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FCC Still Looking For Home Speed Test Volunteers

Provide Custom Wireless Router For Network Testing

by Karl Bode Monday 20-Feb-2012 tags: fcc · business · wireless · hardware · bandwidth · wireless

Starting in April of last year, the FCC partnered with UK testing firm SamKnows with the goal of getting more accurate ISP performance data. That process has included giving out routers with customized firmware more than 9,000 (so far) volunteers who have signed up at the Test My ISP website to have their connections monitored. The data has not only informed policy making, but it has allowed the FCC to highlight which ISPs have failed to deliver advertised speeds during peak usage hours, resulting in at least one doing something about it. An FCC public notice (pdf) states the agency is still looking for volunteers and expanding some of the monitoring done; if you're interested head here.

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FCC Still Looking For Home Speed Test Volunteers

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CableConvert Premium join:2003-12-05 Atlanta, GA	Head Here Although it might be a typo...you really should know that this uses VAST amounts of data on your connection, and with data caps, it would not be very hard to hit them. I was participating and the testing added about 100gigs per month to my totals. So if you actually USE you connection...be warned.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 11:33:02 · ·

DrDrew

join:2009-01-28
Apple Valley, CA
kudos:6

1 edit

Re: Head Here

said by CableConvert:

Although it might be a typo...you really should know that this uses VAST amounts of data on your connection, and with data caps, it would not be very hard to hit them. I was participating and the testing added about 100gigs per month to my totals. So if you actually USE you connection...be warned.

If you contact their support they will reduce the amount of data used during the testing:
»Re: Samknows Netgear router bandwidth usage?
»www.testmyisp.com/faq.html#faq-14
--
If it's important, back it up... twice. Even 99.999% availability isn't enough sometimes.

permalink · 2012-02-20 11:34:05 · Print ·

commbunch

join:2007-06-25
Cypress, TX

Wow. 100G just for the test. Something doesn't seem right? I have one of the routers from them too for the last year or so. Comcast claims I typically use about 150 GB total. This is with tons of video, downloads, and I also have Netflix going all the time. I am pretty sure most of my "usage" is from my actual usage and not this router.

BTW. I have found with Comcast that I generally get a consistent speed about 2-5 % faster than what I ordered, upload and Download and all the rated factors are typically (99 % of the time) are excellent in my area.

permalink · 2012-02-20 11:46:31 · Print ·

Romney2012
Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe in
Premium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4

said by CableConvert:

I'll stick with the FCC speedtest site and their Android and iOS apps to contribute to collecting broadband data. I don't want a TP-Link cheapo router on my system, which is what they give out.

»www.broadband.gov/qualitytest/
»market.android.com/details?id=co···roadband
»itunes.apple.com/us/app/fcc-mobi···507?mt=8

P.S.>> And I agree that with caps on data, I don't need or want it being sucked up by automated processes to provide data to the FCC they can easily buy from Ookla.
--
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
»www.politico.com/2012-election/

permalink · 2012-02-20 11:51:55 · Print ·

Romney2012
Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe in
Premium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4

Re: Head Here

The original SamKnows box was a pass thru bridge with collection firmware. The new one is a wireless router to replace whatever you are using now.
»www.testmyisp.com/installation.html

»www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBlCDupot3I

permalink · 2012-02-20 12:29:34 · Print ·

Chubbysumo

join:2009-12-01
Superior, WI

Reviews:

·Charter

said by Romney2012:

said by CableConvert:

I got a netgear WNR3700 with the custom firmware on it. Its more of a "what do we have on hand, and what can we get deals with right now" kind of thing im sure. They use what they have, and the TPlink routers dont even have 1gig ports(all have 100mbps ports), and they dont do well with thruput either, so it could also be based on network speeds. The WNR3700 has 5 1gig network wired ports, with a 5GBPS switching fabric, and wireless N, so, im not complaining. I got a $150 router for free, and they will probably never want it back.

permalink · 2012-02-20 12:47:23 · Print ·

JRW2 R.I.P. Mom, Brian, Ziggy, Max and Zen. Premium join:2004-12-20 La La Land kudos:5 Reviews: ·Optimum Online	Re: Head Here said by Chubbysumo: I got a $150 router for free, and they will probably never want it back. They don't want it back, that was the deal you made with them, when the testing is over, you get to keep the router. -- Politics is a disease, we need a cure! In constant search for intelligent life on Earth!
	permalink · 2012-02-20 15:29:19 · ·

majortom1029 join:2006-10-19 Lindenhurst, NY kudos:1	How did you get a wnr700 from them? I only have a wnr3500l from them . I even asked if they have new ones for the US and they stated no.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 15:37:46 · ·

Chubbysumo

join:2009-12-01
Superior, WI

Reviews:

·Charter

Re: Head Here

said by majortom1029:

How did you get a wnr700 from them? I only have a wnr3500l from them . I even asked if they have new ones for the US and they stated no.

its what was sent to me. I was told over the phone that I would be getting the 3500l, but it turned out to be a 3700. When I called and asked, they just told me that netgear ran out of the 3500s, and they just shipped the firmware into the 3700s while the supplies of the 3500s were replaced. im not complaining, its a nice router.

permalink · 2012-02-20 17:14:16 · Print ·

FBGuy yippee ki yay Premium join:2005-03-19	If you look hard enough you can find ddwrt for any samknows router.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 18:01:35 · ·

Chubbysumo join:2009-12-01 Superior, WI Reviews: ·Charter	Re: Head Here said by FBGuy: If you look hard enough you can find ddwrt for any samknows router. oh yes, but part of the agreement was that you would not change the firmware at all while the testing is going on for the forseeable future.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 18:08:57 · ·

FBGuy yippee ki yay Premium join:2005-03-19	Re: Head Here That is true. I'm just giving you a heads up.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 18:11:27 · ·

Chubbysumo join:2009-12-01 Superior, WI Reviews: ·Charter	Re: Head Here said by FBGuy: That is true. I'm just giving you a heads up. actually, when they are done collecting data, I intend to flash it back to the stock 3700 firmware, because its an overall great router, even with stock firmware, and then maybe I will dabble with DDWRT again.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 18:35:36 · ·

Mele20 Premium join:2001-06-05 Hilo, HI kudos:4	said by FBGuy: If you look hard enough you can find ddwrt for any samknows router. You don't have to look hard. SK will tell if you don't know already. But putting ddwrt on there two-three years from now when SK tests are over will not make that Netgear into a decent router. -- When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson
	permalink · 2012-02-21 05:53:02 · Print · ·

FBGuy yippee ki yay Premium join:2005-03-19	Re: Head Here you may want to check the specs again, it is a very capable router for any home network.
	permalink · 2012-02-21 08:42:13 · ·

Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
kudos:4

Re: Head Here

It won't let me set the lease time! It is worthless to me if it won't do that. All Linksy routers have the feature. Why not the Netgears? Who wants a 12 hour lease time? Your computer spends all its time trying to renew the lease when it is only 12 hours. I have a ONE WEEK lease time on the Linksy and could have a one month or a year if I wanted.

Besides, the Netgear hates Opera. It doesn't much like Fx either. It is designed to work only (for settings) with IE which I never use. It crashes all the time on Opera. I've read a lot about Netgear. They are the lowest rated of the router makers. I think the FCC struck the deal with Netgear ONLY because they submitted the lowest bid.
--
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

permalink · 2012-02-21 08:51:25 · Print ·

FBGuy yippee ki yay Premium join:2005-03-19 Reviews: ·Comcast ·T-Mobile US ·AT&T U-Verse	Re: Head Here umm, what? »www.google.com/products/catalog?···MQ8wIwAg »www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-RangeMax-···points=1 those reviews looks pretty good to me.
	permalink · 2012-02-21 13:15:15 · Print · ·

DrDrew

join:2009-01-28
Apple Valley, CA
kudos:6

4 edits

Re: Head Here

said by FBGuy:

umm, what?

»www.google.com/products/catalog?···MQ8wIwAg

»www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-RangeMax-···points=1

those reviews looks pretty good to me.

Ignore Mele20, she's thread crapping again with her personal network and browser problems. She needs to set the lease time long because she won't fix her other computer problems or learn how to setup static IPs. Her browser/proxy/cookie config keeps causing web pages not to display properly, in which case she'll usually proclaim it's "an IE only" site.

The Netgear router is pretty good, even better running Tomato or DDWRT, especially compared to something like a Linksys BEFSR41v3, but the stock or Samknows firmware is ok too. Any which way it works fine with Firefox and Opera. It's far from IE only.
--
If it's important, back it up... twice. Even 99.999% availability isn't enough sometimes.

permalink · 2012-02-21 13:24:53 · Print ·

Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
kudos:4

What reviews? That first link TRACKS me. I should never have clicked on it. It is not a review of the router. It is Google store, looks like, that is selling them. (I would never use Google store).

The second link is to another site that tracks you. I avoid Amazon if not absolutely necessary. But, I concede that they have user reviews that can be useful. However, where are links to professional reviews of the router?

Only Linksy routers let you set the lease time. I refuse to use only a 12 hour DHCP lease which is what my ISP issues. I don't want Event Viewer full of 1000's of errors because the computer cannot renew the DHCP lease. When you set a much longer lease time in your router then that avoids the constant DHCP lease errors that you get if the lease time is only 12 hours.

Besides the refusal of the Netgear router to let me set the DHCP lease time to what I want, I can't use it (at least not with the SK firmware from last year) to open its settings on Opera or Firefox or SeaMonkey. It only works on my ancient IE6. Maybe SK fixed that with some firmware update, I don't know. As soon as I saw how bad the settings are in the Netgear (no way to set DHCP lease time), I flashed it to bridge mode so I could use my Linksy router. Then SK told us there was a new firmware version, which I got, which caused the Netgear to crash. At that point, SK said they were experimenting with the TP-Links and would send me one already in bridged mode. So, I don't know if SK made improvements so that the Netgear would work on browsers other than IE (for accessing and changing settings but I do know that SK dashboard site STILL does not work properly on any browser except IE).

But the TP-Link is not sending data now. I think this program was doomed from before it started because of SK forcing use of a router other than the one the user already has to do these tests. There should have been some other way of doing the tests that would not require some router the user doesn't want or require bridged mode for the SK router so the user could continue using their preferred router. At the very least, SK should have been able to send me a Linksy router that could do these tests since Linksy is the brand I use and prefer.
--
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

permalink · 2012-02-21 20:32:29 · Print ·

PittsPgh Premium join:2003-08-21 Pittsburgh, PA kudos:1	Re: Head Here Simmer down now, simmer nown
	permalink · 2012-02-22 02:10:33 · ·

FBGuy
yippee ki yay
Premium
join:2005-03-19

Reviews:

·Comcast

·T-Mobile US

·AT&T U-Verse

What does setting the DHCP lease time have anything to do with how great the router is? ultimately you don't have to use the DHCP server built into the router. You can run your own if you need that level of control on your network.

And as far as those links "tracking" you, I think you are missing the point of why they track you. Any commercial store that sells you goods or merchandise tracks you in one way or another. Online stores just tend to do a more complete job of tracking users. Do a little research on consumer metrics and what they are used for in commerce.

You are being a bit paranoid over something you will never have control over.

permalink · 2012-02-22 08:47:13 · Print ·

Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
kudos:4

Re: Head Here

Why would I want to go to the trouble of running my own DHCP server when all Linksy routers have the feature I need? You are not making sense.

I avoid Google. I have never looked at Google store until your link. Yes, Google tracks EVERYONE whether or not they have ever bought anything from them. Their business is to spy on users. I avoid them.

Amazon should not track me either. I have bought from them ONE TIME in the 13 years I have had a computer (it was my Linksy router back in 2003). If I had a BUSINESS relationship with Amazon and was logged into Amazon then, yes, I can see them tracking me. But I can't login to Amazon even if I wished. Their image server uses GoDaddy cert and I have GoDaddy disabled in Fx. Fx cannot handle properly letting me make an exception for the GoDaddy cert for the Amazon image server because Amazon ALSO uses Verisign as their main cert. The GoDaddy cert I never get a chance to tell Fx to allow it because of the crazy mismatch of certs there. So, I can't login if I wanted to. Opera has the same problem there although I think I can work around it in Opera if I ever want to login to Amazon. Anyhow, I see no reason why Amazon should track me when I am not logged in but they do. Amazon tracks across MANY, MANY websites even when you are not logged in. Just run Collusion to see.
--
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

permalink · 2012-02-22 20:09:46 · Print ·

FBGuy yippee ki yay Premium join:2005-03-19 Reviews: ·Comcast ·T-Mobile US ·AT&T U-Verse	Re: Head Here Please do the world a favor and don't complain when you cannot get things to work on the Internet. Your very paranoia prevents things from working. You have every right to not want to do business with these companies, but they also have every right to not do business with you. out of sheer curiousity, what do you mean by "Collusion"? I have never heard of that software.
	permalink · 2012-02-23 00:03:07 · ·

Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
kudos:4

Re: Head Here

You do the world a favor please and stop complaining about my not liking Netgear routers.

How you leaped from Netgear routers not having the basic ability to set the DHCP lease time to my complaining about how I "cannot get things to work on the internet" is a gigantic leap of nonsense on your part. The result is drivel from you that I am sure the world would rather not have to endure.

»Collusion: Realtime tracking visualization for Fx users
--
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

permalink · 2012-02-23 01:08:41 · Print ·

TheRogueX join:2003-03-26 Springfield, MO Reviews: ·Mediacom	Aww, all I got was a WNR3500L. I feel sad now. :P In all actuality, it's been one of the best routers I've ever used. I haven't had to reboot it in... wow... over a year. And it has 5 gigabit ethernet ports on it, so I'm very happy with it.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 20:23:56 · ·

Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
kudos:4

SK and FCC agreed on a crappy NetGear router. As far as I know, I am the only participant on the panel in the USA who has a TP-Link. That is what I was told by the SK person who would know (not a lowly tech there).

They use TP-Link in European tests but I know that when I was sent the TP-Link back last summer, I was the first, and only, USA participant to have one as SK didn't even have any to send except one laying around their office which they sent me with no power supply as they had only power supply for UK so I used the NetGear's power supply. By now, maybe they have sent some to a few other USA testers, but the official router for USA testing is the Netgear.

The beauty of the TP-Link is that it is plug and play and is in permanent bridge mode so it doesn't mess with your own router or conflict, etc. You don't have to flash the firmware to bridged like you do with the Netgear, you don't have to fight with that awful Netgear hating Opera, etc. The TP-Link does have a problem with two tests that it stopped doing, but besides that it is a far better solution than the Netgear because it works far better with your router than the Netgear in bridged mode.

TWC has NO caps on data so what does that have do with the tests using data?

As for Ookla providing the data, I gather you are unaware of the fact that the SK tests are THE ONLY ACCURATE TESTS OUT THERE REGARDING DOWNLOAD SPEEDS ON TWC. For any tester who has an ISP that that has that horrible PowerBoost crap ALL speed tests are worthless junk EXCEPT SK's and OOL's FTP test. SK is the only speed testing that has bothered to figure out how to filter out the Power Boost crap so that you get the result with and without Powerboost. Thus, you can see your REAL download speed and what effect Powerboost has on it. Ookala claims my speed is 25mbps down....yeah, really. I am capped at 10mbps down. SK shows my speed as 9.89mbps down sustained and 22.485mbps down with PowerBoost. This ability to see my real speed alone is worth being a tester.

Also, I LIKE that the tests are run hourly and a bunch of them. I want to see how my ISP does during prime usage time as opposed to 1AM or 10AM. I own Visualware's MySpeed and before the horrible Powerboost crap on TWC, I routinely ran a speed test to Visualware's San Jose server every 10 minutes 24/7 for days or weeks at a time. The tests didn't affect anything else I did on the computer and gave me ammunition when I needed to complain to Oceanic TWC about poor speeds especially at certain hours. I would though prefer to see the tests run not only from the perimeter of Oceanic's network but also from further out on the net. SK adds new tests and I am hoping this will be one of them.
--
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

permalink · 2012-02-21 05:25:58 · Print ·

SlashG42

join:2002-02-13
Metairie, LA

Reviews:

·Cox HSI

1 edit

Mine uses consistently 13-20GB per month. That's on a roughly 28/3 connection. I've never seen it use more than 25GB.

The box has worked fine for a little over a year.

The Samknows dashboard is very neat, with all sorts of graphs for upstream, downstream, and ping by times. You can view by day or by daily averages by the hour. The only big change in the graphs was when I went from a D2 to a D3 modem. Same plan, just less jitter.

permalink · 2012-02-20 12:14:11 ·

Romney2012
Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe in
Premium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4

said by CableConvert:

Here is a FAQ that talks about how much data is used:

»www.testmyisp.com/faq.html#faq-23

What effect will this have on my monthly download cap?
Our units involved in the FCC project transfer a large amount of data, which varies according to the speed of your connection. The usage on a 10Mbps connection will be around 20GB/month, and will likely be around 60GB on a 50Mbps connection. The amount that's downloaded is speed dependant (so a slower connection will use less traffic than a faster connection).

--
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
»www.politico.com/2012-election/

permalink · 2012-02-20 12:35:30 · Print ·

pnh102 Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty Premium join:2002-05-02 Mount Airy, MD	What Fool Would Do This? Yes, that's the ticket. Give the government a box which tells them which sites you visit, how long you go there, who you log in as, and pretty much every other bit of potentially incriminating information you can. What could possibly go wrong? -- "Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 11:40:06 · ·

Chubbysumo join:2009-12-01 Superior, WI	Re: What Fool Would Do This? again, you are just fear mongering. It does not track what web sites you go to, it only performs a few speedtests and jitter tests per hour, and thats all, otherwise, its an ordinary router.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 12:42:26 · ·

pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD

Re: What Fool Would Do This?

said by Chubbysumo:

again, you are just fear mongering. It does not track what web sites you go to, it only performs a few speedtests and jitter tests per hour, and thats all, otherwise, its an ordinary router.

Do you really trust the government to not do anything bad with this information? This is like consenting to a police search. Anything they find, even if you think it is innocuous, will be self-incriminating.
--
"Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service.

permalink · 2012-02-20 12:56:08 · Print ·

Chubbysumo

join:2009-12-01
Superior, WI

Reviews:

·Charter

Re: What Fool Would Do This?

said by pnh102:

said by Chubbysumo:

again, you are just fear mongering. It does not track what web sites you go to, it only performs a few speedtests and jitter tests per hour, and thats all, otherwise, its an ordinary router.

to quote myself on another post, I pulled the firmware and looked at it to see what else it could do. Lo, and behold, it just runs a few speedtests to designated servers(there is a list, and it goes by which one is closest to a reverse DNS lookup), and it can do no more. Aside from that little speedtest/jitter/DNS test/and a few other tests, it can do nothing more than that, and its an ordinary router.

permalink · 2012-02-20 13:00:18 · Print ·

battleop join:2005-09-28 00000	Re: What Fool Would Do This? You examined the source code? I didn't know this was an open source project.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 13:21:54 · ·

Chubbysumo

join:2009-12-01
Superior, WI

Reviews:

·Charter

1 edit

Re: What Fool Would Do This?

said by battleop:

You examined the source code? I didn't know this was an open source project.

it does not stop me from ripping the firmware off the modem and looking into what it actually does in a simulated environment, or actually looking at the code...
Also, i took the hard route apparently, by ripping it right from the router, but »files.samknows.com/~gpl/ has the source code posted for their tests and their firmwares.

Edit: i cant spell i guess.

permalink · 2012-02-20 13:52:51 · Print ·

FBGuy yippee ki yay Premium join:2005-03-19	Re: What Fool Would Do This? I actually took mine to my networking class and we completely dissected the thing. It does not collect any data and send it to the government. It only does exactly as it says it does. It runs speed tests. Nothing more.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 18:03:47 · ·

lostinms Moo join:2001-11-29 Grenada, MS	The routers are open source type routers so there is no harm in looking at the source code.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 16:28:55 · ·

AndyDufresne
Premium
join:2010-10-30

Stop with the tin foil craziness. It does not collect that much information.

I have the netgear router they provide and tell you the truth it does give you a nice monthly report on your connection. It looks to have put a fire under Cablevision to improve their prime time performance. I can only hope it does the same for Windstream since the monthly report clearly shows WS lacking in performance during prime time(6-11).

permalink · 2012-02-20 12:42:39 ·

See 8 replies to this post

Alex J @sunwave.com.br	Hate to break it to you champ, but that's already happening on about fifty different levels, from the network (AT&T/NSA) to your pocket (Apple/Google/Microsoft). The FCC can barely run their own website. International surveillance is a little above their pay grade.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 12:43:15 · ·

FBGuy yippee ki yay Premium join:2005-03-19	Re: What Fool Would Do This? That would be the easier method of collecting data.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 18:06:03 · ·

Oh_No
Trogglus normalus

join:2011-05-21
Chicago, IL

said by pnh102:

Yes, that's the ticket. Give the government a box which tells them which sites you visit, how long you go there, who you log in as, and pretty much every other bit of potentially incriminating information you can.

What could possibly go wrong?

The NSA has fiber splitters on all backbones.
They get a copy of everything going through the US.
They already can track you 100% if they want to.

permalink · 2012-02-20 13:05:49 · Print ·

pnh102 Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty Premium join:2002-05-02 Mount Airy, MD	Re: What Fool Would Do This? said by Oh_No: The NSA has fiber splitters on all backbones. They get a copy of everything going through the US. They already can track you 100% if they want to. So why help. -- "Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 13:53:56 · ·

FBGuy yippee ki yay Premium join:2005-03-19	Re: What Fool Would Do This? The gubmint doesn't need any more help. They can get everything they need at backbones or regional pops. It makes no sense to track what people are doing at their homes. The costs alone would make it unfeasible.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 18:07:42 · ·

N3OGH
Yo Soy Col. "Bat" Guano
Premium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
kudos:1

Meh. I haven't signed up for it, just sounds like a pain in the aers fitting it into my network & all (Fios with the supplied Actiontech router).

I'm a pretty privacy driven person (for the most part, my user name does reveal my real name & address with a google search, but that is by design).

But realistically, the government is looking at anything and everything that hits the net any more. To think otherwise is nieve.

So if Uncle Sam wants to know I'm checking out the score for the last Flyers game, downloading "AM Gold" from iTunes, or watching Hitler Downfall parody videos on You Tube, they can have at it.

Oh, and the honey badger video. Honey badger don't care, honey badger doesn't give a shit. LOL....
--
Petty people are disproportionally corrupted by petty power

permalink · 2012-02-20 14:23:28 · Print ·

Simba7 I Void Warranties join:2003-03-24 Billings, MT	Wow.. Paranoid, much? Hate to break it to you, but if they really wanted to monitor you, they'd already be doing it. Unless you triple-pass AES-256 encrypt your stream to an out-of-country VPN that doesn't monitor (or care about) anything you do.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 15:08:35 · ·

pnh102 Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty Premium join:2002-05-02 Mount Airy, MD	Re: What Fool Would Do This? said by Simba7: Hate to break it to you, but if they really wanted to monitor you, they'd already be doing it. I'm sure if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about. Pass. -- "Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 16:06:50 · ·

NWOhio join:2011-10-25 Toledo, OH	Re: What Fool Would Do This? if you are so worried about being watched why are you on the internet? and probably own a cell phone? Let alone have basic utilities; gas, electric, etc? They can tell by your electric bill with the power company if you're growing weed.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 16:23:47 · ·

pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD

Re: What Fool Would Do This?

said by NWOhio:

if you are so worried about being watched why are you on the internet? and probably own a cell phone? Let alone have basic utilities; gas, electric, etc? They can tell by your electric bill with the power company if you're growing weed.

I know that just about everything online is tracked. My question regarding this device is "why help them?"
--
"Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service.

permalink · 2012-02-20 16:40:58 · Print ·

shortckt
Watchen Das Blinken Lights
Premium
join:2000-12-05
Tenant Hell

said by pnh102:

So put an ethernet switch* on your connection and assign a second global IP to their router. Let it do it's speed tests, but all of your traffic still goes thru your old router. IMO as many of these boxes as they have put into users hands over the past year, at least a few would have ended up with folks who know how to sniff and trace packets... yet there's nothing on the 'net about these boxes spying, redirecting, keylogging, etc.

Oh wait... I forgot the suits also "paid a visit" to those users homes to "encourage" them to leave the box alone. [/s]

*PS: I realize the FCC router won't be able to detect your traffic and may perform a test and eat bandwidth while you are using your connection, but that's a choice.

permalink · 2012-02-20 17:43:17 · Print ·

tstolze
Premium
join:2003-08-08
O Fallon, MO
kudos:1

Reviews:

·CenturyLink

·Charter

Slow/No router replacement

I was having issues with my router for some time, made sure the firmware was updated, it was requiring 1-2 reboots/week. I tried for 2 months to get a replacement, one email claimed it would take 6 weeks for a replacement, when I complained they said one would be shipped that week(end of December). I am still waiting, I removed the router from service over 4 weeks ago and have heard nothing from Samknows.
--
Ofallon, Mo Weather
St. Peters, Mo Weather

permalink · 2012-02-20 12:12:50 · Print ·

Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
kudos:4

Re: Slow/No router replacement

Gee, I had problems with the NetGear router and I had a TP-Link sent by NEXT DAY FedX from England. It literally got from England to my Hawaiian island in 24 hours.

But I do agree that it is difficult to get SK's attention via email. You either need to get their attention here in a thread (they participate sometimes in threads on SK here and read all of them) as I did or reply to any of their employees that you have emails from. Just sending a new email to them tends to get overlooked.
--
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

permalink · 2012-02-21 04:46:22 · Print ·

baineschile 2600 ways to live Premium join:2008-05-10 Sterling Heights, MI	Um, No Thanks Government tracking my every move on the internet....is this a Phillip Dick novel!?!?!?
	permalink · 2012-02-20 12:15:19 · ·

Chubbysumo

join:2009-12-01
Superior, WI

Reviews:

·Charter

Re: Um, No Thanks

wow, paranoid arent we. FYI, the router does a speed test a few times per day to a Samknows server in the US that is closest to you. It does not track your website visits, and aside from the speed and latencey and a few other tests it performs as much as 5 times per hour(yup, i pulled the firmware to check and see exactly what its doing, and there is no web tracking capabilities), it cannot track what websites you visit. Now, the google black box on the otherhand...

permalink · 2012-02-20 12:41:20 ·

Simba7 I Void Warranties join:2003-03-24 Billings, MT	Not another one. Like I said, if the government wanted to track you, they'd already be doing it.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 15:09:52 · ·

firephoto
KDE
Premium
join:2003-03-18
Brewster, WA

Reviews:

·Frontier Communi..

ISP involvement

Some ISPs are sending out emails to customers asking if they want to participate in the SamKnows program. This doesn't seem like a very good way to get proper statistics if only the customers with good connections got picked by the ISP. It also isn't surprising since the ISP is the #1 thing and that customer thing is just a variable commodity.

I've had a SamKnows router for a year now on an always slow Frontier DSL connection that never sees any changes for the better. It's probably expected when the execs likely spend more time figuring out the scrap prices of the copper hanging on the poles than working out a plan for upgrades.
--
Say no to JAMS!

permalink · 2012-02-20 12:21:13 · Print ·

Oh_No Trogglus normalus join:2011-05-21 Chicago, IL	Re: ISP involvement I am suprised every ISP has not detected and configured for optimal routing for any of these routers to cheat.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 13:08:26 · ·

michieru Premium join:2009-07-25 Miami, FL	Re: ISP involvement Probably done on the network end, so you don't know about it. Keeping thing's in-house is a safe bet.
	permalink · 2012-02-20 13:39:20 · ·

Chubbysumo

join:2009-12-01
Superior, WI

Reviews:

·Charter

Been on it for a year already

and I can see the general decline in the speed of my connection from 100mbps on down to about an average of 80mbps now as more people get on it. I got a nicer router than the TPlink ones that were going around(dont even have 1gig wired ports). I got a netgear WNR3700 with the samknows firmware(never has an upgrade, and hasnt for about a 8 months). With just leaving it, it will use about 1GB per day in just speed tests, which isnt bad on a 100mbps line. On average, I use over 2TB total per month, and they have never complained(samknows and charter). I wish I could get a slightly newer, dual band version of the router, but i dont think its gonna happen.

permalink · 2012-02-20 12:39:02 · Print ·

Packeteers Premium join:2005-06-18 Forest Hills, NY kudos:1	twcable blocks this i had to use a proxy to see the testmyisp websight. obviously, twcable is not too thrilled with this idea
	permalink · 2012-02-20 14:18:55 · ·

See 6 replies to this post

ISurfTooMuch join:2007-04-23 Tuscaloosa, AL	What about performance degradation? Has anyone who's using this noticed a performance degradation on their connection, or is it smart enough to stop running tests when you're actually using your connection?
	permalink · 2012-02-20 14:25:27 · ·

Chubbysumo

join:2009-12-01
Superior, WI

Reviews:

·Charter

Re: What about performance degradation?

said by ISurfTooMuch:

Has anyone who's using this noticed a performance degradation on their connection, or is it smart enough to stop running tests when you're actually using your connection?

I have not had a single issue. The only problem is that if it has started a speedtest, it will finish them, so, you may notice a slow down there, but its not for long.

permalink · 2012-02-20 17:18:35 · Print ·

Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
kudos:4

said by ISurfTooMuch:

Has anyone who's using this noticed a performance degradation on their connection, or is it smart enough to stop running tests when you're actually using your connection?

It is scheduled on mine to run the hourly tests at 43 minutes after the hour but it will delay them if I am using the connection for something the tests could interfere with. No interference with ordinary web surfing.
--
When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

permalink · 2012-02-21 05:39:25 · Print ·

thedragonmas

join:2007-12-28
Albany, GA

the firmware stinks

the firmware stinks, ive had problems ever since i got it. sure mine may be unique issues to my setup but, a few examples.

log email - no way to change outgoing port
log email - no/wrong timestamp in header, causes it to be marked as spam EVERY time by isp mail server

QOS - no way to limit downstream throughput

that is just a few, i heard a rumor they where working with the folks that make DDWRT but that apparantly fell through, hell they could have tryd tomato.

the firmware they have works fine for point and click "average users" but lets face it, its not the average user they targeted.

permalink · 2012-02-20 14:36:00 · Print ·

Chubbysumo

join:2009-12-01
Superior, WI

Reviews:

·Charter

Re: the firmware stinks

said by thedragonmas:

You should not be using the router to change the outgoing port for your email, that should be done by either port forwarding or UPnP, and your email client of choice. I have Outlook on my desktop and have no issues with email, i let outlook set it up with UPnP, and proper port forwarding, and its never been an issue. Maybe your ISP is causing it? Also, the QoS on the downstream is a router by router feature. My old router didnt have it, but this samknows one does. Also, why would you want to QoS your downstream? your ISP will do that for you, and as far as the changes to the firmware goes, basically, all they did was add a small program that runs the speedtests, and left the rest of the routers firmware intact, so if it was not in the routers options before(the 3500l does not have DS QoS, but has US QoS by default, after a google), it would not be in the options after. My 3700 has both US and DS QoS, tho, I would never use it because my ISP does that for me. It also has a handy traffic meter that counts the routers speedtests as well as the rest of your traffic.

permalink · 2012-02-20 17:22:48 · Print ·

thedragonmas

join:2007-12-28
Albany, GA

Re: the firmware stinks

im sorry, you misunderstand, log email, not my system email. the router has the ability to email the routers logs to you via its own firmware.

as for why i would want to limit, maybe i dont want one device on my network taking up all my bandwidth, how is my ISP going to limit that? they cant or maybe i want to prioritise one device on my network to get 80% of my download any time it wants it. QOS on my old microsoft wireless B router had it, QOS on my wrt54gl running tomato had it.. there really is no reason it shouldnt have it.

and, having UPnP enabled is just flat out a bad idea. first thing i did was disable UPnP on this thing, the logs was FULL of junk related to it.

permalink · 2012-02-22 00:38:17 · Print ·

Chubbysumo

join:2009-12-01
Superior, WI

Reviews:

·Charter

Re: the firmware stinks

said by thedragonmas:

im sorry, you misunderstand, log email, not my system email. the router has the ability to email the routers logs to you via its own firmware.

I tried this on mine, and it did not work either. Its being blocked by charter, because it sends it out on the default mail port, which is what spam generating drones do, which is completely normal.

said by thedragonmas:

as for why i would want to limit, maybe i dont want one device on my network taking up all my bandwidth, how is my ISP going to limit that? they cant or maybe i want to prioritise one device on my network to get 80% of my download any time it wants it. QOS on my old microsoft wireless B router had it, QOS on my wrt54gl running tomato had it.. there really is no reason it shouldnt have it.

Why not just make sure your users have discretion? or setting QoS on that particular device? Or, if they are using too much bandwidth, just kick them off? There are plenty of other ways to limit these devices on the device end rather than QoS, and QoS in some ways will only make their experience worse: What if they are gaming, using netflix, or streaming something else? QoS will literally make this impossible, but if it suits you, use it on a per device status(nearly all devices support it, and things like the iphone cant pull that much anyways). Also, as far as this goes, its usually either by local IP address, or by MAC address, which can be changed in the blink of an eye to avoid this crap on the router, which means that its quite useless, and any of your "users" could easily bypass it if they wanted to. This falls to more of a discretion issue on your end, if your roommates are eating the bandwidth, kick them off.

said by thedragonmas:

and, having UPnP enabled is just flat out a bad idea. first thing i did was disable UPnP on this thing, the logs was FULL of junk related to it.

What you were probably seeing was the logs of all the different devices requesting different UPnP ports to be reserved to them. This also happens on my router. this is normal for UPnP at first, and if you have a lot of devices, it will show up in the logs that you would notice. UPnP allows you to skip port forwarding for every device and every service on each device, and will prevent port conflicts, so unless you have a really good reason to disable it, its not a good idea, and simply causes a ton more work for yourself.

permalink · 2012-02-22 11:41:08 · Print ·

thedragonmas

join:2007-12-28
Albany, GA

Re: the firmware stinks

you cant do that from the device end for a wii. a prime example of why this is flawed, last night i was uploading a video to facebook, it saturated my upload, i attempted to load netflix on my wii, it would not load at all. even though my wii has the highest priority in QOS. why? simple, the firmware only does priority for upload, not download. so even though the wii had highest priority it didnt mean jack because it was for upload only.

i know this works the way im trying to explain it to you because with my previous router uploading a video had no effect on my wii. why? because its QOS allowed for both download and upload priority.

so i stand by my OP, the firmware stinks for "above average" users. when my 2 years are up im putting ddwrt or tomato on this thing, thats assuming they didnt lock out that ability, and if they did, im going to be really PO'd.

permalink · 2012-02-22 18:26:20 · Print ·

tenpin784 I Went To The Dark Side? join:2001-03-30 New Durham, NH	signed up But never got a response or a router, so.......
	permalink · 2012-02-20 17:31:43 · ·

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FCC Still Looking For Home Speed Test Volunteers

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Slow/No router replacement

Re: Slow/No router replacement

Um, No Thanks

Re: Um, No Thanks

ISP involvement

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Re: ISP involvement

Been on it for a year already

twcable blocks this

What about performance degradation?

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the firmware stinks

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