NY Attorney General Wants Public To Report Broadband Speeds

An anonymous reader writes: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating ISP speed and service claims. He's asked consumers to help by testing their broadband speeds and reporting the findings. "New Yorkers should get the Internet speeds they pay for. Too many of us may be paying for one thing, and getting another," Schneiderman said. "By conducting these tests, consumers can uncover whether they are receiving the Internet speeds they have paid for."

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, maybe if things we public, we'd get an idea of what's happening.

It's better than relying on Speedtest where everyone games it.

It's 2015 and about to be 2016 and I'm on 1.5Mbps/.25Mps according to Speedtest where I am - when shit is REAL slow, I get the same numbers from Speedtest.

Let's SHAME ISPs for their shitty service, OK?

I'm on ATT, btw.

Re:

[KGIII]

I live in a *very* remote area and when I connect to my home machine (which I just did) I get varied speeds but not by a whole lot - things don't really slow down. I'm paying for 10/1 Mb service. I get somewhere around 12.5-14/1.5. I am so remote that I had to actually pay for my own lines to be upgraded as well as a CO to be put in because I'm that far from the village.

I don't get cable so cable is not an option. I used to have satellite and, for a while, directional wireless. I'm kind of happy with it. To

Re:YMMV

[meerling]

And if you are using a known speed tester and haven't obfuscated the address, some of the providers will give a priority to the speed test so it looks like you are getting better speeds than you actually do.

I tested that with my provider many times over years. (Probably a couple of times a month, it wasn't a schedule, just when I thought about it.)
Known major speed tester, 38
Obfuscated known major speed tester, 18
Relatively unknown speed tester, 18.5
Obfuscated relatively unknown speed tester, 18.5

There has been minor variance in the results, but no more than about 8% appx.
I'm not in New York, and I haven't tested i in 2 years (I figured the 6 years I did test was more than enough), but I doubt it's any different over there since nation wide corporations tend to have the same policies and standard hardware & scripts everywhere.

And if anyone hasn't figured it out, if they know you're testing them, they play nice, the rest of the time, you their bitch.

Re:

[darkain]

Seconding this one big time. A client of mine had Comcast Business setup for their business (sadly, the only option available other than the T1 line we were replacing). When the installer was there, he wanted to show off, so he ran the Comcast speed test and it showed somewhere in the neighborhood of 50mbps. Once he left and we tried our own speedtests, we were lucky to pull 20mbps from any other source.

Re:

[postbigbang]

You mean you didn't choose the Official Network Neutrality Test Site? No wonder your speed sucked.

Underneath, deep packet inspection is going on, except to those choice testing websites because we all know that there's no real data of any resaleable significance going to *those*.

Re:

[known_coward_69]

if you use VPN and try a speedtest not only is the routing different from the speedtest back to your computer, but you're also going through the VPN provider which will slow the speed down.

Re:

[Aereus]

Why would you rent a modem from your ISP when a nice Motorola one is only like $60? Or even if its provided free, their supplied ones are most often garbage... and even worse are often modem/router combos.

Re:

[Aereus]

And this is why the NY AG would get very little info out of all this—They have no way of knowing if the person has the proper modem and router to take advantage of the full speed their connection offers. When I got 100mbps initially I couldn't break about 60mbps, as my modem was only DOCSIS 2.0 ... then also finding out my router was hamstringing me as well. Once I had a DOCSIS 3.0 modem AND replaced the terribad $40 Netgear router with something much nicer, I was able to finally hit 100mbps. Then you

Re:

[fermion]

I pretty much only use a speed tester to check to see if I have max speed in around my local network. Using it to test speed coming from the provider is a fools errand.

Re:

[fustakrakich]

Maybe downloading a big file through bittorrent will give you the most accurate speeds. The ISP won't want to restrict them if they know they're measured.

Re:

[ganjadude]

i pay for 100 down, i generally see 120 down in the NYC burbs on ethernet

Re:

[GrumpySteen]

Dude has a pretty good track record of going after crooks [wikipedia.org].

Telco/CableCo disclaimer

[sconeu]

[DISCLAIMER type="big-corp"]
What, users re getting speeds of 128Kbps on our advertised 10Mbps?

Well, that's just fine. They were told that they could get speeds UP TO 10Mbps. 128K falls in that range.
[/DISCLAIMER]

Been there, done that, still doing that

[macraig]

... and I don't even live in New York. With the partnership of a U.K. company/agency, SamKnows, the FCC has been doing this for years nationwide, and more reliably.

Re:

[macraig]

You're probably right about the motivation.

Re:

[mark_reh]

Me too, at least until a month or so ago when I got a new wireless router. Maybe someone should tell NY about SamKnows.

Incoming Priority URL on VZ, CC, and TWC

[bigdady92]

I can only imagine that the big cable companies will do everything in their power to make sure that all the links to the major Speed/Bandwidth test providers are set to have the utmost in priority for the NYC area. Those who were promised 50/50 and were reports 25/25 now show 50/50 or more nearly everytime.

While good in concept this will ultimately fail due to the shadiness of the Cable Companies.

Re:

[EmagGeek]

I use BitTorrent to measure my connection speed, and I have never once gotten less than the advertised speed. In fact, I usually get more.

Re:

[Bengie]

You should measure your connection speed using a single stream, not many. You also have the issue that Torrent data comes in over many peering links, which hides the slow links.

Re:

[EmagGeek]

What does that accomplish? I'm buying "up to 50mbps" from my provider. That speed is not guaranteed, and especially not on a single link.

Verizon shouldn't be held responsible if I can't get 50mbps from a website that is hosted on a 10mbps colo, or from a media service that doesn't have as much hosting speed as it has subscribers. That's not Verizon's problem.

Re:

[Bengie]

That's not the point. The point is your ISP and their peering links should NEVER be the bottleneck. Heck, my ISP guarantees a congestion free experience and they use Level 3, which also guarantees congestion free. I get my full speed to every datacenter in the world, at least of the ones I've cared to test in nearly every major city.

Nice spin, there

[damn_registrars]

The line

NY Attorney General Wants Public To Report Broadband Speeds

Strongly suggests that the Attorney General would require people to do this. This could have been worded better to indicate in the headline that this is fully voluntary. Of course, accurate wording would not be as helpful in the standard slashdot demonization of all things liberal.

As usual, thank you "failure machine" samzenpus. I would expect nothing better from you.

Have Netflix host the speed test

[SirKron]

To stop ISP's from cheating have Netflix host the speed test.

Re:

[Obfuscant]

Because we all know that Netflix has no dog in this fight, right?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix can't do anything about your shitty Comcast connection. Comcast is already throttling Netflix. However, when you go to other speed test websites, CommieCast caches that stuff and speeds up the network to make it look like you're getting the speeds you're not actually getting...

So testing from Netflix or some independent no-name website would be more realistic than speedtest.com or any of those other overused and now unreliable speed test sites.

For instance Linode has test files for testing downloa

Re:

[Obfuscant]

Netflix can't do anything about your shitty Comcast connection.

I don't know who you are addressing this to. I don't have a poor Comcast connection.

Netflix cannot directly change my connection. But they certainly can put the bug in the ear of people like the NY officials. They have a dog in the bandwidth fight since they want their product delivered to the customer at the lowest cost to them, and upgrading their own outbound bandwidth costs money. If they can get NY regulators on Comcast's back for "poor speeds" and Comcast is forced to upgrade their gateways, then Net

Re:

[KGIII]

Your point is logical, sound, and topical. It's even reasonable. Your UID suggests that you should know better.

Re:

[Ralph Wiggam]

Netflix already collects and publishes that data from their side.

http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/country/us/

Re:

[sociocapitalist]

To stop ISP's from cheating have Netflix host the speed test.

Which netflix will then throttle until the ISP pays for premium bandwdith

details, details

[supernova87a]

How will the reporting distinguish when someone's connection is getting f'd up by the crappy wifi connection with interference from all their apartment neighbors?

Is there going to be a standard test setup requirement? Over wired connection?

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

In the UK the regulator considers WiFi speed to be part of the service. The WiFi enabled modern/router I'd usually supplied by the ISP. Some offer 5ghz models now to help alleviate congestion.

Unfortunately this has the effect of making every ISP turn their radios up to 11, making the problem worse.

Re:

[GNious]

Here in Belgium, pretty much all ISP provided routers use channel 1 exclusively (at least the ones from Belgacom/Proximus).
Result: I can see up to 30-odd wireless networks, the vast majority on channel 1.

And, no, no channel-hopping going on, as best I can tell.

Re:

[ganjadude]

or the location its being downloaded from

Re: Speed tests don't always indicate performance

[ZeroWaiteState]

Generally, the speed of TCP ramps up to the bandwidth of the weakest link and then oscillates around that. If you get high initial speeds but it ramps down after a short period of time (5-10 seconds), then what you are seeing is traffic shaping. It is perfectly legit to do this; and there are good reasons for it, but you should be upfront with customers that it is happening, because what you are really getting is 12 mbit of committed bit rate.

Re:

[known_coward_69]

how do you know it's the ISP and not the server you're downloading from?

Re:

[bigfinger76]

It's a torrent - there is no central server.

Re:

[KGIII]

That seems witty and bright but, really, it just means that there are multiple servers and that makes it more difficult to diagnose. I also have no idea how you changed your username to speak on behalf of the other person. Perhaps you're certain they were speaking of the same thing?

If you want to use .torrents to do a deterministic test then have a friend (or just use a server) create a .torrent file for you and you alone - something with a unique username. Then, if you want, you can both use Wireshark simu

Weasel words

[xlsior]

"up to". They all pretty much just say that they won't be giving you MORE than the listed bandwidth.

Something fishy in California...

[__aaclcg7560]

My roommate is paying for a 50Mb connection from Comcast. If he speed test with most external test servers, he gets 50Mb or better. If he speed test with a Comcast test server, he gets 175Mb. Something fishy is going on here.

Re:

[known_coward_69]

the 50mb cable wire is identical to the 300mb one. who says comcast is setting the speed you pay for at the client? maybe they are doing it on their edge routers or devices which is why anything inside their network is faster?

Re:

[swb]

I'm pretty sure that modem provisioning is much of it, but I have to believe that there's some configuration at the neighborhood fiber uplink point, too.

If it was all just done in modem firmware, I'd suspect *someone* would have cracked open a modem and figured out how to update the firmware in the modem to negotiate maximum speeds, sort of like the hacked ROMs you used to be able to get for the old set-top boxes that would just unscramble all channels automatically.

My guess is that it's not actually firmwa

Re:

[sjames]

like [geek.com] this [netwide.net]?

If my ISP provides speeds of up to 25Mbps...

[Bartles]

...then my ISP only be entitled to payments of up to $49.99 a month from me.

Re:

[geekmux]

...then my ISP only be entitled to payments of up to $49.99 a month from me.

Yeah, good luck with that. I'm sure that kind of bartering was effective. About 50 years and 17 monopolies ago.

Today you'll be responded with a service cancellation notice. Fuck You Very Much and Have a Nice Day.

Oh, you think you'll hurt them by threatening to leave? Please. There's 10 other customers behind you. And another 50 behind them. Either shut the fuck up, or step aside. Monopolies have proven that there's always enough customers that they can always afford to walk around with corporate Fu

Re:

[Bartles]

My ISP has a monopoly because their franchise agreement gives it to them, ignoramus. That's not capitalism. It's not regardless of current law, it's because of it. A healthy dose of capitalism is exactly what the ISP market needs.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Capitalism won't help. ISPs will avoid competing in the same area. It's too expensive for the small ones to lay cable of their own, so without the law forcing larger ones to share their networks there will be zero competition.

The best option would be government owned fibre, with franchises to run and maintain it and open access for all isps.

Re:

[dave420]

As shown in markets with thriving, competitive ISPs. We don't have a different road network for each manufacturer of car, so why put up with it for internet access?

Re:

[KGIII]

DSL is awesome for that. If my ISP irks me, I just call another service provider and I'm good to go. I don't even lose service - it just magically keeps on working. Note: My ISP doesn't piss me off. I don't know where you live but where I live they are unable to stop the service from being provided by another company. Why? They're telephone lines and the various communications laws meant to protect consumers actually have some benefits to the consumers. Cable is not a societal need, no matter how much we wa

Up to

[Dracos]

Surely an Attorney General should realize that all the ISPs have all covered their asses with that little caveat.

SamKnows !

[swell]

All the good AG has to do is go to https://www.samknows.com/ [samknows.com]

They collect data about ISPs worldwide from people like me and you and report to governments and other interested parties. I get a monthly report with graphs that show my up/down speed, my latency, my lost packet percentage for each day of the month. Helpful for me, helpful for others.

For the NY AG, they will tell him the claimed vs actual performance of each ISP with lovely charts, graphs and great detail.

This costs me nothing. They sent me a 'whitebox' from the UK which is connected to my router. I'm pretty sure they aren't spying on my pron sessions, but don't really care. You can join the 440,000 of us in the program too.

Additionally, http://www.dslreports.com/ [dslreports.com] collects a great deal of information about ISPs. Mostly anecdotal, voluntarily submitted by site users. You may find this site useful too.

Re:

[Keybounce]

I am worried. Looking over their site,

Our regulatory clients
We work with Consumers, ISPs and Governments all over the world

So, this is a box that reads all my data sent upstream, and reports to the USA government ...

What does the privacy policy say?

It may however become necessary - by law, legal process, litigation, and/or requests from public and governmental authorities within or outside your country of residence

So, by request from governmental authorities outside your country of residence ...

That is no privacy at all. Seriously. This could easily be an NSA operation in disguise -- heck, no wonder they can just give this box away for free.

But, it's up to....

[Chris453]

It says so...very clearly on page 23 of the fine print. It is the section entitled "You give us money and we might** give you service". **One day per year, on Feb 3rd during the hours of 2-3 am EST. Your results may vary, it which case your equipment is to blame. If you don't receive the advertised speeds during this time frame please contact customer support and we will be happy to walk you through the troubleshooting steps on our website that don't work.

Should have everyone do it at the same time

[Anonymous Coward]

Broadband is a shared environment. If you are the only one on the network you get full speed. When when others are on as well you get much less. So depending on the contract, you are possibility getting the speed you pay for but only under ideal circumstances.

Re:

[robkeeney]

This is the problem I'm having. Off peak usage hours, I get 70% of what I'm paying for according to speedtest.net. During peak usage hours in the evening and on Sundays, I have been getting about 3Kbps-- totally unusable. It's very obviously a lack of provisioning for the number of subscribers they have.

Re:

[Bengie]

Broadband is not inherently shared and there are different levels of sharing. While I share a physical line, I have dedicated bandwidth because my ISP does not oversubscribe to the trunk.

Woodland, North Carolina

[PopeRatzo]

A North Carolina town has passed a law against unplugged ethernet cables because they're worried all those gigabits will just leak out onto the ground and soon flood out all the tobacco plants.

Re:

[emaname]

I have to respond to this. It's brilliant! I just shared the Woodland Big Solar thing with several friends and family members. I would've bet money that was an Onion article. Wow!

Anyhow, great comment. I was wishing I could mod your comment "hilarious" instead of just "funny." So I replied instead.

Has anyone actually looked at this test???

[Lorens]

They create a site for testing the speed of your Internet connection... and then they ask you to make a screenshot of the test results, go to another site, fill out a form by hand-copying the test results, and submit the form along with the screenshot? Is this some kind of joke?

Free Martket anyone?

[Ghostbear]

The answer is to break up the ISP regional monopolies. More competition will breed better service and innovation. What we have now is a steady as she goes model. If we had stuck with ATT&T as THE long distance company we'd still be paying horrendous rates and using the second cousin of the Bakelite phone.

True weights and measures

[speedlaw]

now this is something government should be doing. You go get gasoline. No one ever measures the gallon/liter, you trust government to certify this. You buy milk. You trust that the number on the carton is true. I live in a good place. We have Fios and Cable on the same street, and in a world with at least duopoly, they don't play games.

Speeds vary

[Grand Facade]

Depending on how long DNS requests are delayed.