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Comments on news posted 2007-01-30 19:46:16: The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has issued a warning to Australia ISPs to come clean about their broadband speeds and stop using the "up to" marketing term, or face possible litigation. ..
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Cheddarhead
Ain't Nuthin But A Thang
join:2002-02-19
Hudson, WI
 ·Comcast
| Sheesh It all seems so simple in my minds eye... advertize "minimum" speeds, they'll be happy when they get more... why do they think they have advertize the MAX speed you'll get at 4:30 am on a sunday...
/whatever
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AMD Athlon XP 1800+, 60gig HD, DVD-Ram Drive, Sony 17" LCD, Geforce FX 5200 Ultra, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, Creative Inspire 5.1, 3mb Comcast Cable Internet | |
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ArgMeMatey
join:2001-08-09
Milwaukee, WI
 ·AT&T Midwest
| Don't include transport overhead in the quoted speeds AT&T includes the transport overhead of their internal network (Layer 2) in the speed claim.
I believe they use ATM so packet segmentation uses up a lot of additional bytes for headers. 53 byte packet, 48 payload and 5 byte header if my lousy memory is somewhere in the ballpark.
So for example "up to 3000 kbps" will NEVER exceed about 2500 kbps of data at layer 3 and above.
This is deceptive because transport overhead is easily calculated unlike burstiness effects and other statistical guesses. Although they declare their true meanings in the fine print, they should be required to say, "3000 is the cap, and we use 500 of that just to get you to the internet. So you really have 2500 to play with when things are otherwise at their best."
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USNG:16TDN2870 Find your Lat-Long: Geocoder | |
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cob_
1310nm Of Goodness
Premium
join:2003-07-08
Tulsa, OK
| OK so... I think this is a good idea, but I see the benchmarks as being the difficulty in enforcement.
Where will your official speed tests be done to? 3rd parties could be used as an element of trust, who would have to set up test nodes at peering points, etc. It isn't like comm. companies would have a hard time monitoring bandwidth to different locations themselves to keep on top of it, either.
It is frustrating that the "up to" claims really have no bearing on what you could actually experience. If you think about it, comm. companies (especially those in areas with little competition) have no reason to keep your speeds up to snuff. There is currently too much subjectivity involved in it, same with transfer limits. The industry definitely needs to start providing clearly elaborated service levels for your monthly fee.
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"No matter how hard you push and no matter what the priority, you can't increase the speed of light."
- RFC 1925 | |
| Timmn
join:2000-04-23
Tinley Park, IL
·AT&T Yahoo
| The Infamous "Up To" Broadband Qualifier The thing that bothers me is that "Up to 3000 Kbps" means anywhere between 0 and 3000 Kbps. That means that your service could be slower than dial-up and your ISP could claim that you are getting what you paid for.
They should sell their service using a minimum/maximum speed, so if you bought 1000/3000 Kbps, your speed would not drop below 1000 Kbps and never be above 3000 Kbps.
Would that be so hard to do? | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| ISPs just looking to make money. Now do I expect to get 5Mbps if I have the 5 Meg plan? realistically no of course not. But I do expect to be CLOSE. This "up to" is BS. They could give you 1/10 the speed and technically be within their promise. Charter has a 10 Mbps plan. Now if I'm not getting even 5 Mbps then why should I be charged at the 10 Mbps rate? I should only be charged the 5 Mbps rate. If I have the 5 Mbps plan and I'm can't even get 3 Mbps then why shouldn't I be paying the 3 Mbps rate? Really no excuse why one can get AT MINIMUM 70% of the advertised rate. | |
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CylonRed
Premium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
1 edit | Legislation/policy that CAN'T possibly be enforced is... purely stupid and insipid plan. No ISP can guarantee speeds to a small sample much less everyone - especially when talking about DSL. I am over 12,100 ft from my CO - I commonly get 85-90% of my rated speed and have gotten 90% while others with crappier lines get far less at closer ranges to the CO.
I am with the others - remedial reading and comprehension classes are needed so that folks understand what 'up to' means and if you do not want to deal with it - then don't get the service.
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Brian
"Some people are like Slinkies...
Not really good for anything......
But they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs." | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| Re: Legislation/policy that CAN'T possibly be enforced is... said by CylonRed  :purely stupid and insipid plan. No ISP can guarantee speeds to a small sample much less everyone - especially when talking about DSL. I am over 12,100 ft from my CO - I commonly get 85-90% of my rated speed and have gotten 90% while others with crappier lines get far less at closer ranges to the CO. I am with the others - remedial reading and comprehension classes are needed so that folks understand what 'up to' means and if you do not want to deal with it - then don't get the service. Not sure if you are trying to insult me or not. I don't need remedial reading. Anytime you like to compare IQs let me know. If they can't guanteee a certian speed then how can they possible make sure you don't go over a certian speed? Hmmmmm. Fact is techs come out to houses all the time and then test the connection and say stuff like "Hmmm you speed is pretty slow" Well how can he tell that if what you are saying is true? So I guess the ISPs must be hireing idiots that don;t know what they are talking about.
Fact is that if you are a type of person that would accept less then 50% of advertised "up to" speed then you and a prime candidate to be ripped off in life.
I'm sure if you went to Nevada and paid for "up to" an hour's worth of sex from a prostitute in a brothel and after 1 minute she stopped and she said "The sign says 'up to' and hour" you wouldn't be ok with that. | |
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CylonRed
Premium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
2 edits | Re: Legislation/policy that CAN'T possibly be enforced is... It looks liek it is in responce to you but it is not as your user id does not show anywhere in the text - it is how the forum links the posts - it was in responce to the article...
As for your assertations - I would simply find another service as NO isp can guarantee speeds. With DSL in particular the company providing DSL CAN'T know how the lines are between the CO and their individual customers... A good company (yes - they exist) would offer to drop the plan and payment accordingly. | |
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av8r
I'd Rather Be Flying
Premium
join:2002-06-14
Boca Raton, FL
clubs:
| And when other advertisers do the same?
Who here hasn't heard or seen an advertisement for a retailer that says "up to 50% off!!!", or my favorite "up to 50% off or more!!!". At least in the first case you could make a legitimate (if foolish) complaint if there was an item marked at 55% off. The second one says absolutely nothing. It could be 0% off, it could be free (100% off).
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If I am not for myself, Who will be for me? If I am only for myself, What am I? If not now, When? -- Hillel | |
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Anonymous Coward
@on.net
|  Tiers
0 hours at $10 speed range: $0
0 hours at $15 speed range: $0
5 hours at $25 speed range: $2.08
45 hours at $35 speed range: $26.25
10 hours at $40 speed range: $6.67
TOTAL: $35.00
Total time connected: 60 hours
Your scelected maximum speed is *Mbps.
The more mathematically minded amongst you would have realised that all I did was to make the proportion of your bill which is charged at each rate be the fraction of the time your computer was on which you received each speed. In practice, you would need to use a little box to plug into your modem if it was a combined modem/router, because otherwise the results would be skewed. That would also alleviate the issue of the quality of your network. A USB/internal modem obviously needs the computer it is connected to to be on for the modem to be active, so the usage meter program can be used for this job.
One final tweak would be to make the bill be made up of your upstream and downstream in proportion to the ratio of the cap on each. Thus for a symmetrical connection, your bill is based 50/50 on your up- and down- streams, wheres if the caps are in a 75/25 ration, the bill is also a 75/25 ratio of up- and down streams. | |
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Re: And when other advertisers do the same?