NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Report shows history of industry efforts to suppress broadband data collection
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 In message <20100313215619.GD2873@vortex.com>, Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com> writes >I would argue that the nature of Internet access services generally is >such that without considerable detailed and accurate knowledge of >subscribers numbers and usage patterns it is essentially impossible >for any outside entity to make a reasonable, unbiased assessment of >whether or not ISPs are honestly and appropriately serving their >customers. In general, it's also impossible for customers to tell this either, so it's rather surprising that the FCC is asking them. They run tests over WiFi, they run tests without stopping their file sharing, they have extension phones with 30year-old wiring plugged into their ADSL socket, they haven't changed their stack tuning since they used dialup, they bought the cheapest ADSL router they could find, they're defragging their disks at the same time, and they haven't switched off the Xmas tree lights... ... in the UK, in an attempt to remove many of these variables (but not the extension phones and the Xmas tree lights) measurements for Ofcom (the UK regulator) are being done from custom hardware distributed by SamKnows <http://www.samknows.com/broadband/performance.php?page=performance- ofcom-and-samknows> There's some caveats about what they're doing -- and if I was still working full-time for an ISP I'd be gaming the measurements with ease so as to make my firm look good -- however, it's a lot more accurate then getting customers to do the tests! >In the water and power industries, for example, any shortages would be >immediately noticed by customers (My lights keep going dim! My water >pressure is suddenly terrible!) But with Internet access services, >even the "normal" delivered bandwidth can vary so greatly for any >given subscriber that it becomes relatively easy for ISPs to >under-provision in manners that can be difficult or impossible for >customers to reasonably detect and understand -- especially given the >prevalence of "up to this speed" service descriptions. With care, you may be able to crunch the UK numbers to distinguish lack of resource (a) over BT's ATM cloud (b) over the link from BT to the ISP (c) from the ISP to the rest of the Internet [and equivalent issues for other LLU providers that are alternatives to BT in many exchanges]. However, I'm not aware of efforts to do this -- most of the time people just sigh and report raw transfer rates... - -- richard Richard Clayton Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin 11 Nov 1755 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 iQA/AwUBS5wtk5oAxkTY1oPiEQLGrACgpxJCn8aTt2aixPOx6fXl1pPSmkAAoNrJ TR4JzeAnHA05V7bLU1kGzKga =1xUl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----