much as people like to bitch and moan on here, I think you're all a bunch of babies. Mod me flamebait all you want. If you're getting more than 15Mb and still whining about it not being fast enough, you need to get a life. Go outside.
The real story is that ISPs who are selling internet service with speeds "up to" are getting 90% of those speeds nearly 100% of the time. If you want a guaranteed rate, pay for a dedicated circuit. Otherwise, STFU and admit that the speeds really are there.
For those who don't want to read the article or haven't seen the actual results, the only ISP who exceeded their advertised rates is Verizon with their FiOS service. Everyone else comes up short.
Where did you find information that the FCC let the ISPs know which subscribers are participating? I also took part in the study and I was expecting that sort of thing to happen, but I never saw anything to confirm it.
I had Comcast once upon a time. They were absolutely awful. Service was too expensive and pathetically unreliable. Customer support was utterly unhelpful.
In closing, fuck Comcast.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
I'm finding that they're monkeying with what the term broadband / Internet access means.
Example : I pay for 12mb down and consistently test out for 7 to 9, ( dsl reports speed checks to Chicago)
There happens to be an ISP the next town over from me who has a speedtest page ( 15 miles or less away)
I get the same 7-9 rating.
Call up my ISP, and their speedtest page (3 towns over, 25-35 miles) returns 10-11mbps
Calling them on this led to the discussions on what the definitions of Internet access is,
Things outside the ISP network ( you know, google, everything) seem to be loosely connected and not part of any speed requirements my ISP guarantees me. I got the impression they could go down to dial up access and still claim hi speed as an offering. I think this is the new bottlenecks in speed, between ISPs and the rest of the world.
The interesting thing was they hint around asking us to request the service providers colo ate to provide faster access, basically so they can charge them as well as us.
they should check the ones that get hit the most by hiked prices...the us and canada....where they pay the most for the least....it might lead to class action lawsuits by the "people" and lead to a better regulated industry. I sure hope that someone picks up this mantle...
DUH!
I and I think the rest of you in here have noticed this years ago. It just shows that the FCC is either Ignorant, or Arrogant. I'm not sure which.
Frontier bought the local fiber from Verizon... oh, a year ago I think. I regularly test upload/download speeds and it's always been slightly more (approx 5%) than advertised. With Verizon, and before that Comcast, I would periodically (every one to three months) see download speed drop to a lower tier. (Measured consistently from several tries.) A call to the ISP, they "re-provision" my line and my speed would return. I suspect that this isn't an accident. Enough people wouldn't notice a speed decrease that it's in the company's best interest not to pursue these "mistakes" too enthusiastically.
But as I said, haven't seen this from Frontier, yet. (Just measured last Wednesday.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Citation most definitely needed.
I have Verizon FiOS, the 15/5 plan. It's not bad--and cheaper than DSL since I signed up with a promotional price. I have noticed the throughput goes up and down throughout the day for no apparent reason. When I run speed tests it always confirms the 15/5 speed, but "real world" conditions will have downloads vary in speed. For instance, I've had things downloading via Steam that were just blazing fast at first, then slowed down halfway through to a trickle (almost dial-up speed), then ramped up again later. Up and down, up and down. Don't know if this is a congestion issue or what. I've never had the connection actually drop in any way. I couldn't say the same for my DSL, which dropped all the damn time. It just seems to slow down sometimes.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
I live in a large city in the North East of the US and get my Internet through Comcast. I recently downgraded from a 25 Mb/s line to a 17 Mb/s because my 9-month introductory rate came to an end. I figured this wouldn't be a big deal because I don't do intense downloading (aside form the occasional Steam game) and merely use my connection for playing Counter-Strike 1.6 and web browsing.
Well, after the switch my Counter-Strike pings jumped from 20-30 to 50-60 and I have never been able to download a file at over 1.5 Mb/s.
Couple Questions:
1) Am I mistaken in thinking that bandwidth should share no relationship with ping time to servers?
2) Why when I run speedtests do I consistently score download speeds that are anywhere from 10-15 times faster than the rate at which I ever see myself download a file? Is this simply the servers I'm accessing limiting their upload rate?
1.5MB is the advertised rate...
Amercians should get down on their knees and thank god that they are not in Europe.
UK's regulator, Ofcom, did the same test as FCC --- and found that the actual speed is only 45% of the advertised speed.
http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2011/03/02/average-broadband-speed-is-still-less-than-half-advertised-speed/
Americans got 90% of their advertised speed, Brits got 45% of their advertised speed.
OLD NEWS!.... We already know the ISP's are not delivering any where near what is claimed. They ALL have contracts that have vague legalese claiming regardless of what you pay there is NO Guarantee of speed.
Nothings changed since the Bells and Cable companies started offering "High Speed Internet"
I Want to know what the FCC will do about the results. Will they create new rules?, Hold ISP's to the same standards of advertising and service as other types of service providers?
Tell me something useful and NEWS WORTHY!
I got outed reading your post
FTFY
It took them a whole year to figure this out? Does anyone remember when they used to advertise unlimited BW? Crap. Its all crap.
Time Warner user here too, and in the study. I saw the same thing. My speed suddenly was amazing. Before I could Netflix a movie and maybe browse a few sites before things got choppy. This last weekend I Netflixed, browsed Facebook and Google+, and was connected to my VPN while my wife used her computer and we did not even notice a change.
Morale... looks like we will all have to become members of the SamKnows field study.
I've also had problems with Steam, but I think that some of that is from the Steam end. The only reason I say that is because I'll never have any bandwidth problems with something like BT.
This article is about advertised speeds. I have FiOS 35/35 and get about 30/40-42. I am having a hard time with this article because if anyone has ever seen a commercial or even RTFContract of their ISP it has two key words..."UP TO." Hearing this in the commercial "with speeds up to 5Mb..." ISPs don't promise or guarantee you speeds as they simply can't do that. Since you are not going to get a perfect connection everywhere, bad area(old lines, etc), a place with lots of users, etc. then you would not get those advertised speeds and this is why they add those two words. I know from the article that FCC is going after advertised speeds, but with the two key words of UP TO, can they really say anything at all? Granted, if the ISP was offering 5Mb and was purposely slowing it down to 1Mb, I see that as a call for alarm, but it does not state that in the article.
"That's right...I said it."
In other news, Enzyte doesn't actually make your dick bigger. Story at 11.
Seriously, who is surprised by this? Having no legal repercussions for false advertising sure makes for a lot of fucked over consumers. Vote with your wallet my ass, the pricks already took my money by lying to me, they'll just lie to someone else to keep their business afloat. It's high time these companies start getting dissolved, with their top execs getting federal PMITA prison time for pulling shit like this.
Cool post bro, highfive \o
I gotta say I'm quite happy with it....about 99% or so uptimes for me, and when I have had need of services...they are quite prompt to help me, usually right on the call I make but on a rare occasion, called, left a msg and they got back to me in less than 30 min.
One night I called and my connection went down...they had someone out there with a truck to fix the lines at the pole somewhere around 11:30pm...I'd called them about 10pm....
I must say, I'm quite happy.
I only pay $70/mo....no caps, I can run servers, and get good service. I get about 15 down and often times about 9-10 up.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm in the same study, and also a Time Warner customer, but in Wisconsin. Advertised speed of 30MB speeds down rarely exceed 20, and usually burst to 20 for 10 seconds, then slow to below 5-6. Upload has never exceeded 1MB, even though I'm supposed to have 3MB. I truthfully never torrent files, and the most sustained use of my connection is watching 1-2 netflix movies per week.
While I'm in a FIOS area from a competitor, the advertised speeds on that are even lower, and at a higher cost. No one I know who has FIOS is happy with it, around here.
This is as fast as it gets: http://www.speedtest.net/result/1415912836.png
and this is typical of extreme slowdowns, and busy evenings: http://www.speedtest.net/result/1415691335.png
Modem signal to the ISP is lost 1-2 times weekly, for anywhere from 1-8 hours. This is an improvement from what it used to be, but overall I'm not a fan of Time Warner because of this.
Ok, they hit their advertised speeds normally but that's when their connections are stable, which is not common. They're typically weak, drop and are unreli................NO CONNECTION.
That 10% is wasted Call of Duty potential! I'm 10% (or more) better than you see me play online! I promise! Quit holding me back bandwidth!!!
Another single data point:
I can watch a couple of Netflix streams on different devices, load up on torrents, goof off with Youtube, SSH into a remote *nix box, and web browse at the same time as my wife plays WoW, regardless of time of day.
All on a single consumer-grade VDSL loop that is about 300 feet beyond spec and consists partly of lead-sheathed cable that dates back to the infancy of the PSTN. And I wasn't even part of the study!
That folks seem to think this is an unusual level of performance is pretty disturbing.
Kid-proof tablet..
This is really great. Keep it up.good posting.
CAR LEASING
It was meant for the "general good". I'd like a technical justification offered @ least on WHY it was 'downward modded' (thanks).
* The "general good" being information on HOW TO GET MORE OUT OF WHAT YOU YOURSELVES PAY FOR IN ONLINE BANDWIDTH & SPEED (as well as added security + even "anonymity" to an extent vs. DNS Tracking Logs & beating possibly unjust DNSBL's also)
APK
P.S.=> Of course, there are those who don't WANT others to KNOW about that information I posted as well (advertisers online, malware makers, & possibly even governments of the world in some cases)!
And, yes: I've also made my share of enemies out there online as well (dolts I've floored on technical issues & they're obviously still "stinging" from the "bitter taste of defeat" @ having to eat their own erroneous words flavored with it, lol, @ MY hands)!
However? Well, so far here?? That's just speculation!
However - IF I don't get a SOLID explain on the downmod AS WELL AS A DISPROVAL OF THE POINTS I MADE IN MY POST THAT WAS DOWN-MODDED???
Then, I can only assume I am 100% correct (on my "speculations" above)...
... apk
Have you even bothered to complain?
When I last had Road Runner, I had dropouts regularly whenever things were wet. I called, complained, and 2 minutes later had an appointment for a tech to show up and fix things during the next day.
The tech apparently did show up (he never rang the doorbell), and apparently did fix things, because after that everything was golden.
Protip: Your ISP won't fix your connection problems if you don't tell them that you have them. (Whether they should fix them on their own, without prompting, is another discussion.)
Kid-proof tablet..
I'd like to know this as well.
(The story has scrolled down far enough that neither of us are likely to get a useful response, but I figure it's worth a shot.)
Kid-proof tablet..
It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure it was in one of their reports on the FCC web site, buried in the interminable methodology section. I'll try to find the time to get the link.
".llort ,ffo kcuF" - by Anonymous Coward ANOTHER "ne'er-do-well" /. OFF-TOPIC TROLL on Sunday July 10, @06:32AM (#36710070)
"???"
Uhm... Could we get a translation of that off-topic "troll-speak/trolllanguage" of yours, please?
* And, you're an off-topic troll - no questions asked...SEE MY SUBJECT LINE ABOVE!
APK
P.S.=> Yes, it must have just have been another off-topic done nothing of significance with his life troll spewing his off-topic b.s. again & not contributing to the ongoing conversations. Oh well - No biggie!
("ReVeRsE-PsYcHoLoGy", for trolls - Courtesy of this code by "yours truly" in less than 1 second flat):
---
#TrollTalkComReversePsychologyKiller.py (Ver #2 by APK)
def reverse(s):
try:
trollstring = ""
for apksays in s:
trollstring = apksays + trollstring
except:
print("error/abend in reverse function")
return trollstring
s = ""
print reverse(s)
try:
s = "Insert whatever 'trollspeak/trolllanguage' gibberish occurs here..."
s = reverse(s)
print(s)
except Exception as e:
print(e)
---
... apk
I have the same. Except here I pay $104/mo. And that's only because I opt to keep renewing my contract from 5 years ago (otherwise it'd be $160). Speeds during the day (until around 10pm) are anywhere from 30-70% advertised speed. I know, quite a range there. At night I'll top it out most of the time.
I wouldn't have a business account, but they do shit like block your ports "for your own safety" unless you're willing to fork over literally twice as much or more for the same damn connection with open ports, and the possibility to pay for a static IP.
What bullshit is that!? On the other hand, I'm confident I'll stay mostly clear of their abuses of consumer plan customers (caps, throttling, non-hijacked DNS results, etc). In other words, I have to pay double to get the internet connection I should be getting in the first place. UGH.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
The code works exactly as it should, & did, here -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2380246&cid=37107532
With a result of:
".llort ,ffo kcuF"
Reversing your trollspeak/trollanguage you spoke, here:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2380246&cid=37107288
APK
P.S.=> Better luck next time, troll, because MY work? Works perfectly!
I.E.-> What I posted was its template (here again below, for your reference) which you ran to check, but you did not insert your ORIGINAL "TROLLSPEAK/TROLLANGUAGE" PROFANITY INTO... lol, your mistake!
("ReVeRsE-PsYcHoLoGy", for trolls - Courtesy of this code by "yours truly" in less than 1 second flat):
---
#TrollTalkComReversePsychologyKiller.py (Ver #2 by APK)
def reverse(s):
try:
trollstring = ""
for apksays in s:
trollstring = apksays + trollstring
except:
print("error/abend in reverse function")
return trollstring
s = ""
print reverse(s)
try:
s = "Insert whatever 'trollspeak/trolllanguage' gibberish occurs here..."
s = reverse(s)
print(s)
except Exception as e:
print(e)
---
... apk
We can't FIOS in central Illinois. Actually, we can't get Verizon anymore - they sold all their phone and internet accounts in the area to Frontier (which has developed an abysmal reputation for their DSL, which is slower than advertised (and it's only advertised at the 700kb level) and has been unavailable more than 10 days last year in some parts of town. Which, to my mind, is absolutely awful. Comcast is better than Frontier, which is the only reason I have it.
Template as in "base model" I simply used to do what I call "ReVeRsE-PsyChoLoGy" on your profanity with (& there's no doubt you resorted to profanity as trolls often do, illogical adhominem attack style that it is)... see this definition here & the pertinent quote to reinforce it to you:
http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/template
"A document in which the standard opening and closing parts are already filled in is a template that you can copy and then fill in the variable parts."
* So, do YOU get it now, thick-skull? I still invite you to disprove my original post you used an adhominem illogical attack against saying "Fuck off troll" to me in... disprove its points.... you CAN'T, you KNOW IT, & I know it.
APK
P.S.=> Because that's EXACTLY what I did to your profanity, putting it in the string portion to be reversed (your trollspeak/trollanguage, here -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2380246&cid=37107532 and YES, IT WORKED, PERFECTLY, despite your b.s. mistake it did not... lol! )...
... apk
AND, when you can show YOU have done more & to better acclaim than I can & HAVE from my only PARTIAL LIST of some "favorites" of mine below in my "p.s." section (which I did I suspect while YOU WERE STILL IN DIAPERS) in the art & science of computing?
THEN, & only then, you can talk like this to myself:
"And THEN I suggest learning a REAL programming language, instead of toy languages like Python, VB, and Delphi. Those are languages for babies to learn on. In short, come back when you're not just a script-kiddie." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17, @01:33PM (#37121074)
Oh, really? I also program quite fluently in:
---
1.) Assembly .NET (various 'dialects' in it (ASP.NET, VB.NET, C#))
2.) C
3.) C++
4.) FORTRAN
5.) COBOL
6.) RPG
7.) BASIC (many 'dialects')
8.) PASCAL (including ADA & Delphi's Object Pascal)
9.)
10.) JAVA
11.) PyThon
12.) As well as numerous various scripting languages for automation on various Operating Systems... & more.
---
This takes the cake from YOU though:
"The program you posted was no more useful than "hello world", but at least "hello world" does what it purports to do (unlike your program)." - by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17, @01:33PM (#37121074)
Hmmm, I thought you said MY template I use for "ReVeRsE-PsyChoLoGy" vs. profanity spewing off topic trolls like yourself didn't work?
FUNNY - IT seems to have reversed your profanity JUST FINE, in your illogical adhominem attack here:
".llort ,ffo kcuF" - by Anonymous Coward ANOTHER "ne'er-do-well" /. OFF-TOPIC TROLL on Tuesday August 16, @11:05AM (#37107288)
FROM:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2380246&cid=37107532
So... that all "said & aside", making you out to be the FOOL yet again, just "too, Too, TOO EASILY" (as is my usual vs. off topic adhominem attack utilizing "ne'er-do-well" trolls like yourself online)?
* AGAIN - CAN YOU SHOW THE SAME or better yet, BETTER, IN THAT YOU'VE DONE MORE, EARLIER, & TO BETTER ACCLAIM IN THIS FIELD THAN I HAVE (Again, while you were still in diapers I wager)... ?
APK
P.S.=> FOR YOUR REFERENCE (only a small partial list of my favs from nearly a decade back, I can produce many more as well easily):
"My Name is Ozymandias: King of Kings - Look upon my works, ye mighty, & DESPAIR..."
----
Windows NT Magazine (now Windows IT Pro) April 1997 "BACK OFFICE PERFORMANCE" issue, page 61
(&, for work done for EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com on PAID CONTRACT (writing portions of their SuperCache program increasing its performance by up to 40% via my work) albeit, for their SuperDisk & HOW TO APPLY IT, took them to a finalist position @ MS Tech Ed, two years in a row 2000-2002, in its HARDEST CATEGORY: SQLServer Performance Enhancement).
WINDOWS MAGAZINE, 1997, "Top Freeware & Shareware of the Year" issue page 210, #1/first entry in fact (my work is there)
PC-WELT FEB 1998 - page 84, again, my work is featured there
WINDOWS MAGAZINE, WINTER 1998 - page 92, insert section, MUST HAVE WARES, my work is again, there
PC-WELT FEB 1999 - page 83, again, my work is featured there
CHIP Magazine 7/99 - page 100, my work is there
GERMAN PC BOOK, Data Becker publisher "PC Aufrusten und Repairen" 2000, where my work is contained in it
HOT SHAREWARE Numero 46 issue, pg. 54 (PC ware mag from Spain), 2001 my work is there, first one featured, yet again!
Also, a British PC Mag in 2002 for many utilities I wrote, saw it @ BORDERS BOOKS but didn't buy it... by that point, I had moved onto other areas in this field besides cod
Ah, since we're redefining well-known technical words like "template" in their generic senses, your program STILL doesn't work. My Python completely ignored the script and attacked the juicy mouse in its cage instead. It did shit all over its cage, so I guess that's the output. Typical, too... "garbage in garbage out". Your shitty code produced shitty output. Literal shit. In case you didn't catch that, see this definition here & I'm sure you don't need any pertinent quotes:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/python
By the way, I could do that lame string reversal in a single line of Javascript, so again: nothing more than a lame attempt at some pseudo-code by a luser script-kiddie.
P.S. I noticed you still haven't written a program that doesn't require SOURCE CODE MODIFICATION to actually work. Your program can STILL be reduced to a "single line of code which is incorrect".
P.P.S. You can't program your way out of a wet paper bag, as proven by nothing more than "honorable mentions" for your programs - if you can call them that, even. Seems like most people think your programs are shit, or worse (malware) even. And your "credentials" are also shit. A few good reviews from newspapers or magazines that needed to fill pages aren't worth anything here in the real world. Even CyberDefender got a good review from USA Today, and it's basically a scam - overpriced and underpowered, and they use scare tactics to get you to buy it, telling you your computer is infected with a virus when it isn't (don't just take my word for it, search YouTube for "MyCleanPC" and there's lots of videos telling you how it's a scam).
AND, you certainly cannot show you've done more in computing than I have (while you were still in diapers, lol).
"Your shitty code produced shitty output." - by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18, @08:41AM (#37128238)
It did EXACTLY what it was supposed to, and you KNOW IT (which was reverse YOUR "shitty output" in your illogical profanity off topic adhominem attack effete b.s. you tried to use... lol!).
E.G.->
".llort ,ffo kcuF" - by Anonymous Coward ANOTHER "ne'er-do-well" /. OFF-TOPIC TROLL on Tuesday August 16, @11:05AM (#37107288)
FROM:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2380246&cid=37107532
OR DID YOU NOT DO THAT ADHOMINEM ATTACK ILLOGICAL & EFFETE B.S.? Sure you did... lol, to NO AVAIL!
So... that all "said & aside", I am just making you out to be the FOOL yet again, just "too, Too, TOO EASILY" (as is my usual vs. off topic adhominem attack utilizing "ne'er-do-well" trolls like yourself online).
APK
P.S.=>
"By the way, I could do that lame string reversal in a single line of Javascript, so again: nothing more than a lame attempt at some pseudo-code by a luser script-kiddie." - by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18, @08:41AM (#37128238)
BUT, my original WORKS (and you messed up large saying it didn't... lmao!), AND, by the way - I can write it in a SINGLE LINE of Python if I chose to, ala:
print "By the way, I could do that lame string reversal in a single line of Javascript, so again: nothing more than a lame attempt at some pseudo-code by a luser script-kiddie."[::-1]
That'll do what I did in a single line too, but it lacks error handling!
(Sure, I could wrap it in a try except using either structured error handling built into Python, OR, do a "custom" one as I did in the reverse function I did earlier too - only it wouldn't be a SINGLE LINE OF CODE anymore, but safer... as all my code always is, errtrapped to the max as always!).
* So, please - Don't even TRY to "match wits" with me, you don't have the intellect OR the accomplishments in Computer Science to do so!
E.G.->
"You can't program your way out of a wet paper bag, as proven by nothing more than "honorable mentions" for your programs" - by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18, @08:41AM (#37128238)
Ok then: Againl - Where is your list of accomplishments vs. that FRACTIONAL/PARTIAL list of mine I put out here:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2380246&cid=37122582
hmmm? You're a LOT OF TALK/HOT-AIR, but no substance as usual, & full of errors saying my code for "ReVeRsE-PsyChoLoGy" which worked, didn't, & I have 2 ways I have already shown it works as well - so much for your talk, I produce results, whereas "the likes of trolling off topic adhominem attack utilizing dolt" in yourself? ZERO by comparison - you're pitiful, & you make ME laugh...
... apk
My Python only created a cage full of shit when I fed it your code.
BUT, my original WORKS (and you messed up large saying it didn't... lmao!), AND, by the way - I can write it in a SINGLE LINE of Python if I chose to, ala:
print "By the way, I could do that lame string reversal in a single line of Javascript, so again: nothing more than a lame attempt at some pseudo-code by a luser script-kiddie."[::-1]
Oh, so now you plagiarize that from the person who posted that last time you bragged about your 1337 programming skillz? I don't see you giving them any credit for their work. I specifically remember that someone else posted that trick. Don't even try to deny it, you lying sack of shit, because you never came up with it on your own. You're nothing but a script-kiddie AND a plagiarist on top of it.
Where is your list of accomplishments vs. that FRACTIONAL/PARTIAL list of mine I put out here:
As I said: CyberDefender got good reviews from USA Today (and some other paper too, I don't remember what). And it's a piece of crapware/scareware/scamware. Your so-called "accomplishments" don't prove that you're any better.
AND, it's not really "writing anything" either - it's merely using a native print function! That "technique" can be found in any Python help page online in fact... & it IS a valid "2nd way" of doing it - problem is, again, that "doing it in 1 line" provides NO PROTECTION vs. abends/errors, so you SHOULD (rather must if you're smart) "Try-Except" wrap it just as I noted.
IF my code didn't work, you may be using a diff. version of Python (I use 2.7... there CAN be problems IF you're using 3.x series, I avoid it (heard it's still "1/2 baked"))
APK
P.S.=> Funny, but my work's done well @ the likes of Microsoft Tech Ed, 2 yrs. in a row, in the HARDEST CATEGORY THERE: SQLServer Performance Enhancement & IS PART OF A COMMERCIAL PRODUCT LINE FROM A MICROSOFT CERTIFIED PARTNER TOO - how about you?
(AND, that's just a "single example thereof" of mine too... Plus, I have tons of others out there online too, I just didn't post them)...
BOTTOM-LINE HERE THOUGH, IS THIS, & WHY YOU "FAIL": YOU KEEP AVOIDING SHOWING US YOU'VE ACTUALLY DONE ANYTHING NOTED WELL... why's that?
LMAO - we KNOW why (you haven't done squat, & you KNOW IT, I know it, & everyone else reading here by now does as well)
... apk
It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't in one of their reports on the FCC web site, buried in the interminable methodology section. I'll try to find the time to not get the link to the data which doesn't exist.
Kid-proof tablet..
i could have told you for free years ago that about 90% of the time my isp delivers only half the speed it advertises ... when using wifi it never hits above half really, not that i've seen except for an occasional spike perhaps ... helpdesk even admitted it once, the guy said that was 'normal' ... when i asked if they would cut my bill in half since that seemed the 'normal' thing to i didnt get a real clear answer. Atm they're facing a lawsuit, which is nice, but is way too late, there's just not enough competition or else they just sit around the table and divide the pie evenly, what do the yokels know ...
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
Here, except you only printed MY TEMPLATE http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2380246&cid=37108000 instead of reversing your own profanity (which is, after all, what that code's ALL ABOUT in MY template & why I call it "ReVeRsE-PsyChoLoGy").
* Thus? Well, as-per-your-usual?? You FAIL, as per YOUR usual, AC troll - & on ALL FRONTS here now this time!
( & you're TRULY an "anonymous coward" as well - I'd hate to be you, but small wonder you post totally anonymously, since you screwup so much vs. myself, everytime, lmao...)
APK
P.S.=> Like I said before, you might be using PyThon 3.x instead of the 2.7x version I use (there's diff.'s between them), HOWEVER?
Well - Since you ran MY TEMPLATE before, & YES IT WORKED FOR YOU (because you reversed what's in it by default)?
You're simply proving YOU ARE FULL OF IT, & this all proves it... just "too, Too, TOO EASILY"...
... apk