Report on Web-Surfing Speeds Finds Pervasive Throttling 189
Stirling Newberry writes "New York Times has a report on web-surfing speed tests that their reporter ran using Glasnost, a tool that mimics the bittorrent protocol and measures the results. BT in the UK was among the worst. From the article: 'In the United States, throttling was detected in 23 percent of tests on telecom and cable-television broadband networks, less than the global average of 32 percent. The U.S. operators with higher levels of detected throttling included Insight Communications, a cable-television operator in New York, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, where throttling was detected in 38 percent of tests; and Clearwire Communications, where throttling was detected in 35 percent of the tests.'"
Web surfing != Bittorrent (Score:4, Insightful)
Any article that starts off with the problems of a web page not loading, then goes on to explain that it's because ISPs are throttling a different, completely unrelated protocol is either very confused or intentionally deceptive. It's the NYT, so "confused" is a fair bet.
Re:I'm sure they'll stop (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got no problem with them throttling, but throttling and then calling your plan unlimited is False advertising, and should be outlawed. Perhaps we need some new language to describe what they are actually doing, but Unlimited is not it.
Re:I'm sure they'll stop (Score:5, Insightful)
7/10. Try "Once these ISPs learn that we're entitled to" the goddamned level of service we signed up and paid for.
Matters of legality belong in the courts, not the infrastructure.
Re:my netflix is more important than your BT (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I doubt that. The point is that people pay for that bandwidth. If your provider fails to provide what people pay for — then he is to blame. Not people using what they bought from him.
Imagine if phone companies handled calls the same way they handle data: first you would pay for "unlimited 24/7 connection" and then you would discover, that you as well as sever hundred clients are all connected to one line. Should you start complaining that your calls are more important then those, of all the others or just make the provider do his job and provide the advertised service?
Re:my netflix is more important than your BT (Score:5, Insightful)
What if electricity providers had to guarantee that every house in the country could consume the maximum current draw their connections are rated for at any given moment? I think the industry is young enough that everyone's still figuring out the right model under which to sell and provide service.
Advertised service (Score:5, Insightful)
Telcos like to cry about heavy users, but at the same time they brag about the capabilities of their service. Just don't try to use the service as they've advertised it.
Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile all advertise that you can watch streaming video over their data networks, but then cap data and cry foul because people want to stream video. AT&T ran an ad campaign about the original iPad launch and how you could watch video over their network on the iPad, and then two weeks after the iPad launch they ended unlimited data because they didn't realize people would stream video over the network.
ISPs brag how fast their network is, and talk about downloading large files, streaming video and playing games. But God forbid you want to do any of those things with the service you're paying for.
These companies are subsidized by my tax dollars to build infrastructure. They charge more for less service than their counterparts around the globe. They advertise a service and then complain when people buy and want to use the service.
And while people would scream foul if Google got into the ISP business (despite allowing a Comcast/NBC/Universal merger) frankly I would welcome some competition.
Re:That low eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
That might work in a big city where multiple options exist, but rural customers don't have that luxury. Often there is only one option available, or very few; usually the cable company and the phone company - neither of which will be reasonable on price unless you bundle with their other services (that you often don't need/want).
So basically, the options for "stop being their customers" include:
1. Don't use the internet at home. That just isn't feasible for most, or they wouldn't be shopping for an ISP in the first place.
2. Move. Again, just not feasible for most, especially considering the state of the housing market and the fact that most people who live in rural areas don't want to live in a city.
Not to mention the fact boycotting a cable/telephone monopoly isn't going to hurt their business in the least bit. And this isn't exclusive to the countryside - suburban areas are also often limited by monopolies on telecommunication services.
Re:Web surfing != Bittorrent (Score:5, Insightful)
You are the one who appears to be confused.
Nobody said anything about throttling bittorrent. The ISPs are detecting bittorrent activity and then throttling everything.
Re:my netflix is more important than your BT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:my netflix is more important than your BT (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but there's a difference between emergency unexpected situations, and standard operating procedure.
The phone system might get overloaded in a disaster and everyone understands that, but I sure as hell would be pissed if, to make a phone call normally, I had to wait in queue for two minutes until a line opened up.
Phone companies: We can only serve 10% of the capacity we claim to provide at once, and about 2% is normally in use, so everything works except for emergencies.'
ISPs: 'We can only serve 10% of the capacity we claim to provide at once, and about 25% is in use normally, so we've decided to stop actually supplying the service we've sold to people we think are over-using it, and in fact we've built automated systems to do this.'
Everyone understands things fall apart in disasters, or even in expected fringe times. There's a reason, back when pizza places did '30 minutes or it's free' stuff, they always exempted holidays and sporting events. But we're not talking about any sort of unique event. ISPs are throttling all the time, they have are, quite simply, completely overselling their capacity. At all times.
Hell, no one would really care if throttling showed up at, oh, eight in the evening because everyone was on Hulu. Or the net connection was a little slow over Thanksgiving. People would bitch, but we'd understand.
But there's a difference between 'can be slow at peak times' and 'throttled all the time because we don't even have enough capability for normal usage'.
If ISPs don't want to buy more capacity, all they would have to do is stop claiming to provide stuff they don't. Which probably will require actual laws, because some ISPs being honest will result in the lying ISPs gettting the customers.