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Ad Board To Comcast: Stop Claiming You Have the 'Fastest Internet' (arstechnica.com)
The National Advertising Division (NDA) said on Monday that Comcast should stop claiming that its Xfinity service delivers the "fastest Internet in America," adding that the carrier should also discontinue some ads where it claims to offer the "fastest in-home Wi-Fi." ArsTechnica reports: For its fastest Internet claim, Comcast relied on crowdsourced data from the Ookla Speedtest application. An "award" provided by Ookla to Comcast relied only on the top 10 percent of each ISP's download results. "Although Xfinity offers a variety of speeds at a range of prices and tiers, Comcast's advertising does not limit its claims to a particular tier," the NAD's announcement said. "NAD determined that the claims at issue in both print and broadcast advertising reasonably conveyed a message of overall superiority -- that regardless of which speed tier purchased by a consumer, in a head-to-head comparison, Xfinity would deliver faster speeds." Though one methodology might be reliable for one purpose, "it may not be sufficient substantiation for advertising claims made in a different context," the NAD said. Ookla's methodology "wasn't a good fit for the purposes of substantiating Comcast's overall superior speed performance claim that 'Xfinity delivers the fastest Internet in America,'" the NAD also said.
Who provides a larger number of internet connections at higher speeds than Comcast?
Sure, there are faster speeds available, but only in extremely select, limited areas. As far as consumer connections are concerned, and ones that are available nationwide (not in a few select cities, cough Google Fiber, or only in a handful of areas like Fios/U-Verse), I'd say their claim is true.
My friend has Comcast cable. He pays for 150mb and gets 240mb instead.
To avoid getting sued, they should use subjective words instead, like "Comcast Internet is the most synergetic!"
Table-ized A.I.
Comcast in Quincy MA (just outside Boston) is charging their customers for fast internet, but according to my buddies over there, the speed is just faster than a modem.
The entire town has essentially called Comcast to complain, and they've done nothing to fix it, and this has been going on for over a month.
And the best part? Apparently, there's no alternative for internet access. And you're within sight of a major metropolitan area.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The last thing I want is every ISP commercial followed by 25 seconds of a guy reciting disclaimers like we are at with pharmaceutical ads. Fucking lawyers.
Right. We should all just trust what our corporate betters tell us. After the all, they're richer and smarter than us, so they must know better than anyone, especially dirty government regulators, what's best for us. Advertising shouldn't have to truthful, just truthy. Right?
Fucking dim-witted Rand fan boys.
no news for me. too much fatigue of ISPs claiming they have fastest internet like furniture and carpet stores saying they have a big sale.
mfwright@batnet.com
In Nashville, TN. I switched from Comcast to ATT Uverse internet and my effective download speed doubled. That was about 3 years ago and I don't remember having a tier option for Comcast. I have no need for really fast downloads. The reason I switched was the frequent service outages with Comcast. Zero upload and download is intolerable. Outages are much less frequent with ATT and those outages have so far been solved by a hard reset of my modem/router. ATT has its flaws but for me in a head to head with Comcast it is the lesser bad.
Choosing the wrong ISP probably won't cause birth defects in your unborn children or permanently destroy your bowel
If you think that you've never had to deal with Comcast.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
He's right about the lawyers, though. Being "truthy" is making wild claims in your ad, then covering any lie in the 25 seconds of hasty, unintelligible mumbling following the ad. Disclaimers do nothing for the truthfulness of ads, they just make sure advertisers cannot be called out on their lies. They are meaningless legalese that makes government regulators, consumer advocates, and corporations all a little happier while accomplishing nothing; you're better off without them. And that's the hard to swallow truth*
*) May or may not be the truth. Not valid in the state of California. May cause irreversible damage to kidneys and liver. Conditions apply.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
same concast that made a big deal about espn goal line say we have it and directv does not. BUT there ad was in HD but the channel was not in HD on comcast systems.
There old clams about having the most HD Choices
the areas in where you can get that 2GB fiber from comcast is limited
Yeah, their service is great! I have 105Mb cable internet, which allows me to hit my monthly 1TB data cap in just over 22 hours!
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
That's right, no consumer provider truly has the fastest service everywhere. To claim they do is a lie. Perhaps they could tell the truth by running this ad in Dallas:
"The fastest home internet service available throughout Dallas."
Maybe it would be true to say "Cable internet is twice as fast as DSL, on average."
Or "the most reliable service of any nationwide provider".
Someone is bad at acronyms or it should be NAD. Google's first result is National Advertising Division (NAD) - Better Business Bureau
They claim they have the fastest in home wifi which in it's self is a retarded statement. They aren't claiming to have the fastest internet speeds, or fastest downstream speeds, they claim to have the fastest wifi. So that just means the data rate the AP is connected to your device. So the transfer rate between the AP and device is the only thing measured in that instance. Which I can have the fastest in home wifi if I'm right next to my api, and my wifi card is properly configured and all things works out. Now if I happen to move to the other end of the house or run into any other interference such rates will drop. The ad is just retarded from the get go.
They should be required to disclose how many customers on on the same node you are. Yes you are guaranteed 40Mbps down shared amongst the 372 apartments in you building.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I added a Monster coaxial cable to my Comcast Wi-Fi receiver and now I have the fastest Wi-Fi! The internet really comes alive!
Take that Google Fiber!
They claim they have the fastest wifi, which means that they provide 802.11ac wifi devices, which are the "fastest". They're not claiming anything about the CONNECTION itself, just the wifi.
Deceptive advertising, sure. Incorrect, technically no.
Except now the ad has disclaimers that you're paying for. A prime-time 30 second ad spot costs around $150,000. That's just one ad play - it's not for the entire show, or the season - just those 30 seconds. If you spend 15 of that on disclaimers, you've wasted $75,000 of that trying to justify your claim.
Plus, viewers who have to sit through 15 seconds of fast talking disclaimer will be likely to question the claims you made - those 15 seconds feel long and boring than the 15 seconds of claims. After a few times of seeing the ad, viewers are unlikely to be convinced.
That's why companies would rather buy it - if Ookla published a report that said "Comcast has the fastest internet", then you'll see the claim in a Comcast ad, and a little bit of text saying "Ookla report, Year/month/day" like you see on political ads citing sources. Or when you see "Professional driver, closed course" on a car ad.
The last thing I want is every ISP commercial followed by 25 seconds of a guy reciting disclaimers like we are at with pharmaceutical ads. Fucking lawyers.
How about every ISP commercial avoids saying "the fastest in-home Wi-Fi" unless the facts justify such a claim without 25 seconds of disclaimers? Don't say anything that requires disclaimers, and you can avoid the disclaimers. If you need fine print, perhaps you're making a claim in order to fool people into making incorrect assumptions if they don't read the fine print, rather than to actually inform people.
That's right, no consumer provider truly has the fastest service everywhere. To claim they do is a lie. Perhaps they could tell the truth by running this ad in Dallas:
"The fastest home internet service available throughout Dallas."
Maybe it would be true to say "Cable internet is twice as fast as DSL, on average."
Or "the most reliable service of any nationwide provider".
See, this is where the over-wording in announcements comes into play. Your method is great, but let me add a bit more to be completely accurate:
The fastest home internet service available throughout Dallas, but only on the XXtremeXX Plan(tm), and with less equipment, obstructions, bends, or shoddy fixes between the fiber transmission device and the home receiver port; service is only fastest based on closest speed testing servers with the fewest routing hops, and only at certain times of the night when usage from other consumers is lowest. * GASP BREATH*
All I can say is that I had Cincinnati Bell's new Fiber service at a former apartment and got =~850mbps to near, =~ 650mbps to a select set of foreign speed testing servers over a Gigabit provisioned line. After moving to another apartment, they have the "fiber to the node" service but still sell it as fiber in all advertising. The ONLY way to find out that it's not fiber into the home, with equipment to interface with said fiber is to drill questions into salespeople when you call for service. If you say, get response:
Is Gigabit fiber available into [address]? The answer is ALWAYS "yes".
Is gigabit Internet service available to me AT [address]? Yes.
Am I going to have the fastest service available in the Cincinnati area at my place at [address]? Yes!
Am I going to have fiber run to the home at [address] or the apartment at [address]? Yes. (HINT! Apartments don't allow individual fiber runs).
Do you have the ability to run fiber into my apartment at [address]? Yes.
Now here's the kicker question: What is the maximum bandwidth available at [address]?
There is a lot of "uh" noise heard from the person (overseas, I might add) followed by asking you for your address over THREE TIMES more. The end answer is "Our [whatever they prepend this month] 50 megabits is available at that address." No more, no less. They aren't allowed to explain why, and aren't allowed to indicate that it might be "upped" in the future by expansion, etc.
One strand of fiber is run to each building underground with the copper lines, but is only allowed to be attached to the building on the outside, not inside. Then, the copper to be run to the apartment is drawn back down for an underground run (already done 50+ years ago) for regular phone service into the building, and distributed the same.
BTW my 50mbps is 46 on a good night (or day; it stays the same no matter when you test). They claim the rest is for the other wonderful services [they] offer like TV and phone, so you really DO have 50mbps to your location. You only get 46 for the Internet.
Now that's false advertising and somehow they get away with it, even though there are no disclaimers or warnings. They wait until the installer is done installing the service in your place, and then for you to complain about it not being [at teh gigabits]. There's less desire for one to cancel service after already having paid for installation fees and waiting days to weeks for an installer [contractor] to be available for the installation. I guess that's their logic. Still wondering where the lawsuits are...?
I know this isn't about Comcast, but it's about the principles of advertising and using whatever data/awards/metrics desired to make whatever claims they wish to make. Bell is just plain BOLD, though, because they don't say "speeds may vary" on the advertising OR "fiber isn't fiber all of the time". I digress.
Doesn't matter if it's Comcast, Verizon or any of the other carriers out there. I hate when they market nonsense like "the fastest wi-fi". That is impossible to ascertain, for starters.... It's not like they have a new 802.11 series standard in use exclusively! Their gear uses the same wi-fi protocols as everyone else, and so far, even 802.11ac tends not to maintain the full throughput of what you pay for with a faster broadband tier. There's no reason to believe it outperforms good quality 3rd. party wi-fi routers. I guarantee something like a Netgear Nighthawk has a faster CPU inside it for routing traffic than anything a provider like Comcast gives you.
Furthermore, if any of them actually CARED that you got good wireless performance with their service, they'd, at the very least, send out a technician with signal strength measuring gear to do a site survey of your property, and install wireless repeaters where necessary.
If you have a connection lasting longer than 4 hours, call your doctor.
See: https://ispspeedindex.netflix....
These speeds are for prime time delivery of Netflix's data for July comes in 6th at 3.47 Mbps whereas Verizon, number one, is at 3.61 Mbps. Not much difference. Some caveats here: there can be variations for data travel over intermediate connections, it's prime time. Then again, Netflix produces something like 37% of network traffic during prime time so maybe the numbers are useful.
One problem with Ookla results is that for their speed tests the data between your modem and your ISP's servers likely never leave the ISP's network. That's very unlikely to be the case for general Internet usage.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Whenever I see these ads I want to punch the TV, especially since my parents can only get Comcast if they want broadband cable. They're paying about $250/month and the internet slows to a crawl half the time, standard definition cable channels artifact and drop out occasionally, a handful of HD channels that they pay for NEVER work even though their SD counterparts do, the HD channels also artifact and drop out, along with on-demand doing the same thing! They have 150 down and 25 up, and I have 100 Mbps FiOS at the other end of the state (North Jersey, outside of NYC) and it's definitely faster than what they have. Also Comcast refuses to accept backed payments in smaller amounts, they want it all or nothing. I moved into a friend's place and his bill was $600 in the red, I offered to help him pay it down and spoke with Comcast about it. They told me to have a lease notarized that the previous tennant didn't live there (he did) and we wouldn't have to pay the $600. I did everything they asked to the T, but they still wouldn't unlock the account. Even when I offered to pay the amount in installments of $200 or $300 they wouldn't accept it! This wasn't "I'll give you $300 now and you turn the cable back on", it was "I'll give you $300 now and keep everything disconnected, then I'll give you $300 in two weeks". They actively refused setting up a payment plan or anything other than taking the $600 in one shot. In the end we just had to pay it in one lump sum. The thing that pisses me off the most is the completely misleading "Fastest In Home WiFi" claim considering that the bandwidth of your WiFi connection has absolutely nothing to do with the bandwidth of your ISP connection, considering that you can have 1.3 Gbps 802.11AC streaming through your house, but not have an active internet connection, yet 75% of the population doesn't even know that, let alone what WiFi actually is (my 34 year old brother and his girlfriend are two of them haha)
I don't understand the objection. An airline could claim the "fastest route from San Francisco to London" even if they also offer many other slow (connecting) routes. I do not agree that the context of the ad implies that all customers at all service levels would experience the fastest internet. I'm a happy Comcast customer...
Netflix isn't useful because it is so low bandwidth. Sure if you are using ADSL maybe it is relevant but for most fast connections even if the connection is working for shit Netflix will still be fine. A Netflix stream is literally about 2% of my Internet speed for an HD stream.
Ookla can be useful but requires some work on the part of the end user. As you say, you need to test off your ISP. Mine does by default (my ISP, Cox, has a Speedtest server but for internal use only). Realistically, you should test to a neighboring state to get a good idea of how your connection does if it goes through a number of hops. HOWEVER you have to be careful because a lot of Speedtest servers are garbage. They don't have much bandwidth, or apply limits to each connection so you can test your connection on a server and get a shit result, only to choose another one in the same city and get full bandwidth. DSLReports seems to have a much better speedtest program overall, less reliant on users making good choices.
However all that aside, it only tells part of the story as it tells what a particular user has right then, not what they could. That someone only chooses to buy slow Internet doesn't mean that only slow Internet is available. Like here Cox will sell you a plan as slow as 5 Mbps or as fast as 300 Mbps. So should they really get shit for slow internet if someone chooses their slow plan, when the fast one is available? Also people are sometimes their own enemies in slow speed tests. I've known a couple of people that actually had faster Internet service than they were getting because of their equipment. Guy I know was paying for Cox's standard package, which is 50 Mbps, but he had an old DOCSIS 2 modem and a Linksys WRTG54 router. Net effect he got 20ish Mbps because of slow modem, slow router, and G wireless. He got a new DOCSIS 3 modem, new AC router, and now everything is operating at full speed.
I really don't know of a good way to get a single metric for Internet speed. You need to consider what speed(s) are available, how much it costs, how fast it is to various places on the 'net, etc.
To avoid getting sued, they should use subjective words instead, like "Comcast Internet is the most synergetic!"
Although couched in jest, this is actually one major thing that has happened as a result of requirements for truth in advertising. A hundred years ago advertisements in your local paper might give you details and information about the product. But information content has gone way down in response, because you can't be sued over a claim you don't make. So now our ads have much less information and much more meaningless double-talk and content-less appeals to emotion.
Truth in advertising is important, but to the extent that we've moved closer to it, it has come at a cost.
Real lawyers write in C++