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How the Raspberry Pi Can Automatically Tweet Complaints About Your Slow Internet (ibtimes.co.uk)

Posted by timothy on from the should-be-built-into-every-modem dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Contacting your internet provider to complain about slow browsing speeds is a tiresome chore which none of us enjoy, but one man has found a solution. He has configured a Raspberry Pi computer to automatically tweet a complaint to Comcast when his internet falls below 50Mbps, well below the 150Mbps he pays for. Wouldn't it be nice if ISPs wrote a rebate check each month to reflect the percentage of their promised throughput that was actually available?

7 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Unbelievable! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This Raspberry Pi device has to have something really special inside! I am shocked.

  2. Yeah, automated tweeting to PR mouthpiece... by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wouldn't it be nice if ISPs wrote a rebate check each month to reflect the percentage of their promised throughput that was actually available?

    I'd like a pony, too.

    #stupidstory #shouldstayinfirehose #thankstimmy

    1. Re:Yeah, automated tweeting to PR mouthpiece... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm not sure I would use a Raspberry Pi to do this myself tbh - when I was using one as a DLNA server, ethernet throughput was horrific even on a 100MBit switch, so much so that I moved the whole set to something else. Wasnt that specific board or OS either.

      Can't trust the results when you can't trust the device producing the results imho.

  3. Re:Oblig by MPBoulton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You must be new here....

    Doesn't this miss the point? ISP's will carry on with this sort of behaviour if everyone just lies down and takes it.

    The regulators should of course be doing more, but this sounds like a very useful way to at least increase the hassle the ISP must go through to provide less than a third of their advertised speed.

  4. Advertised Speed by MadX · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not too sure about the rest of the world, but in South Africa the adverts in fine print say "UP TO (x)Mbps".

    So if your service is slower, it still falls into their accepted limits ...

  5. Re: Oblig by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My advertised speed is 50 and I get 150 (and yeah, it's Comcast).

    My advertised speed is 6, but my WISP was giving me about 1 and about 10% packet loss for over a week, and arguing with me about it. Using ye olde ping command I could see clearly that the problem was in their network (probably in the first radio shack, there are 4 microwave hops before their actual uplink) and they STILL argued with me about it extensively.

    It's nice that you're not having problems, but why don't you smeg off and let the people who are have a discussion?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  6. Re: Mildly interesting but, by n0creativity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't get the RasPi hate in this thread. The Pi is clearly not intended for applications such as a high powered NAS, but I've got 3 RasPi 2's running OSMC\Kodi as media centers on my TVs and they do awesome streaming full HD movies and TV shows from my 16TB piecemeal server! Of course, once 4k becomes more prevalent, I'm going to have to make a change, but for now my family uses them happily on a daily basis. Does anyone complain when their hammer sucks at tightening screws? Use the right damn tool for the job!