smcallah
join:2004-08-05
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| reply to DownTheShore
Re: Absolutely!!!
said by DownTheShore  : perhaps as a minimum speed guarantee so that people wouldn't be disappointed when their speeds never reach the currently advertised higher amounts. Except that minimum speed could be 0bps. No one can guarantee what speeds are across the Internet. The best they can ever guarantee are speeds to a speedtest box in their main data center, or maybe as far down as the local CO/Hub.
Customers only care how fast they can download something. That's why "Up to Xmbps" should be acceptable. If people can't be made to understand what "up to" means, then that's not really the fault of people selling the service.
Heck, they could even do a special acceptance test for the customer, hook up a speedtest box at the CO end, go to the customer's house, and show them that they are getting all the way up to Xmbps. And tell them, "this is your max speed. Sign this that we have tested out that your speeds work UP TO Xmbps."
But no one can guarantee a minimum or maximum speed to any site on the Internet, and that sounds like what they want to happen. No one can say from one minute to the next how fast your download is going to be from one particular site out there, not to mention the millions of possible sites out there. |
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DownTheShore
Maddie Knows Poopie
Premium
join:2003-12-02
Beautiful NJ
clubs:
| But it would be nice if we were at least given a realistic number. My OOL speeds are supposed to be "up to" 15/2 Mbps, but on good days I usually only run 9/1 Mbps; most days my download speed is lower. To me, that 15/2 number is false advertising. I'd've liked to have seen my TOS at least include a realistic average speed for my area.
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Life is simply one damned thing after another. |
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smcallah
join:2004-08-05
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| And the speed for your area could change, at any time. Heck, the speed for just YOUR HOUSE, can change, depending on what could be wrong.
If they can prove that their speed actually works "up to" what they say, I see no reason that they can't advertise it as such.
The one thing that all providers though need to remove from their ads or TOS is "unlimited service."
Everyone gets confused on that one. |
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DownTheShore
Maddie Knows Poopie
Premium
join:2003-12-02
Beautiful NJ
clubs:
| said by smcallah :And the speed for your area could change, at any time. Heck, the speed for just YOUR HOUSE, can change, depending on what could be wrong. If they can prove that their speed actually works "up to" what they say, I see no reason that they can't advertise it as such. The one thing that all providers though need to remove from their ads or TOS is "unlimited service." Everyone gets confused on that one. I understand that the speeds are influenced by other events, particularly node overloads etc. But in my case, as far as I've been able to determine, there's nothing wrong at my end, so I'm talking about people who are in similar circumstances.
If, realistically, the customer is never going to get those advertised speeds, advertising it as such is akin to those "speedy weight loss" pills advertised on TV. At least those are required to clearly include a disclaimer that those people who drop a lot of weight are atypical. 
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Life is simply one damned thing after another. |
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