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GOLFnSUN
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1 edit |  Old data and biased source - the CWA who hate telecom mgt
Much of the data is based on studies done in 2006 and even their most recent data is from over a year ago(May 2007). And the study is created by the Communications Workers of America who have a long run hate relationship with cable and telco because the companies have outsourced many of their jobs to non-union shops. So take the study for what it is worth - very little.
SpeedMatters is nothing but a sock puppet for the CWA.
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NetAdmin
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| said by GOLFnSUN  :So take the study for what it is worth - very little. Actually, the raw number data is actually worth something. It might be outdated, but it is, by far, the most comprehensive dataset out there for speeds in given areas. | |
iansltx
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| reply to GOLFnSUN
Agreed on the fact that the data is pretty old. The better hting to do would be to look up the results on Speedtest.net, where many, many more people are registering in fo access.
And yes, the comparison of a huge country like the US to anyone but Canada (and I'm not even sure about the Canada numbers they threw out) is like throwing Rhode Island in on the map speed-wise. You can easily wire GigE in big cities to everyone at a low cost, particularly if they're in a small coutry and that sort of thing. Whereas the US is a huge area to cover, with actually rural areas, that you don't find really anymore in Japan and Korea.
So yeah, it's biased. And the form-letter pages that they had for each state wre just plain annoying. But it does point out one thing: American broadband is slower than molasses in midwinter compared to a lot of places. | |
iansltx
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| reply to NetAdmin
Speedtest.net is more comprehensive...they've conducted about 9000X more tests than SpeedMatters.
Check out their national graphs. The US appears to be on top with a 5425 kb/s average for download and is second to the Bahamas (but not by a huge amount, just about 10%) with 936 kbps upload averages.
Of course, most of the people using SpeedTest have high speed connections...
Interesting how SOuth America's average speeds by country are more in line with the US's average speeds with the SPeedMatters test. That is to say, the top 10 countries ranged from 955-1484 on connection speeds. Uploads are 250-530. Ech. On the other hand, even 250 is good for my connection right now.
In Europe, the US wouldn't even make it into the top 10 onconnection speeds, but Sweden tops out at 8870 kbps down, 2956 kbps up. Still fast but not what they were claiming, Uploads in Europe's top 10 range from 1806 to 4529 kbps. Again, faster than any North American average. But North America has bigger countries.
Australia is fastest in that part of the world, with 4191 kbps down, 464 kbps up. IOW we shouldn't be complaining about our internet by those standards, right? They're also capped the heck out of over there :/
In Asia the lowest "top 10" country is superseded in speed by the highest one by a factor of about 10. Japan is 14777 kbps down, Korea is 6783. Not as smoking as you'd think but still respectable. These are real-world speeds, remember  Hong Kong is actually second place when it comes to uploads, but anyway Japan takes the cake at 6886 kbps, faster than the US's download average. Impressive. Korea is 3416 kbps on upload. Respectable, but not as crazy as you might see on the whitepaper these guys put out.
Africa is just sad, with speeds ranging from 535 to 1358 kbps...as their top 10! Uploads on the top 10 range from 185 to 314 kbps. See, we don't have it that bad 
Just sayin'. At any rate, check out speedtest.net for a more accurate picture of internet speeds by country, continent, state and city. These guys' results are sort of bunk. Especially since RCN's speeds on Speedtest.net exceed anything on Asia's top 10, ISP wise.
Heh, just sayin' | |
Rob_
@rcn.com
| reply to iansltx
Sorry there are multiple other countries with lower population densities than the US that have higher broadband speeds. (Checkout Norway) They have governments or state run companies that are pushing broadband forward as fast as they can. We are just plain dumb.
We get the worst of both worlds. No real competition and no organized approach to getting everybody broadband. Some places have 3 complete infrastructures (rich zipcodes) and some none (rural zipcodes). We would have been better off building one and leasing it to all takers.
Minimizing infrastructure duplication enable upgrades to be done quickly Three is not as bad as cellular that built 5 different wireless infrastructures and is still worse than all of Europe, Japan, Korea and many third world countries
(The US bought Analog, CDMA, GSM, TDMA and Nextel wireless infrastructures). At least with LTE, we may be done buying wireless infrastructures (if WiMax dies).
The best approach is build one infrastructure, upgrade it as often as you can and treat it like a national highway system open to all.
| |
NetAdmin
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| reply to iansltx
said by iansltx :At any rate, check out speedtest.net for a more accurate picture of internet speeds by country, continent, state and city. Their location data is suspect because they use GeoIP-like methods for guessing where a given host is located.
These guys' results are sort of bunk. Especially since RCN's speeds on Speedtest.net exceed anything on Asia's top 10, ISP wise. Speedtest users can shop servers, going from server to server getting the best results. So Speedtest.net is not even close to scientific or much better than the Speedmatters tests.
Most providers, including RCN, are nowhere near the speed of some of the other providers in other nations. | |
iansltx
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| reply to Rob_
Call me hypercapitalist but I don't want MY tax dollars paying for a system that may well fail, not be upgraded to support demand or supply, etc.
We've seen what has happened to muni wireless. The only "success story" cost taxpayers $5 million and serves only city employees. These employees could likely have been better served by a private entity...pay the entity $40 a month per wireless line and you give that company enough money tuo upgrade their infrastructure. With such a large customer, the wireless companies would compete and thus have a better network for everyone.
Last I checked, competition is good for the economy, and all that. The problem is that there is no competition, or very little int the internet market, not that there isn't a government-run network. I'd rather pay $50 a month for internet access to a private company than pay $55 a month extra in taxes to the government, who would then contract a private ompany to build a network. Uh, no thanks.
Also, the whole "one network" thing doesn't work. Fiber will only reach so far before the cost becomes prohibitive, or at least more prohibitive than a wireless setup. By the way, WiMax is here right now and LTE isn't, and WiMax can support 70 Mbps symmetric, so what's the big push to kill it off? LTE I'm sure can adapt their standard to be compatible...
If you want government-subsidized internet, move to a country that has it. Then realize that you're paying extra in taxes for this subsidy. Disconnect, anyone?
Though on a slightly different angle the government would do well to foster any competitors, especially small ones, that look to have a working product as far as 'net access goes, to keep the megacorps in check. Sort of like how Grande Communications provides cable competition in areas near (60 miles away or more) me.
Also, I have no problem with calling 768 kbps internet broadband. Everyone can agree that it's not great speed and all but you can watch online video, use VoIP and do gaming over such a conection, provided it has decent latency. Oh, and 256 kbps upload speed is broadband too, I'd say. Or if you want to be picky make it 384. Though everyone agrees that 200 kbps is NOT.
Another problem with the 2/1 broadband requirement is that it would mean a T1 connection isn't broadband. Which is a load of baloney.
Also, the US didn't buy ANY wireless infrastructures that you spoke of, Rob_. That was the wireless carriers. At the beginning of things there was actually one standard, AMPS. Then features were added and CDMA came out. GSM followed later and had more features, but at the same time CDMA got some upgrades. Now we're down to two networks. Sure they're incompatible, but so are cable and DSL. People can compete with proprietary technologies as long as those technologies allow access to the same types of (unfettered) service: voice, video and internet data.
So please by all means let the government come in and stir up competition by fostering new internet service providers opening up for inexpensive license wireless bands to take backhaul out of the hands of the LECs. But I don't want to pay extra taxes just so my internet *might* be faster.
Then again, I plan to solve the internet problem in my area, so I guess that's why I don't like armchair debate. | |
iansltx
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| reply to NetAdmin
Interesting, because they do a decent job of locating me: in the city I live near.
Also, shopping servers is fine. To get a true speed test result ou pick the server with the most capacity possible. I'm guessing that's why Speedtest.net doesn't put latency in the graphs
They also keep track of the IP doing the speed test, so they can do some normalization.
Additionally, is there really a better alternative than Speedtest.net's stats? Theirs is a TON more scientific than SpeedMatters. On the one hand you have 400+ million tests, and on the other 40,000, a number that isn't even statistically significant given the number of people using the internet in the US. Granted, Speedtest.net isn't US-only but I'm betting 100+ million of its results are. So yes, it is much mroe scientific to look at their results than Speedmatters'.
About RCN vs. other providers, I noticed when I looked at Europe that they had a lot of ISPs over there testing in the (real world) 40 Mbit range. That's cool. FiOS can do that too.
Responding to another post, Norway probably can't get ultra high speed access everywhere, and if it does, I'd hate to see how much is going from taxpayers' pockets to subsidize the access. | |
Dogfather
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Laguna Hills, CA | reply to NetAdmin
Comprehensively inaccurate. Their data testing methods are seriously flawed and data worthless. The testing results do not reflect reality. | |
NetAdmin
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| said by Dogfather :Comprehensively inaccurate. Their data testing methods are seriously flawed and data worthless. And you know this how? Do you have documentation or articles or anything that show how their data is "comprehensively inaccurate"?
The testing results do not reflect reality. I've learned that when people say that on this site, it means that the topic is question don't reflect reality as you see it. Unless they purposely fabricated data, those results are valid for the tests that were conducted. | |
NetAdmin
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| reply to iansltx
said by iansltx :Interesting, because they do a decent job of locating me: in the city I live near. And? The point is that the method used for getting that information does not accurately determine position - zip code, etc. IP location services that attempt to guess your location like that have serious issues. All of those services that guess your location based on IP do a decent job estimating your location, but they are nowhere near accurate enough to be relied upon for zip, street, etc. information.
Also, shopping servers is fine. To get a true speed test result ou pick the server with the most capacity possible. I'm guessing that's why Speedtest.net doesn't put latency in the graphs
They also keep track of the IP doing the speed test, so they can do some normalization. That would be fine if all the ISPs gave their customers static IPs... As it is, most do not just hand out statics to residential customers, including the one I work for, so normalization is useless.
Additionally, is there really a better alternative than Speedtest.net's stats? Theirs is a TON more scientific than SpeedMatters. Not even close. Neither is scientific. Speedmatters, however, controls their test servers. Speedtest does not control all of the servers used for speed testing.
On the one hand you have 400+ million tests, and on the other 40,000, a number that isn't even statistically significant given the number of people using the internet in the US. Granted, Speedtest.net isn't US-only but I'm betting 100+ million of its results are. So yes, it is much mroe scientific to look at their results than Speedmatters'. Sorry, more data does not necessarily mean better data, especially when no quality control is performed on that data.
Responding to another post, Norway probably can't get ultra high speed access everywhere, and if it does, I'd hate to see how much is going from taxpayers' pockets to subsidize the access. And that is different than the US how? I will say that, at least in countries like Norway, people are willing to invest tax money into infrastructure. I can think of a dozen or so infrastructure projects in this country that need to be funded but aren't for whatever reason (the money probably went to something stupid like tax breaks for some special group or a museum on the preparation of pigs' feet in BFE). | |
iansltx
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| Customers' IPs wouldn't change while they're shopping servers for a better result.
Also, I said *some* normalization, not *total* normalization.
About SpeedMatters, 300 Mbit to one server and 45 to the other are NOT enough to give accurate speed test results, particularly if the servers are only homed into one network, and I'm betting that the 45 Mbit server was. Compare this with places like Data393 where they have multi-gigabit links available and you'll see that Speedmatters will have an obvious bias to the lower end on speeds.
Also, if Speedmatters had only two servers for speed tests overall, versus a few dozen that speedtest.net has (through various providers) then if they had enough tests to get "accurate" results the servers woul be too overloaded to give accurate results.
Also, are you saying that no trends can be taken from 400 MILLION tests, a lot of which are in the US, and that Speedmatters' number of tests is valuable for trending information though the same number of tests is taken by Speedtest.net every 1.5 hours or so? I don't buy it.
How about using BBR's speed test results, does that work better for ya? | |
NetAdmin
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| said by iansltx :Customers' IPs wouldn't change while they're shopping servers for a better result. You are basing that statement on what? When an IP lease or PPPoE session expires, it expires.
About SpeedMatters, 300 Mbit to one server and 45 to the other are NOT enough to give accurate speed test results, particularly if the servers are only homed into one network, and I'm betting that the 45 Mbit server was. Considering you don't know the Speedmatters setup, trying to make arguments like this one is pointless.
Compare this with places like Data393 where they have multi-gigabit links available and you'll see that Speedmatters will have an obvious bias to the lower end on speeds. Actually, you can't make that assumption based on the information you have. There are far too many assumptions that have to be made.
Also, if Speedmatters had only two servers for speed tests overall, versus a few dozen that speedtest.net has (through various providers) then if they had enough tests to get "accurate" results the servers woul be too overloaded to give accurate results. How many is enough tests? You assume that you have to have enough tests that Speedmatters servers would be overloaded. Statistics says otherwise.
Also, are you saying that no trends can be taken from 400 MILLION tests, a lot of which are in the US, and that Speedmatters' number of tests is valuable for trending information though the same number of tests is taken by Speedtest.net every 1.5 hours or so? I don't buy it. You don't buy it because you don't know how to digest, process and interpret the data that is being present by either Speedmatters OR Speedtest.net. Neither dataset it very good, period. Trends can be taken, but because of the lack of control that Speedtest.net has over test servers, sites and the connectivity (there is no standard setup), their data has more issues. The Speedmatters setup is uniform and is less affected by site variability. If that concept escapes you, there is no reason to proceed since you've already made your mind up and won't change it, regardless of the data and reasons presented.
How about using BBR's speed test results, does that work better for ya? Even that data is suspect since the connectivity and setup for each server varies. | |
Dogfather
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4 edits | reply to NetAdmin
quote:
And you know this how? Do you have documentation or articles or anything that show how their data is "comprehensively inaccurate"?
Because I and many others here did testing there and the results were horribly inaccurate. Their speed claims are based on results from their own test servers.
quote:
I've learned that when people say that on this site, it means that the topic is question don't reflect reality as you see it. Unless they purposely fabricated data, those results are valid for the tests that were conducted.
Uh, no. There is only 1 reality. Their test was to find out the speed of those individual connections for the purpose of reporting average user speeds for these states. And if those numbers are low they indicated need for improvements in US broadband infrastructure.
But the singular reality was their results don't reflect the speed of those connections, only the speed at which their test servers were able to serve those connections. Quite 2 different things.
Then they applied THEIR speed test capacity to be the speed of those HSI subscribers lines. Their testing methods and server capacity doesn't allow for this translation.
For example, for me, they reported a DL speed of 10-15Mb. However I have 30Mb service and routinely get 30Mb service from other test sites (like those on speedtest.net). So in their report they would say that my speed is 15Mb, when it's certainly not.
Their testing methods were seriously flawed thus all the conclusions made from this erroneous data, bogus.
Their results indicate not a need for national infrastructure improvement, only a desperate need of improvement in their own server capacity.
I would also say it reflects a need for them to get educated in scientific method, particularly, observation, uncertainly and most importantly correlation from ANOTHER SOURCE OF DATA.
But alas, they aren't interested in actual research or reaching scientific truth. They're a biased propaganda outfit and pick and choose data to further that agenda. Unbiased sources like speedtest.net who have partner servers all over the world indicate the US is in a very favorable position in terms of average reported speed. | |
iansltx
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| reply to NetAdmin
Okay, here's the reason I won't take SpeedMatters' results, and this has been discussed at length in other posts: server overcrowding, such that an accurate speed test cannot be taken. Any connection faster than a few megabits is capped off artificially by the fact that the server can only handle a few hundred megabits of data pouring in at the same time...or 45 in the case of the west coast server.
Also, even if the SpeedMatters results WERE accurate, they were from a year-plus ago. I know my ISP has increased speeds by a third since then, as have a lot of other providers.
Go flame somewhere else. Maybe take a look at an XKCD comic or two. | |
iansltx
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| reply to NetAdmin
Oh, and Data393 DOES have multiple gigabits of connectivity to the internet. Their website says so. Seeing as how they're a colocation\server facility I wouldn't be one to doubt that. So no, that "assumption" is not borne out. On several occasions (using a college link) I've gotten 75 Mbit/s both ways on the Data393 Speedtest.net server, an order of manitude more than SpeedMatters would likely support. Don't worry though,Speedtest.net filters university results out of their equation when it comes t internet speeds. | |
NetAdmin
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| reply to iansltx
said by iansltx :Go flame somewhere else. Maybe take a look at an XKCD comic or two. Clearly you need to learn what a flame is...  | |
NetAdmin
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| reply to iansltx
said by iansltx :Oh, and Data393 DOES have multiple gigabits of connectivity to the internet. Their website says so. Seeing as how they're a colocation\server facility I wouldn't be one to doubt that. So no, that "assumption" is not borne out. Actually, yes there are still plenty of assumptions... What connectivity to their providers core network does the server have? What types of tweaks have been performed to Apache to improve performance that affect the validity of speedtests have been made? And those are just two you have to know before you can trust the reliability of the data you are presented with.
You can believe that the Speedtest.net tests are somehow more scientific or better than Speedmatters, but that is anything but true. The fact is, Speedtest.net data is based on non-uniform setups that aren't controlled by one group of people, ergo are not better than a server that may be overloaded. Period. | |
NetAdmin
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| reply to Dogfather
Because I and many others here did testing there and the results were horribly inaccurate. Their speed claims are based on results from their own test servers. Then, in reality, what your statement should be is not that it is "comprehensively inaccurate", simply that based on what you've seen, its results are suspect. You can't draw the conclusion of total inaccuracy from a few tests.
said by Dogfather :Then they applied THEIR speed test capacity to be the speed of those HSI subscribers lines. Their testing methods and server capacity doesn't allow for this translation. Actually, their testing method was a sound design, their execution was poor. They simply required more testing servers of a uniform setup, something that sites like Speedtest.net can not say they provide.
For example, for me, they reported a DL speed of 10-15Mb. However I have 30Mb service and routinely get 30Mb service from other test sites (like those on speedtest.net). So in their report they would say that my speed is 15Mb, when it's certainly not. And so you are going to trust the Speedtest.net because it gave you a better result, because basically that is your premise. What is interesting is that the Speedtest.net results I get from different sites vary so widely, that you can't trust the data they can give you (the aggregate performance numbers they provide).
On my 9Mbps/512kbp line, I got the following results from Speedtest sites:
From the server "closest" to me at a whopping 169ms:2286/540
From a server "further" away, but actually close: 9742/546
From a server near the second test: 3226/528
1511/483
3676/521
4844/514
Tell me again how Speedtest.net is more accurate? That's not even mentioning the variability of the results.
And then, here is the kicker, each of those results is going to be used by Speedtest.net to generate its numbers.
As well, there is no filtering of large corporate or University connections from the dataset, so that further poison's the data they provide. For example, look at:
»www.speedtest.net/global.php?con···ountry=1
I would also say it reflects a need for them to get educated in scientific method, particularly, observation, uncertainly and most importantly correlation from ANOTHER SOURCE OF DATA. There are not other sources of data that can be trusted to correlate their data to.
Understand, I'm not taking issue with your statement that their data can't be trust, what I am taking exception with is the method used by DSLR members to come to that conclusion and the belief that somehow Speedtest.net provides better data (which I've demostrated above, does not). Speedmatters basic design was sound - you have one setup so that testing conditions are uniform - however, they executed poorly, very poorly - the server should have located in one of the four or five major peering locations in the US. Additionally, I'm taking exception with the conclusion that their data sucks based on comparisons to even more problematic data, as provided by Speedtest.net. | |
Dogfather
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4 edits | said by NetAdmin :
And then, here is the kicker, each of those results is going to be used by Speedtest.net to generate its numbers.
WRONG! Read their FAQ. If that is what you thought, then I can see why you would have questioned it.
said by Speedtest.net :
How are global and country ranks calculated?
We first calculate where your download speed ranks, and then we do the same for upload. The overall rank is the average of the two. This is done at both the global and country levels. Only your best test scores are used for the ranking. Note that ranks done per IP address. So if you IP address changes, your rank will change as well. You can look at results for past IP addresses though to see the rank of each.
So Speedtest.net would have reported PERFECT accuracy in your case.
Your measured line speed of 9742/546 is more than your advertised speed of 9000/512 and likely close to your maximum throughput. And they do the same for me.
Then you may ask, what if you didn't do the 2nd test? Good question. Wish I had thought of it
said by Speedtest.net :
How are the Global Stats averages calculated?
We first calculate the 95th percentile speed in each direction for every unique IP address that has tested at Speedtest.net. These numbers are then averaged together for each geographic level (both overall and per ISP).
They only look at the top speeds of each IP, ISP, etc. to generate their max throughput data. They're mitigating errors by truncating the slowest results and by taking the 95th percentile, mitigate nonsense highest results. Not perfect, but the more samples they collect, the more accurate their maximum line speed data estimates (because in your case, more samples gave them the correct data). And they collect a LOT of samples, over 410 MILLION so far and it's increasing by more than 10 samples per second. Also of important note that you can look at subsets of all this calculated data if you weren't interested in "Global" averages. You can go all the way down to ISP data on a city basis levels if you want.
So you still think that the CWA methods are just as accurate and comprehensive as Speedtest.net's in collecting data about maximum line speeds? That would be utterly laughable.
--
The CWA uses flawed collection methods, flawed data, unsupported assumptions, compounded by flawed logic to draw the conclusion that US broadband sucks and someone needs to spend money (with them) to fix it. Their conclusions aren't worth the paper it's printed on. It is simply propaganda.
US broadband, much to the disappointment of the CWA, holds it own when compared to other nations.
The only thing the CWA showed is that they're idiots when it comes to scientific method and that their test servers suck ass. | |
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