What?

Author	All Replies
Maxo Your tax dollars at work. Premium,VIP join:2002-11-04 Tallahassee, FL	What? If they ISPs are advertising "up to" speeds and delivering "up to speeds" then what's the problem? If they remove the "up to" terminology THEN it would be false and confusing advertising. If the people in Australia can't understand plain English then maybe their public education system is the one that needs to step in, not the FTC.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 09:05:16 ·
vpoko Premium join:2003-07-03 Boston, MA	said by Maxo: If they ISPs are advertising "up to" speeds and delivering "up to speeds" then what's the problem? If they remove the "up to" terminology THEN it would be false and confusing advertising. If the people in Australia can't understand plain English then maybe their public education system is the one that needs to step in, not the FTC. Up to implies that at least some people are getting those speeds. If the service is advertized as up to 8mbps and people are getting 6mbps at best, there's a very novel use of the term "up to" going on.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 09:11:55 ·
massysett join:2006-01-04 Silver Spring, MD	reply to Maxo The end of the article says it all: imagine a soda can that has "up to" 12 ounces of soda.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 09:34:42 ·
Maxo Your tax dollars at work. Premium,VIP join:2002-11-04 Tallahassee, FL	said by massysett: The end of the article says it all: imagine a soda can that has "up to" 12 ounces of soda. Buying Soda and buying internet service are two completely different things. Imagine buying internet service that is made with corn syrup.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 10:15:38 ·
Maxo Your tax dollars at work. Premium,VIP join:2002-11-04 Tallahassee, FL	reply to vpoko said by vpoko: Up to implies that at least some people are getting those speeds. If the service is advertized as up to 8mbps and people are getting 6mbps at best, there's a very novel use of the term "up to" going on. Up to implies that at best you will get the speed listed. For instance, my DSL is up to 1.5M. A speed test gives me ~1.4M. At night, because of ISP issues, it can become below 1M. I am still within my speeds. This is what I agreed to up front. I would very much like to see ISPs advertising speed tiers like 768k-1.5M, 1.5M-3.0M, 3.0M-6.0M, etc. And then once you hit below the bottom line they guarantee a truck roll to fix it. But then you get into SLAs, which anyone can purchase, but it comes with a price. My only point is that the advertising is not misleading and it sets the proper expectations up front. When an ISP advertises "Unlimited" and then caps and/or restricts, that is misleading advertising, and I think the government needs to act on these broken promises. -- "Padre, nobody said war was fun now bowl!" - Sherman T Potter »www.cafepress.com/maxolasersquad »maxolasersquad.com/ »maxolasersquad.com/network/ My DSL Network Guide »myspace.com/mlsquad
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 10:20:15 ·
AnonShawUser join:2006-06-17 Calgary, AB	reply to Maxo Tell ya what. How about if I advertise an internet service of "Up to" 250mbps, and just deliver 33.6kbps over dialup? I'll charge them $1500/month for such a great service, and it would be in no way misleading!
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 10:38:14 ·
Maxo Your tax dollars at work. Premium,VIP join:2002-11-04 Tallahassee, FL	said by AnonShawUser: Tell ya what. How about if I advertise an internet service of "Up to" 250mbps, and just deliver 33.6kbps over dialup? I'll charge them $1500/month for such a great service, and it would be in no way misleading! No, you would just go out of business.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 10:41:23 ·
yock TFTC Premium join:2000-11-21 Miamisburg, OH kudos:3	reply to Maxo said by Maxo: said by massysett: The end of the article says it all: imagine a soda can that has "up to" 12 ounces of soda. Buying Soda and buying internet service are two completely different things. Imagine buying internet service that is made with corn syrup. True, but it illustrates a point. If your ISP is able to charge you the same price as your neighbor, but only deliver 2/3rds of the service because of technical limitations, is that a fair pricing practice? Other commodities are sold by weight. The volume of liquid in that soda can is measured meticulously. It must fall within a certain standard deviation of the listed volume, something regulated by government, before it is allowed to leave the factory. Products that do not conform to regulations are rejected and never leave the production facility. No such quality control is regulated for your internet connection. If Comcast were delivering you cans of soda, they'd be perfectly within the law to put a few mere drops of soda in each of your cans and claim that you were only entitled to "up to 12 oz" of soda. The idea here is to enforce some quality control on that "up to" language so that there is some required minimum to claim a certain speed. I'm the biggest proponent of deregulation I know, and I think this is a good idea. -- Wiki Wiki Laughter is the closest distance between two people. --Victor Borge
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 10:46:45 ·
Maxo Your tax dollars at work. Premium,VIP join:2002-11-04 Tallahassee, FL	The problem with volume in something like soda and speeds from your ISP is that volume is easy to guarantee. There's no way an ISP could guarantee you will always get something like 1.5M because of fluctuations of the line. If one wants to argue that ISPs should set some minimal limit, then that's fine with me. I do think we need to make sure we are not over regulating to the point that the government is requiring a full-fledged SLA. This would make the cost of residential service prohibitive. Also, I think the arguments being given in the article that saying up to, and then delivering up to is somehow misleading. The only way to be misleading would be to advertise up to and then actually go above those speeds. Of course, nobody would get in a tizzy over that though. -- "Padre, nobody said war was fun now bowl!" - Sherman T Potter »www.cafepress.com/maxolasersquad »maxolasersquad.com/ »maxolasersquad.com/network/ My DSL Network Guide »myspace.com/mlsquad
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 10:52:11 ·
moonpuppy join:2000-08-21 Glen Burnie, MD	reply to Maxo said by Maxo: said by AnonShawUser: Tell ya what. How about if I advertise an internet service of "Up to" 250mbps, and just deliver 33.6kbps over dialup? I'll charge them $1500/month for such a great service, and it would be in no way misleading! No, you would just go out of business. Not if you are the only game in town.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 10:53:32 ·
JerryTongue join:2003-04-01 Auburn, WA	reply to massysett If you buy a can of soda and it is not exactly 12 ounces you might not notice but if you buy a can of soda and it is half empty you notify the manufacture and guess what? You get a free 6 pack or half case. My wife does it If I pay for the 8 mbps speed tier then I feel I better not fall below the 6 mbps tier for the price I pay for the 8 mbps which I do a lot. Check some of my speed test here and you'll see I get half what they say.Power and size= they can rip you off and call it what ever they want. You want to charge me more? Fine, then give me what I should be getting, if it's to much I will move to the lower tier for less, I'm already getting those lower speeds anyways.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 10:56:04 ·
JerryTongue join:2003-04-01 Auburn, WA	reply to moonpuppy Bingo
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 10:59:27 ·
yock TFTC Premium join:2000-11-21 Miamisburg, OH kudos:3	reply to Maxo said by Maxo: The problem with volume in something like soda and speeds from your ISP is that volume is easy to guarantee. There's no way an ISP could guarantee you will always get something like 1.5M because of fluctuations of the line. If one wants to argue that ISPs should set some minimal limit, then that's fine with me. I do think we need to make sure we are not over regulating to the point that the government is requiring a full-fledged SLA. This would make the cost of residential service prohibitive. Also, I think the arguments being given in the article that saying up to, and then delivering up to is somehow misleading. The only way to be misleading would be to advertise up to and then actually go above those speeds. Of course, nobody would get in a tizzy over that though. I don't think we're talking about Service-Level Agreements for consumer subscribers, but rather some legal wording that doesn't permit ISPs from offering huge disparities in service to customers while selling it as the same product for the same price. We all understand that consumer-level services will suffer outages and reductions in quality, that isn't the issue here. They're really talking about the consistent inability to deliver on advertised capabilities of their products. -- Wiki Wiki Laughter is the closest distance between two people. --Victor Borge
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 10:59:55 ·
Maxo Your tax dollars at work. Premium,VIP join:2002-11-04 Tallahassee, FL	said by yock: I don't think we're talking about Service-Level Agreements for consumer subscribers, but rather some legal wording that doesn't permit ISPs from offering huge disparities in service to customers while selling it as the same product for the same price. I think that is more reasonable. The problem here, then, is not the "up to" wording. That part is accurate. The confusion would be that a customer on an up to 6.0M plan would not reasonably expect consistent 768k speeds. OTOH, if they were getting 5.28M that's not unreasonable. -- "Padre, nobody said war was fun now bowl!" - Sherman T Potter »www.cafepress.com/maxolasersquad »maxolasersquad.com/ »maxolasersquad.com/network/ My DSL Network Guide »myspace.com/mlsquad
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 11:04:42 ·
Maxo Your tax dollars at work. Premium,VIP join:2002-11-04 Tallahassee, FL	reply to moonpuppy said by moonpuppy: said by Maxo: said by AnonShawUser: Tell ya what. How about if I advertise an internet service of "Up to" 250mbps, and just deliver 33.6kbps over dialup? I'll charge them $1500/month for such a great service, and it would be in no way misleading! No, you would just go out of business. Not if you are the only game in town. Yes you would, because even if dial-up wasn't availabe, nobody is going to pay $1500/month for 33.6kbps. If you were the only game in town offering 6.0M people still wouldn't pay those prices. So you would be out of business. -- "Padre, nobody said war was fun now bowl!" - Sherman T Potter »www.cafepress.com/maxolasersquad »maxolasersquad.com/ »maxolasersquad.com/network/ My DSL Network Guide »myspace.com/mlsquad
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 11:05:46 ·
yock TFTC Premium join:2000-11-21 Miamisburg, OH kudos:3	reply to Maxo said by Maxo: The confusion would be that a customer on an up to 6.0M plan would not reasonably expect consistent 768k speeds. OTOH, if they were getting 5.28M that's not unreasonable. Right, which makes the real numbers they come up with for the variances important. Getting service that's 15% below the advertised product is pretty reasonable, but the potential exists to see much higher numbers than that since there is no regulation stating otherwise, but more importantly, little to no competition keeping those ISPs honest. -- Wiki Wiki Laughter is the closest distance between two people. --Victor Borge
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 11:08:31 ·
AnonShawUser join:2006-06-17 Calgary, AB	reply to Maxo You miss the point. People would be willing to pay $1500/month for a service advertised as "Up to" 250mbps, with no service caps. Just like people are willing to pay $80/month for service "up to" 10mbps, when they're only getting 5 or 6mbps. The whole "up to" thing means they don't even have to make it seem reasonable. And in that first month, when a few dozen consumers sign up, thinking they're going to get such insane speeds, only to be getting dialup levels, just means the provider was in the right. Right now, every provider in the nation, regardless of whether it's dialup or fiber, can claim they have "up to" 1gbps, full duplex to the home, on every connection. And it would be true.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 11:14:34 ·
Maxo Your tax dollars at work. Premium,VIP join:2002-11-04 Tallahassee, FL	said by AnonShawUser: Right now, every provider in the nation, regardless of whether it's dialup or fiber, can claim they have "up to" 1gbps, full duplex to the home, on every connection. And it would be true. But they don't because it would be bad business sense. Nobody builds a business off of pissing off their customer's up front.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 11:45:27 ·
openbox9 join:2004-01-26 Alexandria, VA kudos:2	reply to yock said by yock: Other commodities are sold by weight. The volume of liquid in that soda can is measured meticulously........The idea here is to enforce some quality control on that "up to" language so that there is some required minimum to claim a certain speed. Be careful with what you're asking for. You might end up with an ISP connection that guarantees you 20 GB of xfer per month for your $49.99 (more may be available, but not guaranteed). People need to realize that you simply won't obtain a guaranteed ~~speed~~ bandwidth (the speed is just shy of the distance/time of light in a vacuum) given consumer prices. OTOH, guaranteeing bytes of data xfer per month, regardless of bandwidth available, is well within ISP's grasp for consumer connections, and more enforceable with a simple SLA. The hardcore users of BBR won't like that levy though
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 11:51:09 ·
AnonShawUser join:2006-06-17 Calgary, AB	reply to Maxo You've never heard of all those repeat scam artists, have you? They make a point of making outlandish claims, only to turn around and take the money and run. It's how they do their "business" and even if they're caught, they usually get away with it. And, when there's no other game in town, such a claim is likely to draw a lot of attention and a lot of hopeful customers, who end up paying through their teeth, to take it up their arse.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-02-12 12:00:59 ·

FTC to Crack Down on ISP Speed Promises? > What?