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Speed Report Finds T-Mobile and Xfinity Providing Fastest Mobile and Broadband Internet in US (geekwire.com)

Mobile and fixed broadband internet speeds in the U.S. are improving, but not all carriers and providers are created equal and not all areas of the country are benefitting equally from fast speeds. From a report: Those are the findings according to a new market report from Speedtest by Ookla out of Seattle, which relied on data it captured from user-initiated tests during the first half of 2017. And for customers using T-Mobile for mobile internet and Comcast Xfinity for broadband, the results are especially good. Speedtest credits infrastructure investments and upgrades as well as increased affordability of higher tiered packages for the fact that fast broadband keeps getting faster. The average download speed in the U.S. over fixed broadband during Q1 to Q2 was 64.17 Mbps (ranking 15th in the world) and average upload speed was 22.79 Mbps (24th in the world). Xfinity is the top provider when it comes to Speed Score -- which incorporates low-end, median and top-end performance for both download and upload speed -- with a score of 69.58. Speedtest says that Comcast has been aggressively seeding the market over the past year with advanced modems capable of delivering a more consistent experience for customers. The cable provider has also been increasing the amount of DOCSIS 3.1 channels in order to deliver faster speeds, according to the report.

39 comments

  1. Feels like an ad by evolutionary · · Score: 2

    Sorry, gotta ask, who is reviewing these articles before it gets posted. This feels a a lot like ads/spam on the site by a marketing/PR specialist. Whatever the original source, doesn't change an article that is in fact a promotion/ad.

    --
    "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
    1. Re:Feels like an ad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Posted by msmash on Thursday September 07, 2017 @07:40AM from the reality-check dept.

  2. Speed's great, but by Lucas123 · · Score: 3, Informative

    When it comes to service, Comcast is at the bottom of the heap. I had them years ago, and I'd never go back.

    1. Re:Speed's great, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I often feel bad for the engineers and other product development (not installation) techies at Comcast. The product they sell is pretty good. But the customer experience when you have a problem is horrible. Still, I'm getting close to 200mbps on my 150mbps service, and they cut the price $30 per month when the new gigabit service became available. The uverse in my neighborhood tops out at 24mbps, so there's no way I'd switch.

    2. Re:Speed's great, but by JDAustin · · Score: 1

      I went from 400mb Comcast to 50mb AT&T due to Comcast having to come out every month due to line issues.

    3. Re:Speed's great, but by Seranfall · · Score: 1

      I first had Excite @home. They went bankrupt and sold it all to AT&T, which then sold it to Comcast. AT&T had the best customer service of the 3. Comcast had the fastest speeds and reliability, but was the most expensive and has the worst support on the planet. Expect to waste 1 to 6 hours on the phone trying to get something simple fixed. When something goes wrong with your connection you'll take weeks working with them to resolve it. I've on Cable One now. Great speeds most of the time. Usually reliable though recently they've been having some issues. Great price! ($55 for 100mbit no taxes/fees. The bill is actually $55). I've never really used their customer service though. Anytime I've had issues I've called and the automated system said they were having problems in my area and I hung up and awhile later it would be fixed. I have heard it's not great though.

  3. I sorta feel sorry by Travco · · Score: 0

    For all the suckers that don't have a local Fiber to Home provider. 1 Gig up and down

  4. I call shenanigans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My ISP (CCI) I know for a fact provides 100/100. I just didn't purchase that plan.

    1. Re:I call shenanigans by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      My ISP (CCI) I know for a fact provides 100/100. I just didn't purchase that plan.

      This is a solid point often ignored, is that most people dont get the most expensive plan. A have the first plan above "basic" and get 60mbit down, which has been perpetually upgraded over the past ~16 years from its original 3mbit down when it was an "@home" branded service (the local franchise has changed hands 3 times since then, because we east coast'rs dont let these cable companies fuck us like the left coast'rs do)

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    2. Re:I call shenanigans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Love it when people speak as if the entirety of the equation is east coast'rs vs left coast'rs, and forget that 150 million people don't fit into those two categories...

    3. Re:I call shenanigans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and forget that 150 million people don't fit into those two categories...

      You mean the middle'rs?

    4. Re:I call shenanigans by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

      I thought that was called "Flyover country"

  5. Comcast found as fastest by Speedtest... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    which it partially owns? Color me shocked!

    Honestly, I don't care that Comcast is fastest. I'd rather have a reliable service. I cancelled their service as they couldn't provide reliable service - kept having loss of signal.

    1. Re:Comcast found as fastest by Speedtest... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fast, reliable, cheap. You can have any two of the three.

    2. Re:Comcast found as fastest by Speedtest... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're talking about Comcast, you can have one of the three (and you better pick the first one).

  6. xfinity can die in a fire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IDGAF how fast comcast/xfinity is they will *never* get a penny from me due to their blackmailing of Netflix (which was technically illegal) and spending billions lobbying against net neutrality. Not to mention their horrendous customer service. Eff them!

  7. Mean or median? by Solandri · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The mean can be elevated by vastly improving speeds to a select few customers. e.g. If 10 people have service with an average (mean) speed of 10 Mbps, and you upgrade just one of them to 1 Gbps fiber, the mean speed of all 10 people will now be 109 Mbps, even though the mean speed of the slower 9 people is still 10 Mbps.

    The median can only be elevated by improving the service speed for more than half your customers.

    1. Re:Mean or median? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's pretty daft to begin with.

      Fastest mobile? Who the hell cares? Coverage is what matters.

      And shockingly, for broadband... This is also the case. Comcast speeds vary greatly. Some dude three states over getting blazingly fast Internet isn't going to help you if you're in a shit area.

    2. Re:Mean or median? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The problem is median doesn't take into account capabilities because you can bet your bottom dollar that out of all your customers waaaay more than half are not interested in a faster speed, but rather a lower cost service.

      The art of lying with statistics.

  8. Hate all you want by DrStoooopid · · Score: 1

    ...but my Xfinity mobile connection is 88 Down and 30 Up. It's almost as fast as my home connection. (especially on the upload side). Generally Comcast's mobile division hasn't been bad. (Their call center still sucks) but so far it's been working great, with some minor hiccups at launch.

    --
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  9. Gaming the system? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

    Microprocessor manufacturers find ways to game the system when it comes to benchmark tests on their products, and it's entirely likely Comcast and T-Mobile are doing the same.

  10. hmmm by burtosis · · Score: 2

    I wonder how selective this is, or how a few good connections can raise a low of mediocre ones. I have Comcast that claims 25Mbps down but I routinely get 8-12, and use a Arris surfboard 6190 3.0 with 32 downsream channel bonding. Precisely 8 down are actually offered and they do not support 3.1. Not only that but I had problems with my cable to my house and it took 5 years to get it fixed properly because they had to run a line under the street (during which time I got as low as 0.32 Mbps. I seriously lost track of the calls (over 50) and every time it was a 15 minute exercise to show it wasn't me being a dumbass. Only positive thing was of the 9 techs they sent out, each one kept saying "What the hell is going on here, this is so screwed up. I'll fix everything and do it right. Believe me." Every FKN time.

    1. Re:hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I wonder how selective this is, or how a few good connections can raise a low of mediocre ones. I have Comcast that claims 25Mbps down but I routinely get 8-12, and use a Arris surfboard 6190 3.0 with 32 downsream channel bonding. Precisely 8 down are actually offered and they do not support 3.1. Not only that but I had problems with my cable to my house and it took 5 years to get it fixed properly because they had to run a line under the street (during which time I got as low as 0.32 Mbps. I seriously lost track of the calls (over 50) and every time it was a 15 minute exercise to show it wasn't me being a dumbass. Only positive thing was of the 9 techs they sent out, each one kept saying "What the hell is going on here, this is so screwed up. I'll fix everything and do it right. Believe me." Every FKN time.

      Your particular modem has a known chipset issue that causes lag spikes: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/11/intel_puma_6_arris/. You should get another modem that doesn't have the Puma 6 chipset.

    2. Re:hmmm by burtosis · · Score: 1

      That's mostly a latency issue, not the reason my comcast connection sucks in download and upload speeds. Havent had any connectivity issues with it either. Had the same issues on multiple modems.

  11. Oh really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What it doesn't tell you is that they could very well be using QoS to make those sites get higher priority and you see better results. This doesn't tell us crap unless Comcast (yes, I mean Comcast, my internet bill still has to be paid to Comcast) isn't allowed to use QoS for anything.

    1. Re:Oh really by burtosis · · Score: 1

      Reminds me of this guy who found out T-Mobile gave priority access to any site with speedtest in the name, even if you weren't paying for service.

  12. Transfer caps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Speed doesn't matter if it's got a transfer cap. Oh boy, I can blow through my month's "allowance" in 10 minutes!

    1. Re:Transfer caps by tsqr · · Score: 1

      Speed doesn't matter if it's got a transfer cap. Oh boy, I can blow through my month's "allowance" in 10 minutes!

      Oh yeah? Go get yourself a 300 baud modem and see how happy you are.

  13. Whatever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I live in the midwest and have Mediacom which ranked best for the region. I had to upgrade my modem recently. For the relatively low tier of internet we pay for our speeds are still about 22Mbps down which is nothing to brag about. For the price, about $70 a month, the service should be better and faster than it is.

  14. Tech site and terminology by grasshoppa · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can understand regular media using the term "fast" to classify broadband characteristics, but as a tech site can't we do better? The term "speed" doesn't really make sense, especially when applied to bandwidth ( as is the case here ).

    Using the same definition, a minivan full of thumb drives is "fast" in that it can deliver gigabytes of bandwidth, but I don't know that anyone would actually want to use such a connection.

    An internet connection can be measured by 3 main metrics; latency, bandwidth and reliability ( well, and media if you want to get technical ). Perhaps we could start using that here?

    --
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  15. Comcast cheats by darthyoshiboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can hit a Speedtest.net server even when my general internet is dead with Comcast. They've obviously got an OOB route for Speedtest.net that allows that traffic to flow regardless of the actual status of the network. It also somehow always manages to get my full allotment of bandwidth even when I have several streaming video services running with Steam downloads which should be taking a chunk out of what can be used to hit Speedtest.net.

    1. Re:Comcast cheats by chihowa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Speedtest.net should take advantage of this and set up a VPN service that looks like a bunch of speed tests!

      Higher service uptime, actually get your advertised bandwidth, run multiple tunnels for even higher bandwidth. Easy sell.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
    2. Re:Comcast cheats by ArylAkamov · · Score: 1

      I swear I recall something like this happening a few years ago.

    3. Re:Comcast cheats by Vektuz · · Score: 1

      Hah, yeah, I remember whenever my internet was slow just hitting speedtest and having a couple minutes of good internet.

  16. Download speeds alone are worthless by zerofoo · · Score: 1

    What good is 100 Mbps download when your uploads are choked to 20 Mbps or less?

    One only uses Comcast/Xfinity broadband when one has no other option.

    1. Re:Download speeds alone are worthless by KingMotley · · Score: 1

      It's plenty good. 20Mbps upload is pretty good. Not great, but most people really don't need more than that.

  17. Means little to nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In a country as geographically vast as the United States, average means little to nothing. I have gigabit fiber connect at home near downtown in a major city. My speeds are bound to skew the numbers for someone live 100 miles away who gets maybe only 1.5 mb/sec. Same for wireless service. I get killer speeds(for wireless) in the city. but leave the metro area and major highways and the speeds quickly plummet.

  18. Definition of an oxymoron: Comcast and ... by Herschel+Cohen · · Score: 1

    combination of [true] speed or reliability. As I told the shill at my door once, I would switch to Verizon FiOS in a heartbeat if it became available. Now if Comcast were the only option (in the future) I would consider dropping an internet connection.

    The speed tests I have run contradict those in the summary. Tests run at 3am on a weekday do not make Comcast the winner.

  19. Even if not an ad by UnderCoverPenguin · · Score: 1

    A technician I know once told me that the ISPs are very good at detecting speed testing and that many testers do so from well known addresses.

    Even if the testers have gotten better at hiding how and where they are running the tests, I still seriously question the results. There are too many ways the ISPs can "fast lane" the testing while blaming "real world" experience on "factors beyond their control."

    --
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