FCC Might Tackle 'Up To' Broadband Ad Language > Not always ISPs fault

Not always ISPs fault

Hey.. My main router runs on a Dual PIII@1GHz with 512MB of RAM.. Of course, it also runs Linux. I've even had an old PI@166MHz handling my 15mbps link just fine.

But yes, that's for routing traffic and being a file/web/proxy server. Actually viewing a recent web page would be a pain on anything lower than a PIII@1GHz. Most even require a decent P4 to minimally function due to the massive flash content.
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Bresnan 15M/1M
MyWS[P4HT@3.2GHz,2GB RAM,2x1TB HDDs,Win7]
WifeWS[P4HT@3GHz,2GB RAM,60GB HDD,Win7]
Router[2xP3@1GHz,512MB RAM,18GB HDD,SMC 8432BTA,2xDigital DE504,Compaq NC3131,Intel Pro/1000MT,IBM Gigabit Ethernet-SX,Allied Telesyn AT-2560FX,Gentoo Linux]

reply to BF69

reply to BF69
Nice, made up, figure. Any sources to support that claim?
I've been a customer for over 10 years and have often seen it be an over utilization issue - you know, since ISPs oversubscribe.

said by BF69

I would suspect 50%-80% of the people getting less than advertised speeds are to blame for their own problem. But hey it's easier to blame the ISP than to learn about how to properly enable your connection.
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reply to BF69
You have a point in that that performance is linked to the quality of the infrastructure at client level. That I can swallow. Its the cases where you have been provisioned at 8 MB/768 on a DSL line by the SALES team,and you get less than 1.2/300 max during non-peaked hours and you are running a home run directly from the NID to your modem. Support says with a straight face that they can't and won't provide anywhere near the speeds sales says to expect yet tell you in the same breath that you STILL have to pay the top tier pricing because that is what they charge you even if they can't provide it.
I have a quad-core AMD 940 with 4 GB memory and running Windows 7 professional and believe me I have NEVER gotten anywhere near the up to speeds that were presented to me . The ISPs for the most part are flat out lying to their customers on what they will actually see and will continue to pick our wallets while the FCC kisses their collective butts. The FCC knows where the money is coming from. The American consumer, if they want internet services ha one of two options pay more and more for less and less or no service. No US or local gov't agency is going to do crap to change that de- reality.

reply to Fox McCloud
I realize the oversubscribe model, which is why I noted it, and it serves as good counterpoint to the "50%-80%" of people with speed issues are not the ISPs fault argument. I grant there's likely many cases where it's not the ISP's fault (either the customer's equipment, the end destination, or a possible backbone issue), but that figure is quite high given the fact that we know ISPs are built on the oversubscribe model.

Bandwidth usage is not decreasing. If ISPs don't keep up, or wait until it's too late, customers will (and do) see speed issues.

Of course, we don't have to get into the debate about cost factor. It's pretty obvious that we lack behind other countries in regard to speed and sometimes cost.

reply to BF69
I work several trouble tickets a week where the customer claims they are not getting what they are paying for. It's rare that I find that they really are not getting what they are paying for. Most of the time the customer is complaining based on what some damn speed test told them. I won't accept any speed test as proof of a slow speed. It has to be a real transfer over a few minutes from an FTP server, Usenet, or they can connect to a server I have that is offnet running Jperf. 99% of the time it's an unsecured access point, an employee running a bittorrent client, or someone is watching movies on the clock.

reply to Turbocpe

reply to Turbocpe

reply to battleop
Yes sustained throughput is a great measure of the ability to deliver the service. How do you explain the ISP "No tech support" sending you to a "Speed test" site to validate your complaint? So you think that paying for an 8.0/768 line and getting 1.2/300 is getting what you pay for ? I always hear that line Its NEVER the ISP's fault it ALWAYS the dumb-a$$ customer. If the service provider would be upfront and tell it like it is; that you're not going to get more than 75-80% of your provisioned speed even under ideal circumstance. Things would be different and the public wouldn't be ragging on them. No, they bury the real story under disclaimers written in a font so small that many have a hard time reading it or not even broaching the subject. The ISP position is we'll give you what we feel like giving you when we feel like it. I want to make it clear that its typically not the front line people that make these decisions, they're the one's that have to deliver the owner/mgm'ts directives.

reply to David
I could make a list like that myself and make up some numbers. That's not proof. Where's the 50%-80% figure in there?

multiply that by as least 250 techs in this center alone, your 50 to 80% becomes justified really quick. If you want to go by inside and outside techs, I think at last check there's as least 20,000 of us. Assuming as least one call a day gets lost to any of the above 10 scenarios that's 20,000 calls a day, by 365 days a year you get 7.3 million calls a year (or 42% of 17 mil customers) for just tier 2 and tier 3 techs. I didn't even include tier 1 techs, which might easily raise that another 8 to 10% easy (again assuming common problems solved by tier 1 such as loose connections, power cycling modems, and the simple resolutions).

There's my numbers.

Here's another prime example of end user problems that they want to lay blame on the ISP. Again #10 in my list easily comes into play.

»[Xtreme] I Hereby Accuse AT&T Bellsouth of Throttlling Speed

Anyone in a helpdesk/IT support type of function would easily see 50-80% easy. Anyone not or has never served that role won't understand and of course "Blame the ISP".

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Koetting Ford, Granite City, illinois... YOU'RE FIRED!!

Oh. You work for an ISP. Makes sense.

You know the model is built on oversubscription and that bandwidth usage is not declining, but is instead increasing. Yeah, sure, 50%-80% of the problems are user-inflected issues/ Let's just all buy that figure that was pulled out of the ass. No one has provided a list of actual figures, just excuses.

You provide a list of reasons why customers can see slow speeds, due to non-ISP issues, but that doesn't tell us anything about percentage.

I've been here a bit longer than you, and I've gone through more than a few times of overcapacity issues from either DSL or cable. And so has many on this website. Of course this website doesn't represent the majority, but given we know that the model is built on oversubscription and the race ISPs have of offering the fastest speeds, at some of the time, overutilization can, and frequently does, happen.

reply to BF69
well to an extent you are correct, but to think it's 50% of all problems out there... sorry... I wouldn't buy that for $1.00 no matter how hard you tried to sell it. Now if you said 5-15% of the time for that $1.00 that I could buy.

So far for this year I have had only one over-utilized issue hit me. Last year I only tracked 5 total for the whole year.

It's getting even less by year as well, especially with Uverse and IP DSLAMS for ADSL2/2+ get introduced.
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If you have a topic in the direct forum please reply to it or a post of mine, I get a notification when you do this.
Koetting Ford, Granite City, illinois... YOU'RE FIRED!!

reply to BF69