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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.
* please note that the actual award may be less, depending on congestion and other factors
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It sounds like the New York Attorney General's Netflix keeps getting the loading notification and his HD videos don't play back. This, plus Verizon has reneged on its FiOS rollout to all neighborhoods as contractually required. They only installed in the neighborhoods they wanted and told the state to fuck off on the rest.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
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.
Like where you pay a premium for a higher speed tier and the net result is your local modem's speed is upgraded, but it's basically worthless because of congestion from your node all the way up to the interchange is congested and oversubscribed?
I see this all the time -- customer buys into some ridiculous Comcast business class speed tier of 100/50 or whatever and never sees the throughput. Sure, all the internet speed tests (which I am sure are gamed) show the speed but real-world tests from a local data center with real connectivity can't come close, yet local testing with a laptop connected to a firewall outside port shows the on-premise hardware has no problems either.
I get that not every location in the world can keep up with 100Mbit local connectivity -- some don't have the throughput, some are managed to cap individual streams, etc, but Comcast, et al seem to get away with selling fantasy connection speeds that amount to little more than cable modem configs.
The FCC already requires broadband providers to do this. Most providers have or are implementing a product set called SamKnows to comply. You can read the FCC's 2014 report here or have a look at the FCC's Measuring Broadband America for more info about the program. No, I don't work for the FCC.
Sounds like the NY Attorney General's office is just making more work for ISPs when they could just ask the FCC for the info. Probably just bullying.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
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.
>We have local monopolies and oligarchies, horrible service, and obscene prices.
Yep. Why? Section 622 of the Cable Communications Act of 1984 allows local governments to collect 5% of cable company revenue to the city (plus campaign contributions) in exchange for granting an exclusive monopoly in an area, disallowing competition. This is known as a franchise.
In some cases, such as New York (where this investigation is occurring), the franchise is carved up neighborhood by neighborhood. Time Warner pays a bribe^H^H^H^H^H fee to local politicians for their monopoly north of 86th street, Cablevision owns the Bronx via political decree. Here's the map from NYC.gov:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/...
Given the fact that the New York government created the monopolies and enforces them, I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to fix it. I don't expect that will happen until the CCA is amended to prevent state and local governments from granting monopolies in exchange for kickbacks^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H fees.
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?