NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Why I'm Skeptical of the FCC's Call for User Broadband Testing
----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> ----- Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:51:44 -0500 From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> Subject: [IP] Re: Why I'm Skeptical of the FCC's Call for User Broadband Testing Reply-To: dave@farber.net To: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com> Begin forwarded message: > From: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq@quarterman.org> > Date: March 12, 2010 1:57:58 PM EST > To: dave@farber.net > Cc: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq@quarterman.org>, ip <ip@v2.listbox.com> > Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Why I'm Skeptical of the FCC's Call for User > Broadband Testing > > Dave, for IP: > >> From: Richard Bennett <richard@bennett.com> >> Date: March 11, 2010 8:51:05 PM EST >> To: dave@farber.net >> Cc: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com> >> Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Why I'm Skeptical of the FCC's Call for User >> Broadband >> Testing > >> ... > >> I ran both the M-Labs and Ooka tests from the FCC today, and got >> wildly >> different results: Ookla had me at 25 Mbps down and 2 ms of jitter, >> and M-Labs had me at 14.6 and 112. This disparity is to vast that it >> only says something about the tools, and not a thing about my >> connection >> speed and quality. > > It says you've got a much faster connection than most people in the > U.S. > (according to the data you recommend in your next paragraph), > and thus your connection is not as interesting as those of > people with slower speeds. > >> If you want a global view of Internet connection speeds, see the data >> from Speedtest drawn from users all over the world: > >> http://speedtest.net/global.php#0 > >> It shows that users in the USA can easily buy a connection that's as >> fast >> as the average speed in the countries with the highest average >> speeds, > > Sure, if U.S. users want to pay up to ten times as much as users in > those > other countries do.... And that's in places in the U.S. where such > speeds > are even available. > > Meanwhile, the FCC RFQ of today asks for: > > "2.2. How the Offeror will develop a statistically significant and > geographically representative panel of consumers that enables national > analyses, including at least 15 of the 20 largest ISP's (as measured > by subscribers), targeted to 10,000 households (+/-5.0%) subscribing to > fixed wireline or wireless broadband services" > > No doubt Brett Glass's network provides excellent quality service to > its > subscribers. However, unless it's one of the top 20 largest ISPs > by number of subscribers, it's not what the FCC is interested in > measuring, and thus also presumably not what the FCC is interested > in making rules about. I'm sure someone from the FCC can correct me > if I have deduced that last inaccurately. > > Meanwhile, the data the FCC is compiling by its current methods > can be used later to calibrate whatever comes out of the RFQ. > > I predict now that no matter how comprehensive and precise the > data resulting from the RFQ is, and no matter how much more so > it is made over time, there will be those who argue that it's > not precise enough. > > Nonetheless, by both methods we'll start to get a picture > of which big ISPs are delivering and which are not. > > -jsq > ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message -----