FCC Report on Broadband Performance: A Scare Tactic (Censorship Alert)

ATR ^ | 8/20/10 | Jenn Cobb

[Andrea19]

This week Ars Technica played right in to the FCC’s hands when it published, “Your fears confirmed: ‘up to’ broadband speeds are bogus.” As the FCC pushes for government regulation of the Internet, they use tricky tactics to try to confuse the consumer and sway popular opinion against service providers. One of these measures is this week’s deluded FCC study “Broadband Performance,” in which the FCC measures household Internet speed and implies you’re not getting what you paid for. They found:

“Therefore actual downloaded speeds experienced by US consumers appear to lag advertised speeds by roughly 50 percent.”

First, the FCC report points out but ignores the fact that lag can often be caused by things like having an old computer, poor wiring, a bad Wi-Fi router, the distance of the website server you are accessing from your computer, etc. A broadband provider can have available for you the consumer the full advertised speed, but the lag is completely out of their control.

Additionally, broadband providers list their speeds in “up to” forms, where if 10Mbps is the maximum speed in the range, you, as the consumer, are given an Internet speed up to 10Mbps appropriate for your usage. If your daily computer use consists in reading your emails and checking the daily lolcatz post, per the FCC’s own report, you need only 0.5 Mbps. This accounts for 80% of typical online activity. Not only are you getting what you need, but the Internet speed can be allocated more efficiently in the network to people of different usage levels, for example an online gamer who needs at least 2-5 Mbps. This will minimize online congestion and optimize performance...

Read more: http://www.atr.org/fcc-report-broadband-performance-scare-tactic-a5331#ixzz0xBPiHunx

[Andrea19]

The FCC knows that time is running about before the election.

Help promote Conservative activism here & here & here & here

[wastedyears]

I’m an online gamer, can I get 25 Mbps please? (shooters help give an idea of small-squad tactics)

[Man50D]

The mere existence of the FCC is Unconstitutional since regulating communications is not an enumerated power granted to Congress in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. The FCC needs to be abolished!

[Anti-Bubba182]

I can see how an average can be that way. An old computer with old OS and Browser runs a Lot slower.

[Mrite]

Hey, wastedyears...
I’m an OL gamer as well. My connection usually seems to be alright in most games on US servers. However; when I use speedtest.net to check my DL/UL speed and ping rate, the server within 50mi of my house checks out slow, but cross-country or up the coast I have great results.

ie: From my home in Jacksonville fl to the server in Ashburn Va (there’s a Quake server in that area) I get

http://www.speedtest.net/result/922133814.png

From my place to Macclenny :http://www.speedtest.net/result/922141004.png

Nobody seems to be able to tell me why? Does anybody here know why the test show different results like that? Namely the DL speed and ping?

Just curious.

[Chode]

i pay for 10 and just about always get 12... according to multiple speed tests i've tried anyway

[garyb]

Does anybody here know why the test show different results like that? Namely the DL speed and ping?

---

Sure.

(1) It may well be that the server they are using for the application is slower, or (2) more heavily used.

(3) The network connection between the server and the Internet backbone may be have low bandwidth.

(4) The distance is listed as 50 miles. That might be direct line of sight, but the network path to get between the two points may be considerably longer.

(5) One or more routers on that “shorter” path may be congested.

If you can get the IP address of the destination you can perform a tracert and actually determine where the path gets slower.