Is Using 'Up To' Speeds In Your Broadband Promotion False Advertising?
from the questions,-questions dept
For many, many years we've been among those pointing out the habit of broadband providers to use "up to" descriptions of their speeds. That is, they say "up to 3Mbps" or "up to 144 kbps" or whatever it is they're advertising. Of course, the "up to" speed is under perfect conditions on a clear day when no one else is using the system if you're using some experimental equipment and standing 3 feet away from the source -- or something like that. A few years ago, we even asked how come no one ever sues companies advertising this way for false advertising? Well, down in Australia that might finally be happening. The Australian equivalent of the FCC is apparently warning ISPs to come clean about their advertised speeds, specifically focusing on the mythical "up to" speeds that no one will ever achieve. Of course, we still think the most creative suggestion in dealing with these bogus advertised speeds is that consumers should get to pay some amount "up to" what they're billed if they're not getting the speeds promised.
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up to speeds
I want to start paying at the up to rate.
Their TV is even worst than their internet, more drop outs
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Re: up to speeds
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Re: up to speeds
Bwahahahahahaha
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Re: up to speeds
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Re: up to speeds
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Re: up to speeds
They advertise 6 megabits per second, which is 6000 kilobits per second (Kbps). That's roughly 750 kilobytes per second (KB/sec).
Bytes != Bits.
You are right however, cable is rarely that good. I've only known two people who get that speed because they do not share their break into the main trunk line at the street, even then the speed is only about 5Mbps. That's a very rare occasion since it costs about 5 grand to break into the Comcast main trunk line. Comcast will only do it if you pony up, or you're in a new neighborhood and they're doing it because it's profitable.
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Re: up to speeds
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Ever hear of "up to 75% off" and then most things are like 10% off? It's basically just a free way to lie. If you're going to clean that stuff up, no reason to limit it to one industry.
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Re:
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As far as store sales go, I've seen even worse than "up to". Try "up to 20% off or more". Which basically comes down to "We'll take something off, but even we don't know".
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Transparent it is not..
FWIW here in Time Warner land, they advertise 3 Mb downstream, and tyically deliver between 5-6 Mb. Do they rock or what?
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Up to 90% great post!
Speeds of 6MB are great between you and the cable company (if you ever really get that) but the reality is you'll never get that kind of bandwidth across the internet to the place you're pulling data from. Torrents break that rule to some extent, but even they are limited.
The real killer is how consumers don't know to demand better upload speeds. I'd rather have 2mb full duplex bidrectional service than 10mb down and 768k upload speeds. Of course, I work from home and send data up more often than most people.
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Doubtful Cynic
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Perhaps thay should make naivete illegal
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Re: Perhaps thay should make naivete illegal
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Good for Companies
500k download on your cable? We only advertise 250K we will charge you for that "feature".
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Imagine soda can "up to" 12 ounces...
Using a theoretical peak rate in advertisements that has no relationship to the actual rates delivered to customers is clearly deceptive. With food products there can be some minor deviation in the fill rate but the labeled amount should have one standard deviation of extra product above mean--not peak--fill as a guarantee against short packing. (If they don't want to have to include a lot of extra product for free they need to have high standards to keep the sd low.) Comcast and ATT don't even come close to this ordinary, reasonable standard.
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Re: Imagine soda can "up to" 12 ounces...
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Comcast speeds
In fact I just recently moved and had to re-order the comcast service (it was under a roommates name before)
We signed up for the vanilla 6mbps service and for the first month we were actually getting a solid 8mpbs with bursts up to 9mbps.
I think they do that on purpose to see if customers notice the drop in speed and call them up, then they can tell them it was just an introductory speed bonus but if you want the higher speed you can pay for it..
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Speed Differences
So if you are paying for 6Mb/s = 0.75 MB/s = 768 KB/s.
Assuming you see only 1/2 that on average, you should expect about 384 KB/s at any given time.
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Re: Speed Differences
This is why a large number of people think they are falsely advertising. They think they're getting ripped of but infact they just didn't notice that lower case b in Mb's.
I have Time Warner cable and actually get higher speeds than I should.
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analogies
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Is it unethical? Maybe. We've had used car salesmen making a living for almost as long as we've had automobiles, though. Do you think the stereotype about used car salesmen is completely false, or grounded in a kernel of reality that may not fit all salespeople? The other problem, as elluded to by others, is that your ISP does not control the whole of the internets. They don't own all the tubes, so they have no say when one tube is clogged up with some dumb-assed senators "internets" "mailzorz". (:P I was never so ashamed of american government as I was that day, even under W.)
*shrug* Applause for the Aussie's for addressing this as they have; there's better things for the rest of us to lose sleep over, though.
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Sales
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It makes more sense that way.
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Morons, all of you
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Up to xx% off sales not a valid comparason
To create "tiered" price levels, the "up to" speeds are not the speeds you can look forward to but the speeds you'll never get above--without any mention of what you'll actually get.
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lack of understanding but i think your OK still
"We do our best to provide service at a consistant speed but due to circumstances beyond our control and some within our control we can not guarantee you a paticular speed anyone that does is planning on you not following through on the guarantee or has a different business model than us."
"Up to" is pretty clear to me and most people in the world. But thanks so much for highlighting this critical topic for the less informed.
Come back into reality and stop thinking everyone else does not get it but you do.
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lack of understanding but i think your OK still
"We do our best to provide service at a consistant speed but due to circumstances beyond our control and some within our control we can not guarantee you a paticular speed anyone that does is planning on you not following through on the guarantee or has a different business model than us."
"Up to" is pretty clear to me and most people in the world. But thanks so much for highlighting this critical topic for the less informed.
Come back into reality and stop thinking everyone else does not get it but you do.
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Fritts (Daniel Britts)
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WTF?
I'm on a ADSL2+ "up to 24Mb" connection. Do I get 24M? Damn straight, I'm only 800 metres from the exchange (1/2 a mile) with new cabling.
This is about people expecting their "up to 24Mb" connection to run at full speed even if they are 3km (2mi) away.
ISPs need to tell the customer, "We've received your application, and our records show you're 3km line distance, so your connect speed is likely to be around 3Mb"
Stupid whiney customers.... BAH!
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It's all the same......
How many miles per gallon does your car get?
How many MB's is your harddrive?
And on, and on...........
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Up to
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Average speed
One final tweak would be to make the bill be made up of your upstream and downstream in proportion to the ratio of the cap on each. Thus for a symmaetrical connection, your bill is based 50/50 on your up- and down- streams, wheres if the caps are in a 75/25 ration, the bill is also a 75/25 ratio of up- and down streams.
BTW, there is an interesting graph of the speeds and reach of various ADLS variants here
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My post
The more mathematically minded amongst you would have realised that all I did was to make the proportion of your bill which is charged at each rate be the fraction of the time your computer was on which you received each speed. In practice, you would need to use a little box to plug into your modem if it was a combined modem/router, because otherwise the results would be skewed. That would also alleviate the issue of the quality of your network. A USB/internal modem obviously needs the computer it is connected to to be on for the modem to be active, so the usage meter program can be used for this job.
One final tweak would be to make the bill be made up of your upstream and downstream in proportion to the ratio of the cap on each. Thus for a symmaetrical connection, your bill is based 50/50 on your up- and down- streams, wheres if the caps are in a 75/25 ration, the bill is also a 75/25 ratio of up- and down streams.
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Jewelry Mark-Downs!
Internet is the same way. The ‘up to’ speed is NEVER achievable. I would like any internet provider to come to my house (or your house) and prove that you actually get the speed you are quoted – or at least 75% of it.
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My post
THere is an interesting graph of ADSL speds against distance for a number of varieties on Internode's site. Telstra is the Ex-monoploy provider, and has now started offering un-capped ADSL and ADSL2+ on exchanges which have already been upgraded.
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Why would you support deceptive language?
Really, if it is so clear tell me what average speed I can expect from a "6mps" connection? You can't tell me because the "up to 6mps" marketing claim is virtually meaningless in relationship to the actual speeds customers will receive. Why you would support this patently deceptive practice one can only speculate.
You add [refering to a possible disclaimer]:
If they can't (or won't) guarantee any particular speed then they have no business advertising one!!! Granted, speeds can vary a bit which is why we have averages which allow us to still make meaningful claims and guarantees about things that can have some variability, such as 99% uptime guarantees--they don't guarantee to be perfect but they have a measurable standard they have to live up to. Your position is untenable and contemptuous of people.
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Interesting...
HOWEVER, I often achieve my "up to" speed and far beyond.
Just like not all used car salesman will rob you blind, not all ISPs will either.
(and yes, I know how to divide by 8 so I really do know I am getting my advertised speed.)
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My issue is with data usage. My current ISP offers "unlimited" data usage subject to a Fair Use Policy (FUP).
The clause in the FUP that directly relates to how much data you may transfer up and down is as follows:
"Making excessive use of, or placing unusual burdens on, the network, for example by sending or receiving large volumes of email or excessively large email attachments"
Now you thought the up to speed was bad. You tell me how much I can download/upload each month?
In all fairness I average about 200GB per month with no problems, but they could easily turn around and say 50GB per month is too much, or 10GB or 500GB or whatever.
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2 megabit = 256 kilobytes
3 megabit = 384 kilobytes
and so on...
ISPs measure in megabits (Mb) and windows measures in megabytes (MB). So when you purchase a 3Mb connection from a provider you should see around 384KB in download speed in windows.
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Beef Tacos
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sbc dsl it
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