The Federal Communications Commission constantly monitors broadband service providers in the United States and the commission recently updated its report for the month of February. One part of the FCC’s study that always draws particular interest is the section that shows how closely ISPs come to providing customers with data speeds that match advertised speeds, and its latest report analyzes data collected in September 2012. Unfortunately for U.S. broadband subscribers, ISPs’ performance in September strayed a bit further from advertised speeds compared to a similar study from the FCC that analyzed July data.
The FCC’s most recent study found that more than half — or eight out of 15 — of the major ISPs it analyzed provided download speeds that fell short of their advertised speeds in September. Another three ISPs provided download speeds that averaged at or above advertised speeds during a 24-hour period but fell beneath those speeds during peak hours.
Speed is just a small bit of the real quality of service measure. For me, I’d gladly trade slower speed (including somewhat slower than advertized) for uninterrupted, consistent service with prompt and excellent customer service if there is ever a problem. That is hard to measure and get.
Any fines or punishments will be waived for easy access to logs and customer data/habits.
I still struggle with a DSL service (in NZ) marginally faster than dial-up. And they still throttle.
Mediacom’s numbers obviously didn’t include Iowa. I spent 6+ months last year at 1/4 of my purchased download speed with them. Mediacom put a work ticket in for the entire town in February and we finally saw the fix at the end of August.
Oh and god forbid you actually push your connection for more than a few minutes. Try it and your modem has to be reset. The local telco has the fiber to the house. Getting it hooked up shortly, but not nearly soon enough.
I have 6 mbps DSL, and the speed averages 5.9-something; upload speed, alas, is still throttled at 768 kbps. AT&T premium max speed DSL. If I get u-verse, they could push that to 18 mbps and then I’d also get television (I don’t have cable or satellite). 18 would require the POTS (plain old telephone service, aka copper wires) to be replaced with coax ’round the house. U-verse fibre is everywhere around me, though almost no one has it (they all have existing cable setups).
Wired magazine years ago suggested that by right now, I’d be paying mere pennies on the dollar for high-speed internet, with costs subsidized by ordinary telephone service. Unfortunately, no one at AT&T read the article.
You mean RICH Int’l Corps are ripping the Public off with false advertising, bait and switch, and monopolistic control of the market place?=====Say it ain’t true!
Bobbo’sBlatantBogusBonus to the first clown who says this is a Free Market that doesn’t need regulation. And by regulation—I mean ENFORCEMENT of that good and holy.
I only wish we had a Nanny State.
Know what I mean Ayn Rand LIEberTARDS?
Thank goodness for the FCC to watch out for the interests of the sheeple. Self governance can only go so far.
I think you really do believe that the FCC would actually take any meaningful action against any ISP for any reason.
Sad.
FCC fined verizon 6 months ago for not letting you tether your non Verizon shit to their network. So there ! You’re wrong . What should your punishment be?
28 whacks on my peepee by Honey Booboo.
Was it a $50 fine and a promise by Verizon to not be so evil?
I’m in the FCC’s field testing program called SAM (I think!, It’s been a while since I signed up.) They provide a router and can then test the real speed of your connection whenever they need to. Afaik, that’s the data those graphs are based on.
I’m in a working class neighborhood, and I paid extra for Time-Warner’s/Roadrunner’s TurboBoostWhatever broadband service. During evenings and other high usage times, I’d get modem-type speeds. 56K plus or minus 50. Seriously. Sometimes it would be down there in the single digits. Sunday morning, and with the wind at my back, sometimes I saw 300Kb and would just about swoon. I was paying for 5Mbits down (1 up). So I should have been seeing 600-700Kb all the time.
As soon as the Feds’ router was in, my speeds shot up to 800Kb-1MB and stayed there. When service improved to 10Mbits down, my speed kept right up.
Amazing coincidence, innit?
You had a bad router.
I encountered the same problem with Cox cable. they claimed it was my modem (it wasn’t), then they claimed my modem wasn’t on the approved list (it was). Then they said it was a problem on their end, months passed, then I finally cancelled my subscription.
Previously when it was time warner roadrunner, it easily got 4 megabit speeds.
I have AT&T DSL, its slow but at least it works. AT&T is constantly badgering me to get UVERSE but I know better, UVERSE is a major pain and they control the box, not you.
I’ve got an unlimited 50Mbit connection here and when plugging my PC directly into the wall socket with my 1GBit NIC I get between 90-99% of the advertised speed using PPoE. Over WiFi (in auto-config) I get about 40-50% of that speed on a single machine. In g-only mode I get up to 60%. I don’t have any n-gear so cannot test that…
50Mbit DSL here means 50Mbit download OR 50MBit upload OR something in-between (25 up/25 down)
Total cost: 20USD/month
The installation fee was waived by the ISP because I installed the Cat5E cable to their equipment in my building myself. 🙂
I do live in a large urban area though and these kinds speeds are not uncommon here.
What? You don’t have fibre to the home? But you’ve been paying a surcharge on your phone bill for it every fuckin’ month since the eighties…
The TelCos should have been ashamed of the outright theft they’ve been perpetrating for decades, but business has no shame.
I could see the NyNex (later Verizon) switching station from my apartment and I never was able to get DSL installed. But now Verizon bought NBC with the money they were charging and not delivering on.
Meanwhile the cable co.s have been abusing the monopoly power they were granted at their very inception. (That’s why those cable provider ads are sick jokes. Just try getting Time Warner in an area serviced by Optimum. It’s impossible.)
They’ve been promising us shit since the days of rotary mechanical switches, and we’ve been paying for ’em to deliver it too, but they start by helping themselves first.
That’s why small South Korean villages, not just Seoul, have better internet acccess than we do.
Sorry, I got which bad guy wrong in my rant…
Its ComCast, a cable co, not Verizon, a telco that bought NBC Universal.
No… I’m not going to go on about all that media merger train wreck and what its done to our sense of democracy.
I think the tubes are too fast as they are. I already get more information than i can use and it just keeps coming. If only i could turn it off! Please somebody, stop the madness!
The FCC is a group of un-elected officials that regulate every spectrum of communications nationwide.
They are the Communist Party of Communications.
Fortunately for them, most people are unaware of their undemocratic status, otherwise there would be revolt and revolution in the streets.
Nevertheless, the communications corporations would get away with every kind of larceny if not for the iron fist of the FCC.
Long live the FCC and its Chairman, Julius Genachowski.
During Genachowski’s tenure, the FCC developed and is implementing the National Broadband Plan, an ambitious strategy to harness the opportunities of high-speed Internet, promote U.S. global competitiveness, and bring the benefits of 21st century communications to all Americans.
We are truly blessed and eternally grateful for the contributions of Comrade Julius.
Join me in a salute. Hail, Julius.
Genachowsky is presently trying to eliminate FREE over the air Television so the spectrum can be sold outright to cellphone companies.
Actually SELLING spectrum that belongs to the American people is ridiculous, it should be licensed only.
And free TV will be gone. You will have to pay $50-100 a month for any television service
FCC Leadership
The FCC is directed by five commissioners appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate for five-year terms, except when filling an unexpired term.
The president designates one of the commissioners to serve as chairman. Only three commissioners may be members of the same political party, and none can have a financial interest in any commission-related business.
But most FCC commissioners have been “in the business”.
Hiring foxes to guard the hen house is a bad thing when they already knew the eggs tasted delicious.
October, November, December, January. They are constantly monitoring? So why is the ‘latest report’ referring to September?
FCC moving at the speed of government.
So Comcast, Verizon, CableVision, Cox, and Charter are at 100% or more in the case of Verizon. That’s almost the entire market except for AT&T’s UVerse. People that AT&T are serving are not in need of government protection.
Oops, Verizon DSL is the laggard. So the Comcast commercials are true.
Meanwhile. look at the rest of the world – someone mentioned South Korea.
Hell, in Finland it will be a constitutionally guaranteed 100 Mbit/s in 2015.
France package programs are less than $50/month for Internet, Cable TV and Phone look at this link (use Chrome for Translation) 200 Mb/s internet, 160 TV Channels, Unlimited Land Line, 240 Gb TV Recorder, 100 Gb Cloud storage, etc.etc
http://abonnez-vous.orange.fr/residentiel/comparer-offres-internet.aspx
The United States is the fourth-largest country in the world. Its total area, including Alaska and Hawaii, is 3,717,813 square miles.
By comparison, France is four-fifths the size of the state of Texas.
Implementation of high-speed internet is easier in small countries with a very high population density.
I get my internet from Comcast (only game in town) and since I don’t get cable or phone I do not get a bundled price, I pay $64 per month. The other day Comcast called me and wanted to sell me faster internet for just $14 more. I asked the salesperson if I was getting slow internet, they said “no, but it could be even faster.” I told her I was satisfied with the speed but asked her to do something about the price, she asked what it cost me and seemed surprised to hear what I currently pay. The salesperson and I both felt that Comcast was getting enough of my money, so we said goodbye to each other. I really dislike monopolies.
With AT&T suing every municipality that attempts to create their own internet service, no wonder acces is so substandard in this country.