back to article US broadband giants face 'deceptive speed' probe in New York

An investigation has been launched by New York's attorney general to determine whether giant ISPs Time Warner Cable, Verizon and Cablevision have misled customers on broadband speeds. According to reports, AG Eric Schneiderman's top enforcement counsel, Tim Wu, fired off letters to the companies on Friday, demanding – among …

  1. ratfox
    Devil

    Karma is a bitch.

    1. cortland

      But not

      But not worse than her sister Ghia ...

      1. Someone Else Silver badge
        Coffee/keyboard

        @cortland -- Re: But not

        Stop.

        It.

        Dammit.

      2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        I thought the line was

        PayPal is a bitch, no, wait - what?

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. WibbleMe

    All the government has to do it pick an number such as 100 add gbps to the end pick an upcoming year between 2 and 5 and use the word minimum. How hard can it be.

    minimum 100 gbps in 2010

    Or come 2010 American tech companies will be in London and Berlin

  4. No such thing as an Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    "How on earth can you give meaningful speed ratings to the non-technical general public anyway"

    Simple...

    By telling them what they are actually paying for. Specifically: line capacity - not speed.

    As the speed is fixed at a percentage of the speed of light for the connection medium used.

    Simple example is: buying/renting an internet connection is like buying/renting water pipes, the bigger the diameter the more water you can more through it.

    What the ISP’s are doing is selling you a 10 inch pipe and only allowing the pumping of 1/4 inch worth of water.

    1. Dabooka
      Coat

      Re: "How on earth can you give meaningful speed ratings to the non-technical general public anyway"

      Oh I see, the internet is a series of tubes?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "How on earth can you give meaningful speed ratings to the non-technical general public anyway"

        Welt, no - that was a metaphor.

        It's more box-like.

    2. Terry Barnes

      Re: "How on earth can you give meaningful speed ratings to the non-technical general public anyway"

      "By telling them what they are actually paying for. Specifically: line capacity - not speed.

      As the speed is fixed at a percentage of the speed of light for the connection medium used."

      I'm not sure if that's meant to be ironic or if you don't fully understand.

      For advertising broadband to the public the term speed is used interchangeably to mean last mile bandwidth. Even then, bandwidth isn't exactly the right term, it's theoretical maximum throughput. It's easier to sell 'fast' broadband than it is to sell 'wider' broadband.

      Some issues then arise. They are too obtuse for most non-technical members of the public to understand so it's incumbent on advertising regulators to make sure that consumers can compare like with like.

      The first issue is that some mediums have a distance dependent element in the theoretical maximum throughput. It can be hard to guarantee in advance what that throughput will be - hence the 'up to' measurement beloved of ISPs.

      The second issue is that it may not be possible to direct traffic to a user's last mile so as to fully utilise the available throughput. That may be down to congestion somewhere in the Internet - maybe under the ISP's control, maybe not - or even limitations with the server where the traffic originates.

      A third issue is how a particular ISP chooses to interconnect with content providers. An ISP that has private network overlays directly into its nodes, makes use of CDNs and invites caching servers to be put onsite will offer a better performance to end users than one that depends on public Internet for that traffic, regardless of last mile throughput.

      All of these things are hard to summarise in a catchy advert intented to catch the eye of the masses.

      Your water pipe analogy is wrong as it considers only the last mile. If there's no water in the reservoir it doesn't matter how big your pipe is.

      1. Tom 13
        Flame

        Re: "How on earth can you give meaningful speed ratings to the non-technical general public anyway"

        All that argle-bargle is completely irrelevant.*

        I paid your company to deliver my internet at speed X (in my case I think we've bought the 25MPS plan and it's been upgraded to 50MPS as their lowest tier). The interconnects are not my problem, they're yours. You took the contract and the risk. You're responsible for delivering the X (50MPS for me) of service to my door. Distance degradation because of medium isn't my problem, it's yours. Interconnect congestion isn't my problem, it's yours. Maybe, maybe, point of origin issues from a content provider belong to the content provider and I should address it with them. But when I can't get the content normally on port 80 but if I hook up a VPN it comes through just fine, it's the ISP not the content provider.

        *Yes I know. This is a tech site so intrinsically interesting to most of us, but it's still completely irrelevant.

    3. dorsetknob
      Black Helicopters

      Re: "How on earth can you give meaningful speed ratings to the non-technical general public anyway"

      Simple

      You Get what you pay for except there is this unwritten rule that your also suppling the NSA /other 3l Acronam's

      with their bandwidth to Snoop on you

      seriously You Don't think they pay for the Bandwidth they Slurp Jesus if you do your IQ is lower than your Shoe Size

      Icon = Incoming wetwork squad in Chinook

      1. Someone Else Silver badge
        WTF?

        @ dorsetknob -- Re: "How on earth can you give meaningful speed ratings to ..."

        Dude, you related to amanfrommars1?

        Prolly not, as amanfrommars1 is infinitely more intelligible....

  5. Your alien overlord - fear me

    How behind us are the Americans? We've had this issue for 10 years plus (and it's still on going).

  6. Martin Gregorie

    main errors of concern

    ...love it. Noted for future use.

  7. tuneablesquid
    Coat

    first you must have some way of determining if the system is under test...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You jest, but Tmobile US does this. If one has used up their monthly "high speed data" alottment, SpeedTest will continue to show the full network speed. Fortunately SpeedTest usage is not supposed to count against one's monthly HSD quota.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      AT&T does that.

      They check to see if you are connected to a speed test site.

      Run a test from your PC/command line and see what you really get.

  8. Slx

    They also need to move on the dictionary redefining "Unlimited* Data allowances"

    *severe limits apply!

  9. ma1010
    Joke

    The photo is a giveaway

    Did you notice the picture with this article? It's supposed to be a cop holding a speed measuring device. That's what they would tell you it is.

    But notice that it has TWO lenses. It's actually a SCORPION STARE device. CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is REAL!

    (With apologies to Charles Stross, writer of the excellent "Laundry" stories.)

  10. Kev99 Silver badge

    Not at all surprised. The only real reason speeds are what they are is because the ISP want to charge thru the nose for something that can be adjusted by turning a knob or pushing a button. Fiber isn't really faster than copper. Electricity flows at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light to begin with. And keep in mind that Google Fiber still gets its signals over copper.

  11. Youngone Silver badge
    Windows

    @Kev99

    I'm going to assume you're trolling, so I will resist the urge to feed the Trolls.

    It's not easy though.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: @Kev99

      I think it makes sense.

      Accelerate bundles of copper and fiber to their maximum speeds - should be the speed of light for both, right?

      Unless you pay extra for worm holes or summat.

      Basic science!

  12. Neoc

    Ah, those lovely two words that will get them out of trouble which are always added in the smallprint: "up to".

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In the most miserable job and year of my life, I worked for THE phone company providing 3rd level support for their DSL lines. I was amazed at how many of our calls were for cases where "somehow" users had been downgraded to lower speeds than they were paying for - in some cases, it seems they were downgraded periodically.

    The company seems to cultivate a culture of dishonesty as a matter of business.

    So - anyone with any type of ability moves on, and eventually what is left are the dregs of humanity.

    1. Tom 13

      Re: 3rd level support for their DSL lines.

      I can go you one better.

      About 8 years back a co-worker was switching service providers and kept getting put off. At one point he managed to get through to your equivalent who was sitting in the central switch room. He could see the port for my co-worker's current service. He could see the empty port for the new service, but because your counterpart hadn't received authorization to move the service because of paperwork queueing issues, he wasn't allowed to move the cable.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like