The FCC Says ISPs Aren't Hitting Advertised Speeds 228
MojoKid writes "The Federal Communications Commission has released the results of a year-long scientific study it conducted with regard to the upload and download speeds of thirteen American Internet service providers. Most of the ISPs hit 90 percent of their advertised upload speeds. Of the 13 providers tested, only four (or less than a third) averaged at or even above their advertised download speeds (Charter, Comcast, Cox, and Verizon Fiber). The tests were performed by a private firm that has run similar tests in the U.K. It measured performance at 6,800 'representative homes' nationally in March."
Re:Sync vs Useful rates (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. and Mrs. John Q Public seem to have gotten used to their cereal box being half-full because of settling during shipment.
Burst-Based shaping skews results (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, Comcast does full or over-full speed for first 10mb down and 5mb up.
It's nice that speedtest sites like speedtest.net show a graph of how speed changes, but their test sizes are still far to small and should exclude any detected burst speeds.
The only good way to test this is to actually transfer files and exclude the bursts.
Another thing that SHOULD be tested is the speed difference with single threaded transfers and segmented/multi-threaded transfers for both same continent and cross-seas.
Internet speed is relative and that is part of the problem.
Re:Comcast (Score:4, Insightful)
It'd be pretty amusing if that didn't even bother to check for an internet connection when it said you were getting the full connection speed. You should have unplugged the internet and tried reloading it from the cache.
Re:Advertised speeds (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't understand. Big business has an exemption from having to comply with the law. Their CEOs have arranged for this through the Republican party.
When you stop believing that the Democrats care for you too, then you'll be able to start addressing issues, rather than tribalism.
The Democratic administration just promulgated proposed rules that would have a small farmer lose his farm if he's ever caught taking a pee on the side of the road.