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Study: Major ISPs Slowing Traffic Across the US
An anonymous reader writes: A study based on test results from 300,000 internet users "found significant degradations on the networks of the five largest internet service providers" in the United States. This group includes Time Warner Cable, Verizon, and AT&T. "The study, supported by the technologists at Open Technology Institute's M-Lab, examines the comparative speeds of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), which shoulder some of the data load for popular websites. ... In Atlanta, for example, Comcast provided hourly median download speeds over a CDN called GTT of 21.4 megabits per second at 7pm throughout the month of May. AT&T provided speeds over the same network of of a megabit per second." These findings arrive shortly after the FCC's new net neutrality rules took effect across the U.S.
Would'a been, damn network...
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I live in LA and subscribe to Time Warner. We pay for up to 40 Mbps in our apartment yet rarely see anything beyond... 21 (with only one device using the connection). Now that seems to make a little per sense...
You cannot throttle me, I have unlimited usage, it's in the contract! Quick, somebody turn them into the FCC for a fine or two.... Oh, you say it's just network congestion? Fat chance that's true, I want my NETFLIX to stream at the full 4K resolution or else.....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You are an idiot. This demonstrates that they were fucking with people's speeds all along.
If the last mile ISPs are going to only allow balanced traffic for free (and last mile traffic is clearly not balanced by its nature) then we should fix the problem for them and generate enough upstream traffic to balance the equation. This is simple - answer one idiotic position with another idiotic position. Have Netflix go peer to peer and then manage traffic flow to create balanced traffic at all of the last mile ISPs. It's what they want ---- we should give it to them.
Since they can't get their way to squeeze more profit from their customers, they'll punish them instead.
Assholes.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
In time, there might be viable alternatives to the big ISPs, but for now, there's a huge disparity between the price/speed of the US vs other modern countries. Things only need to get bad enough for people to notice, then we'll either regulate it or somebody will find a more competitive option.
The FCC has removed incentives for monopolistic ISPs to increase backbone network capacity since they are not allowed to derive any additional revenue to offset the cost of those investments...
Local governments authorize geographical monopolies, and the federal government says that ISPs can't charge content providers for faster service, so what is the motivation for improvements?
What you wanted was competition, instead you settled for net neutrality, solving a non-existent problem and changing the nature of the Internet to a heavily-regulated telcom service, so that it would remain as it was before regulation.
You changed the very nature of the Internet, in order to save it - reminds me of something a previous President said - he had to violate free market principles to save the free market... And oh how you all laughed when he said it, now you borrowed his logic.
Ken
When you strongly regulate something the effects are negative for the consumer!
You must be living in some kind of bizarro reality. Internet connections are NOT regulated at all, right now. Things will improve when Internet connections fall under the auspices of the FCC.
I don't respond to AC's.
Is it:
A. Actively punishing users?
B. The natural side-effect of the legal inability to shut out extreme bandwidth usages?
C. A coincidence?
D. A failure in the process of making changes required by the FCC?
E. Something else?
These studies were done before the FCC's Net Neutrality regulations went into effect.
Actually, I'm lying. I don't know when they were done. The article links to... get this... no study. I can't find a single link on the Internet to the study that this article suggests happened.
So how can we draw any conclusions about the effectiveness of the new policies from this article?
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
This is the single most stupid thing said on the internet today.
Congrats, you even make Kardashians look like rocket scientists.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Why the fuck can't slashdot fix the category/comments icons from covering the article title?
Only in the USA.
When you strongly regulate something the effects are negative for the consumer!
Ya! Like all that clean air and water the government is regulating. And don't get me started on safe food and drugs. /sarcasm
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You're right. I followed the relevant links in that article (and several were pointless primers) and none of them including mlab pointed to the study claimed, not even indirectly. I can't find it either. I have no love whatsoever for Verizon or Comcast, but it makes you wonder.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
How can you tell? Internet speed tests only check the speed from that server to you, not network to network speeds.
url?
Looks like they are artifically throttling back traffic a) to charge the end users more later on to turn it back up again and b) to bypass net neutrality rules and divert the extra bandwidth to the media corporations.
Actual network congestion could affect speeds. People buying streamers and "cloud gamers" streaming games... on a larger scale.
"higher definition" luring in people with a few McFunds that do not understand tech.
Our internet speeds are hopelessly degraded until the government data collection has been halted. The ISPs are unable to provide appropriate quality of service while they are expected to mirror all data that travels through their pipes. This has been a problem for over a decade now, I doubt it'll come to an end any time soon.
This is fucking hilarious.
This is the single most stupid thing said on the internet today.
Congrats, you even make Kardashians look like rocket scientists.
No, this is the most stupid today.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/06/23/confederate-flag-walmart-roof-emanuel/29153957/
GTT/Nlayer is a constant thorn of service providers (Hosting Companies) in the Atlanta area. They're one of the worst networks to talk to Comcast over and they refuse to do anything about it. Making carriers such as Hurricane Electric or Level 3 look better for Comcast largely fixes the issue.
It's also not limited to Atlanta each area of the company has carriers who just suck at what they do or the eyeball networks are forcing all the traffic across them and saturating peering points. Netflix peering be damnned they're trying the same crap with the other CDN's as well.
I think the study is the last paper published in 2014 at this site.
http://www.measurementlab.net/publications
Looks like they did a good job of isolating the cause to the Interconnection point.
They admit that they have no clue as to why there was a problem at the point.
That seems more a private business consideration instead of a technical issue.
They also found some interesting latency increases with Comcast which appeared to be there even during non-busy times.
Over time, they appeared and disappeared nationwide.
Again, seems more like a business choice that a technical problem.
Untill we have a clear definition as to what service a comsumer ISP is required to provide, or we get competition, this is not likely to get better.
I still want the destination ISP to accept any traffic to it's customers gratis provided it is delivered near those customers.
That, coupled with fair sharing of the access network should clean up most of this nonsense.
Or at least expose a need for a minimun average access speed floor.
Well, there have been net neutrality pushes since 2006? I have heard that Netflix has been throttled, but they are the single biggest user of bandwith in the USA. Which web sites does this study say get throttled? Maybe the big ISPs are just trying to keep traffic down.
I want to see if they will actually slow down Facebook, Gmail, Amazon, and other web sites that don't guzzle data. If they do, it's time for socialism.
Just last night, my smizmar and I were listening to Lynrynd Skynryd and Molly Hatchet (we love guitars) and saying we need to get a little tiny model truck, with truck nuts, a confederate flag, a gun rack, and an alligator in the back (preferably surrounded by little empty beer bottles) to put it front of the backyard garden speakers, for whenever we're doing Southern Rock night.
Fuuck. This just got harder.
If by 'will improve' you mean more expensive then you're right.
You do realize FCC has no hand in market prices, correct?
I have noticed slower speeds since last week when the official net neutrality rules took effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Love_Canal
Yes, the article referenced doesn't point to the actual study directly, a but with a bit of goggling I found:
The battleground — where this degradation takes place — is at ISP interconnection points. These are the places where traffic requested by ISP customers crosses between the ISP’s network and another network on which content and application providers host their services.
This test measures whether interconnection points are experiencing problems. It runs speed measurements from your (the test user’s) ISP, across multiple interconnection points, thus detecting degraded performance.
What I don't understand is why people assume congestion is intentional throttling by ISPs for them to profit later with imagined fast lanes. Isn't the simpler assumption that it costs ISPs money to add interconnection capacity. And since their customers don't/can't choose ISPs based on the quality of their connection all the way to the popular content providers, the ISPs don't spend money on those upgrades? Usually the only thing customers have to go on and promised is the maximum download/upload speeds quoted by the ISP for the last mile.
Ahhh... the cozy, familiar sound of The Church Of Atlas Shrugged, The Invisible Hands And Other Gnomes And Goblins. How I was missing that.
Soy sauce made from human hair.
Poisonous alcohol made from industrial alcohol.
Counterfeit drugs, including antibiotics with a disinfectant as an ingredient.
Tainted meat from all kinds of animals: pork, beef, lamb and chicken, but also cat meat sold as rabbit, poisoned snails, and goat urine treated duck.
And always a big favorite: cooking oil filtered from sewage.
When you strongly regulate something the effects are negative for the consumer!
Why is Snark Required?
In Cupertino, near Apple - suddenly AT&T is rolling GigaPower fiber to home with up to 1 Gbps speeds.
So have had 12 Mbps Uverse, until recently was not uncommon to see download speeds 12 Mbps. Curious if the GigaPower rollout was sandbagged until FCC regulation that now forces ISP to actually complete on service.
Hopefully by end of the week we'll have upgraded to GigaPower, will be curious to see if the actual higher down/up rates stay true.
You may as well not waste your breath, so to speak. These libertarians are infected with a brain disease that stops all rational thought where the possibility of a capitalist acting badly are concerned. These days it's not exactly a "possibility" so much as it's a certainty that capitalists will do illegal/unethical/immoral things unless something stops them.
at least where I live. I'm paying for up to 60 Mbps and when I test it the speed always falls between 50 and 65 (variations seem due to peak hours). Though I still wish I could pay less for 15 Mbps since I really don't need 60.
But diamondmagic promised us that his corporate masters had never done anything wrong ever to warrant net neutrality.
If you can't trust a shill, who can you trust?
Ya!
Just like food safety...
car safety...
workplace safety...
hazardous waste...
You know what, the list is too big.
It's easier to just call you an idiot.
Idiot.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
It's just lawmakers judging what is right for people.
Let me see here. Stores are deciding they don't want to associate their name with a flag that many people see as a racist and divisive symbol. What exactly do lawmakers have to do with this?
You must be a young kid. Im guessing you dont remember when Ma-Bell ran all the phones in the US and you paid $0.25 a min to call someone that was less than 30 miles away.
Tell me, how much does it cost to call someone 30, 50, or 100 miles away now? Oh wait, it is $0 a min. All from regulating Ma-Bell and having the markets opened.
Kind of killed Phreaking with $0 a min long distance. lol
I order lots of stuff from china and have and no issues with it. It is not as bad as you are making it out to be.
For the record, once cooked, you can not tell the difference between cat and rabbit. Though the ones I have had were local (US) grown and not from China.
When you tax something it's negative. It's stupid easy to find examples of regulations increasing consumption. Why, food is a great example. The government says you can't sell poisoned food, so people are more willing to eat anything from anywhere.
If you're not trolling, your post is a great example of why a low uid on Slashdot does not equate wisdom...
Yeah! Apple users are dumb enough to earn the money to pay for their products! Smart is spending more than a Mac so you can build it yourself.
Sarcasm, right? best use a sarc tag.
With net neutrality, will the FCC force Comcast to slow down to ATT's speed? Everyone is supposed to get the same speed, is what the 'experts' claim the rule is for. Nobody gets throttled 'cause they can't charge more for higher speeds.
Was this article saying that Comcast actually does something right by their customers?
At one point in time, there were no regulations about clean air, clean water, safe food, etc. Nobody figured they were needed.
Then some people figured out that they could make more money by not giving a shit about what they dumped into the rivers, spewed into the sky, or whether the meat/produce/etc they were selling was safe to eat, etc. After a while, there was enough of a public outcry about stuff like rivers literally catching on fire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River#Environmental_concerns), smog so thick you can't go outside some days (go visit Beijing if you want to see what that's like today), tainted food, and so forth, that laws were passed making it illegal to do sociopathic crap like that.
It'd be great if we lived in a world where we didn't need laws like that, because everyone would do the right thing to begin with. We don't. Corporations are entirely sociopathic constructs, and have proven time and again that they cannot be left unsupervised. And who does the supervising? It takes someone with the power to enforce stuff on them, and that's the Government. Consumers and market forces are simply not strong enough to account for all the negative externalities. This isn't to say that corporations aren't useful, just that they need a check on them. Government needs a check on it, too, for that matter, but that's what democracy and elections is supposed to be about.
China is also a wonderful example of how important Clean Air (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-30826128) and Clean Water (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/23/china-half-groundwater-polluted) regulations can be, and what happens when you don't have them.
Like so many ppl I have 75/75 verizon fios and I'm only getting 800kb to 1.6mb download and about 2mb upload all the time over http/https. But, If i use p2p, a proxy server service, or download from an ftp server i get the full 10 Mbytes per second download which is 75/75 mbps service. I Checked, getting massive dropped packets. Resetting the main router and ont box does not fix anything. It's the verizon infrastructure gone to shit.
However, it will not matter. Google has invested into SpaceX internet sats, so, Google is likely going to drive these companies into the ground within 4 years.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Seriously, what really needs to happen is that we need to let the monopolies go. Once it looks like Google can come in at will, all of them will change their tune and improve the situation.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Smart is spending more than a Mac so you can build it yourself.
Smart is not paying the Apple tax. Smart is buying a PC for half the price, or building one for a third the price. Smart isn't buying Apple crap which doesn't work with 90% of the software on the market.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
If you're fed up (pun intended) with safe food and other consumables I suggest that you order the cheapest possible products directly from China. Unlike the commies here in the US, manufacturers there are mostly unencumbered by effective regulation, so anything goes.
You're not kidding. Just today there's this article on the BBC (and elsewhere) titled China 'seizes 40-year-old meat in crackdown on smugglers'
According to state newspaper the China Daily, officials from Guangxi, a southern region bordering Vietnam, found meat dating back to the 1970s.
Yang Bo, an anti-smuggling official in Hunan province, was quoted as saying food was often transported in ordinary rather than refrigerated vehicles to save money. "So the meat has often thawed out [and re-frozen] several times before reaching customers," he said.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
If you read more of the story than the title, you will find that many states are banning the flag or removing it from state property. This is destruction of history. The confederate battle flag has very little to do with slavery, and many who fly it are doing so to honor ancestors who died fighting for states rights. But lets get rid of the confederate battle flag because it might hurt someone's feelings because they don't know history and feel that it only has to do with slavery.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
So, because the local government forced them to sell the land, and the dept of education didn't actually bother to read the deed to the land, then built on the land causing the breach of the containment structure, it is all the chemical companies fault? That is absurd.
From that Wikipedia entry:
The Niagara Falls City School District needed land to build new schools, and attempted to purchase the property from Hooker Chemical that had been used to bury toxic waste. The corporation initially refused to sell citing safety concerns; however, the school district refused to relent.[1] Eventually, faced with parts of the property being condemned and/or expropriated, Hooker Chemical agreed to sell on the condition that the School Board buy the entire property for one dollar.
To be certain that the School Board knew what it was getting by taking the Canal, Hooker escorted School Board members to the Canal site and made test borings in front of them. On its own initiative and at its own expense Hooker Chemical thus ensured that the School Board had directly witnessed the danger which would later be proclaimed in the deed which the School Board would sign. Hooker Chemical thus also ensured that the School Board understood the singular unsuitability of the land for the uses the School Board planned to make of it. However the School Board already had a plan, and would not change it.
So this was a failure in the school board. They were warned that this spot was an awful spot to build a school. Now, I don't know much about how dumps work, but it sounds like they were doing the proper preventative stuff of the time, it was the school board that refused to listen here.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I would not call SuperKendall a Libertarian. He is a corporate stooge, libertarians would expect to be able to sue the ISPs for this behavior.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It will be rather hard for them to do that when many of us have contracts.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
When you strongly regulate something the effects are negative for the consumer! What an astounding shock that must be to everyone except the people who tried to warn you!
I know! Consumers were so much better off before regulation. Why does the stupid government prevent me from buying the patent medicines I want? The free market was working perfectly until whiners like Upton Sinclair came along. Rivers were intended (by God) to be the sewers of industry! Then the cry-baby unions, "waaah, eighteen hours a day is too much, waaah!"
Please, can we go back to the way it was before stupid regulations? Everything sucks now.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
You can cancel those contracts whenever you like, right?
So can they.
In fact, they already frequently do, and you don't even notice it because they just give you a new contract with new terms, and you keep paying.
Tell me, how much does it cost to call someone 30, 50, or 100 miles away now? Oh wait, it is $0 a min. All from regulating Ma-Bell and having the markets opened.
No, I think that's a result of competition from the internet/data networks. When Ma Bell was broken up into regional Bells, there were still high long distance fees. And yes I do remember that.
Cell phones with extremely high monthly costs, so high that providing long distance was an "eh why not" for the companies involved, sealed the deal. And they drove down costs by using data networks to carry voice. Packet switching vs dedicated lines made a big difference.
This is why, as President of my condo-complex HOA Board (c.a. 100 units), I made sure that Verizon fiber was wired to every unit, just like Time Warner Cable had been years prior.
The result was real market competition. I switched. My bandwidth increased by about 15x (symmetric), with a reduction in price over the service TWC had formerly been (intermittently) providing.
If you read more of the story than the title, you will find that many states are banning the flag or removing it from state property. This is destruction of history. The confederate battle flag has very little to do with slavery, and many who fly it are doing so to honor ancestors who died fighting for states rights. But lets get rid of the confederate battle flag because it might hurt someone's feelings because they don't know history and feel that it only has to do with slavery.
Banning? You can't fly it at your residence? You can't put it on a sticker and place it on your car? You can't wear it on a t-shirt? No, you can still do all of this. No one has banned that flag.
A State deciding that it is divisive enough a symbol that the State should no longer display it does not mean it is banned.
Also, if that flag has so little to do with slavery and racism, why do so many racists like Dylann Roof want to be seen with one? There is a reason they are attracted to it.
.
There is only one person to pay for everything. The end user customer.
All other 'customers' must pass through the costs as a cost of doing business, or go out of business eventually..
... "When you pry the source from my cold dead hands."
what universe do you live in where apple products cost more than PCs for comparable speed and power?
where do you buy these flags and flag symbols now?
It is not illegal to make and sell these items. If Walmart and Amazon won't sell them, someone else is going to see this as an opportunity and use it to line their pockets.
This is one place where the free market will work. Those who don't want the heat, won't sell them. Those who don't care will.
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why'd you agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course not: It's impossible to dispute HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
Since my points in favor of hosts SINGLE FILE native kernelmode faster part show hosts doing more w/ less vs. so-called 'competitors' many part messagepassing + cpu/ram use overheads laden slower usermode FAR MORE COMPLEX 'solutions' doing less than hosts do for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity!
I make creating a superior more efficient solution EASIER!
(That's more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
I bother you? Then WHY DON'T YOU DO IT & use 'em? Answer that!
(You stalk/harass me instead!)
OBVIOUSLY you don't & you're a "ne'er-do-well" troll & you have "other motivations" (next):
---
* QUESTION:
DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER http://slashdot.org/comments.p... , or a MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer it!
As per your usual you'll avoid every question, or lie!
---
(You can't EVER "get the best of me": You know it! Witness above - your "so-called 'solutions' = INFERIOR TO HOSTS on TONS of levels OR You'd USE 'EM - Evidencing stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork + your REFUSAL to use 'em despite your statements & YOU'VE BEEN EXPOSED in your "motives" in the last link!)
APK
P.S.=> See Dave420 SQUIRM - evasions galore will ensue (as well as effete downmods to *try* vainly "hide it" -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... )... apk
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why'd you agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course not: It's impossible to dispute HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
Since my points in favor of hosts SINGLE FILE native kernelmode faster part show hosts doing more w/ less vs. so-called 'competitors' many part messagepassing + cpu/ram use overheads laden slower usermode FAR MORE COMPLEX 'solutions' doing less than hosts do for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity!
I make creating a superior more efficient solution EASIER!
(That's more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
I bother you? Then WHY DON'T YOU DO IT & use 'em? Answer that!
(You stalk/harass me instead!)
OBVIOUSLY you don't & you're a "ne'er-do-well" troll & you have "other motivations" (next):
---
* QUESTION:
DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER http://slashdot.org/comments.p... , or a MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer it!
As per your usual you'll avoid every question, or lie!
---
(YOU'VE BEEN EXPOSED in your "motives" in the last link just above & you KNOW it!)
APK
P.S.=> See Dave420 SQUIRM - evasions galore will ensue (as well as effete downmods to *try* vainly "hide it" -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... )... apk
Our internet connections are regulated in the UK. I have the choice of around 10 ISPs even though I live in one of the most isolated counties, and a company has to legally deliver the speeds which they advertise. I also get a free modem/router and 99.5% uptime. So I think we'll keep those negative effects please!
Apple users are dumb enough to have their mommy and daddy or SSI (let's face, most Apple users don't look like the employed types) pay twice what an equivalent PC costs because they aren't smart enough to use a real computer and so desperately want to "be different", just like every other Apple user is "different".