Broadband Services Approach Advertised Speeds

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A new government survey says that the nation's major broadband providers are actually delivering close to their advertised speeds. Are you getting the broadband speed you pay for?

New government data find that the nation's major broadband providers deliver Internet connections that are generally 80 percent to 90 percent of maximum advertised speeds. The data were released Tuesday by the Federal Communications Commission. They show that the three most popular wired broadband technologies in the U.S. — DSL, cable modems and fiber-optic connections — all do a good job of delivering speeds promised to consumers, even during peak usage periods.
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I am on a 25Mbps / 5Mbps connection and I get pretty damn close to that all the time.

1413896183.png
 
That just means they need to change their advertising.

In all seriousness though, I have a 12Mbps connection from Comcast, and when downloading from Steam I always cap out (after a brief lame turboboost) at exactly 1.5MBPS. So I'm getting exactly what was advertised.
 
So..service has been so bad and so over promised that they are being praised for still largely failing to deliver what they are advertising?

I generally try not to be cynical, but that seems pretty glaring. Hey we promised you 25mb down and Most of the time you get at least 21mb, We are going great!. When it should be the reverse.
 
The problem is they mainly advertise PowerBoost numbers instead of your actual limits. However, I am happy to say that I have actually sustained a 50Mbps download on Comcast when downloading some torrents. :)
 
Dekoth-E- said:
So..service has been so bad and so over promised that they are being praised for still largely failing to deliver what they are advertising?

I generally try not to be cynical, but that seems pretty glaring. Hey we promised you 25mb down and Most of the time you get at least 21mb, We are going great!. When it should be the reverse.
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I have to agree, it does seem a bit unlike most other things you buy when the seller is praised for having 80-90% of their advertised amount. Buy our 10lb cut of beef! (Note: It weighs at least 8lb, so we're doing pretty good aren't we?) It all comes back to that 'up to' part though. Something that seemingly gets sprinkled into everything bandwidth related.
 
Ha, when I lived outside Va Tech, I was lucky to get 10% if my advertised speed with a ping of less than 2000 during peak times with comcast. When I called they said it was the local areas fault, and the guys that came out said it was corporates fault. They never did anything about it until I finished school.
 
Now it's time to stop worring about how fast they can push data, and just make it more reliable. I would happily take a reduction in speed if Comcast would just fix the effing cable network in my neighborhood. I'd rather have 6Mb working than 12Mb mostly working....
 
The best service I can get from AT&T is Pro, 3 down and 512 up. In reality this comes out at 2.4 down and 410 up. I do get 310Kbs on a good server download. I am 14k feet from the CO, Uverse is not available here. Cost=35 bucks a month.
 
They advertise that their service is "up to" a certain amount.

Also: FiOS FTW based on the FCC report. Highest percentage above advertised download speed of any provider.
 
My Comcast setup is listed as Up to 25, but I get 30...however there's clearly a cap there. When running speedtest it rockets up to 30 in a milisecond and won't go any higher.
I'm pretty sure if I were uncapped I could clear 45-50, but alas the next step up costs like 2X as much money.
 
TwistedAegis said:
That just means they need to change their advertising.

In all seriousness though, I have a 12Mbps connection from Comcast, and when downloading from Steam I always cap out (after a brief lame turboboost) at exactly 1.5MBPS. So I'm getting exactly what was advertised.
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Same package and same deal here. Though my compression speeds seems to last longer than a few seconds these days. I downloaded a full game on steam @ 2.5MB the other day, i was starting to think maybe they upgraded me since that's happened 4 or 5 times since we started with a 3Mbps line.
 
Steve said:
I am on a 25Mbps / 5Mbps connection and I get pretty damn close to that all the time.

1413896183.png
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Same here. I have 25mbps down / 25mbps up and from memory typically get 30.97 down and 24.96 up, which is better than I pay for down, and 99.8% of advertised rae up, so I am pretty happy...

What is even more interesting is that if you factor in IP overhead, I am actually getting much more than I pay for both up and down...
 
Pariel said:
Also: FiOS FTW based on the FCC report. Highest percentage above advertised download speed of any provider.
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From my personal experience I certainly believe that.

I can't help but think this has something to do with them over-provisioning bandwidth, thinking that FiOS would roll out quickly, only to find they had to fight the regulatory battle to get in, town by town, and now figure they have all this spare bandwidth, so why not raise customer satisfaction levels by bumping them a little.
 
What you get and what you pay for are always two different things. The real problem is lack of competition across the markets. The speeds would be more consistent if there were more competition. Most areas only have one option for high speed internet.
 
I pay for 8mb/1mb, I get 25mb/0.5mb (more like 15mbit sustained download).

I'd rather have a better upload. If I cut down a bunch of trees I can get 25mbit/25mbit from a local WISP.
 
antiv6 said:
Shitty apartment internet:
1413152615.png
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Hi would you like some pie?

google-speed-test.png



In all serious though. I think the "major providers" simply get away with advertised speeds because they've tiered everything in such a way that you are not offered the "higher" service if you can't get it.

Example: I had AT&T dsl service, highest tier I had was the 3Mbps/384k service, and I reliably got 2.5M/380k, that service cost more than the 1.5M service, but less than the 6M/512k serivce which I tried to get but it was never available. Then enter my next ISP, they don't have tiered pricing, they simply say 1 price 1 pipe, if you're further away you get less speed, if you're closer to the office you get higher speed. Now while I'm pretty far from the "up to" speed I'm actually happier with the service.
 
Clear Wimax claims 3-6mbps, with bursts of up to 10mbps. I get .5 mbps, and i play $45 a month for it.
 
Max Speed has little to nothing to do with actual service. If they slam the cap on you after downloading say 5gb.. and suddenly you cant even load a fucking web page without 10 tries and endless timeouts.. whats the fucking point?

Seriously.. that's whats happening to a lot of people. I love hitting the online vids like Youtube and my online TV shows that Windows 7's Media Center integrated service provides.

But as soon as I hit that cap.. I would get better results with a fucking etch-a-scetch.
 
I would rather get the true rate vs the "upto" rate so when they decide to do some throttling because their not spending enough on infrastructure, I can at least threaten to nail them for false advertisement. As long as the "upto" rate happens once a day I haven't a leg to stand on. When they first hyped up their increases 25/2.5, that lasted a few weeks now the "upto" has settled in at 20/2 and in the evening 15/2.:mad:
 
sfsuphysics said:
Hi would you like some pie?

google-speed-test.png



In all serious though. I think the "major providers" simply get away with advertised speeds because they've tiered everything in such a way that you are not offered the "higher" service if you can't get it.

Example: I had AT&T dsl service, highest tier I had was the 3Mbps/384k service, and I reliably got 2.5M/380k, that service cost more than the 1.5M service, but less than the 6M/512k serivce which I tried to get but it was never available. Then enter my next ISP, they don't have tiered pricing, they simply say 1 price 1 pipe, if you're further away you get less speed, if you're closer to the office you get higher speed. Now while I'm pretty far from the "up to" speed I'm actually happier with the service.
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523mbit/s, and it gets a 3.5 star rating? Who the hell are these people?
 
Psh you guys are lucky, much of he UK gets under 0.5 mb/s up and often well under 8mb's down.
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Demon10000 said:
Now it's time to stop worring about how fast they can push data, and just make it more reliable. I would happily take a reduction in speed if Comcast would just fix the effing cable network in my neighborhood. I'd rather have 6Mb working than 12Mb mostly working....
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Are you on a DOCSIS 3 network yet? Comcast was HORRIBLE in my area a few years ago, enough so that I was fine taking the speed hit and going to DSL which was way more reliable in my area. Then AT&T started rolling out Uverse, DSL became less stable (all at the same time they were trying to push me to Uverse Internet+TV+Phone bundles),

I went back to Comcast but before I'd sign the contract with Comcast I required the agent to put on the contract (business line) 'Customer requires DOCSIS 3 modem.' DOCSIS 3 made a huge difference in reliability for me. The tech at first tried to just bring me a DOCSIS2 modem, then he told me he would give me a DOCSIS 3 but he didn't have the time to stick around and see if it worked because he said DOCSIS 3 took longer to sync up than a DOCSIS2 modem does; he stayed anyway though. Then he did a speed test, and took a picture with his phone's camera to show to the other installers. Thanks to powerboost it was testing at about 120Mbps, and then after that 'powerboost' effect (which was conveniently the same size as most speed tests) was over it would drop down to the 12Mbps tier I was on.
 
I have no complaints with Cox NoVA. I get what I pay for. They don't fark with me, and I don't fark with them.

Now, when it goes down, which is thankfully rare, their support is a nightmare to deal with. The challenge is getting past the Lower Level people to a field tech that knows what the hell is going on, and that can take some doing.

And if they offer to "Send a truck out" to fix a web page issue one more time, I'm gonna... I dunno. It's so stupid I don't know what I'll do.
 
whiz187 said:
The best service I can get from AT&T is Pro, 3 down and 512 up. In reality this comes out at 2.4 down and 410 up. I do get 310Kbs on a good server download. I am 14k feet from the CO, Uverse is not available here. Cost=35 bucks a month.
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That != Bargain :(
 
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1414147978.png

Maby i should feel blessed but i do not.
Because most of the city i live in have the same speed, including my parents who uses it once per month to pay the bills (tho they do use IP tv ofc).

For those unfortunatly stuck at dsl/slower speeds hang in there !
Once you hit 100Mbit you really dont need more.
After that if really comes down to quality (latancys) and if your data capped or not.
I dont have a cap and i dont think anyone with a "proper" connection here is, apart from mobile users for some reason.
 
volvo said:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1414147978.png

Maby i should feel blessed but i do not.
Because most of the city i live in have the same speed, including my parents who uses it once per month to pay the bills (tho they do use IP tv ofc).

For those unfortunatly stuck at dsl/slower speeds hang in there !
Once you hit 100Mbit you really dont need more.
After that if really comes down to quality (latancys) and if your data capped or not.
I dont have a cap and i dont think anyone with a "proper" connection here is, apart from mobile users for some reason.
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Most of us with shitty speeds live in America, we're not going to get 100mbit until the ISPs can charge us $2000 a month for 1gigabit.
 
too much overhead with shitty dsl.
get less than 90% of advertised.
but they get away with it because of "up to" phrasing.
 
eddie11c said:
What you get and what you pay for are always two different things. The real problem is lack of competition across the markets. The speeds would be more consistent if there were more competition. Most areas only have one option for high speed internet.
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This is exactly true. They have designated areas that are for each provider. When I lived in California I was right across the street from Comcast. Figured they would be my provider. Called them up and they told me that Cox serves my area and they can't. :eek:

Here in Idaho we have Time Warner only. There is no calling them up and demanding that they fix your speed or you'll cancel their service. They'll just laugh in your ear and direct you to the cancellation department.

If we had options to leave a go somewhere else they would be more obliged to keep their customers happy.
 
traderj said:
Here in Idaho we have Time Warner only. There is no calling them up and demanding that they fix your speed or you'll cancel their service. They'll just laugh in your ear and direct you to the cancellation department.
.
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i guess i should feel lucky here in los angeles.

AT&T and time warner are in deadlock, matching each other's deals and offering rebates.
So there is incentive to keep the customer happy, maybe ........
 
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