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NY To Probe Broadband Providers Over Internet Speeds (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes with a report from The Stack that New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has begun a probe into the state's three dominant ISPs to assess whether they are actually delivering the service they advertise at the levels promised. From the article: According to leaked documents, sent to Verizon Communications, Cablevision Systems and Time Warner Cable, the New York attorney general asked each firm to hand over copies of the advertising and copy they have provided to consumers regarding internet speeds, along with any testing documents which studied the speed of their service. ... The probe plans to focus on the exchange of data through contractual partnerships between the ISPs and other networks. The AG office suspects that customers who are paying a premium fee for higher internet speeds could be experiencing a disruption to their service due to technical issues brought about by business disputes in these interconnection deals.
More likely the AG's Netflix doesn't work smoothly.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Right. It must something nefarious like a "government shakedown". It would be totally unacceptable for "the government" to look out for the interests of it's citizens.
"Sounds like..."
"Probably..."
You sound like Fox News.
The AG office suspects that customers who are paying a premium fee for higher internet speeds could be experiencing a disruption to their service due to technical issues brought about by business disputes in these interconnection deals.
It doesn't sound like he's talking about his average speeds. It sounds like he's talking about the targeted throttling of services. For example, I am a Comcast subscriber with an HBO subscription that I pay for through Comcast. As a part of my HBO subscription, I gain access to HBO Go. I have a PS4 HBO Go application. Every time I have tried it, it has failed to work, at all. This is a known issue, and in response to customer complaints Comcast has openly stated that it is a business decision, not a technical one. So, I pay Comcast for something, and they don't allow me to use it.
Sadly, I don't live in New York and Comcast doesn't appear to be a target of these letters. I can't actually speak to the practices of other ISPs as I'm not their customer, but both the article and summary make it pretty clear this isn't a matter of "guaranteed bandwidth." I haven't seen the words written in the article, but this is a net neutrality issue.
The Volkswagen debacle reminds me of a question that's been bothering me for a while now.
I wonder if, when you go to one of those bandwidth test sites and perform a speed test, your ISP notices what you are doing and prioritizes your traffic, to make you think you have more bandwidth than you actually do.
If this is true, do you think people will get as upset with their ISPs as they are getting with Volkswagen, for engineering methods to lie on tests?