That 20 Mbps Broadband Line We Promised? It's Actually 300 Kbps. Enjoy!
from the broadband-black-holes dept
Did you know that U.S. ISPs in uncompetitive markets are really, really shitty at their jobs? While I assumed that was pretty common public knowledge by this point, there's an interesting new groundswell of attention being paid to the fact that most ISPs are absolutely abysmal at communicating 1: what real-world speeds a user can get; and 2: whether users can actually get service at all. Case in point was the recent, Kafka-esque experience of a new Washington homeowner, who spent months being given the runaround by Comcast and CenturyLink regarding service the companies repeatedly (but falsely) promised was available.This week, another story is making the rounds that highlights how ISPs will often claim to offer one speed, then actually offer users something dramatically more pathetic (if you can get connected at all). This user in Michigan, for example was told by AT&T's website and employees repeatedly that he should be able to get 20 Mbps at his address -- only to discover that the top speed he could get was a not-so-brisk 300 kbps. Such circa 1999 speeds are of course well below the FCC's new 25 Mbps broadband definition, changed to highlight the notable lack of U.S. competition at higher speeds.
Given that AT&T likely doesn't see any competition in the user's market, that 300 kbps isn't just slow, it's unreliable, suffers from the more-than-occasional hiccup and for good measure it's capped at 150 GB of usage before overages are incurred. Similarly, no competition means AT&T doesn't have great motivation to upgrade its outdated internal databases, or improve customer service. The lack of competition and regulatory capture in so many of these states makes communicating with AT&T (or getting regulators to care about broken promises) a Sisyphean endeavor:
"I’ve complained to just about everybody, the FCC, the FTC, the Michigan Public Service Commission,” Mortimer said. "I got a call back from the office of the president of AT&T responding to my FCC complaint. All I got was, ‘sorry, Mr. Mortimer, the speeds are the fastest available at this time.’" Since Ars first spoke with Mortimer in January, he suffered several more frustrations with AT&T. In one incident, his Internet service was shut off after an auto-payment error, he said. In another mishap, AT&T raised his bill from $33 to $89.40 after adding a phone line to his Internet service, even though he never asked for phone service."While we generally like to cling to the narrative that broadband connectivity in the States is bad but getting better (thanks to gigabit deployments and Google Fiber), the reality is that in many areas, it's getting worse. The story forgets to mention that AT&T and Verizon are hanging up on unwanted DSL users like these they don't want to upgrade so they can focus on more profitable (read: capped) wireless services. AT&T's so disinterested in the DSL market right now, it's actually turning away eligible customers eager to give them money, and hoping that many of the DSL customers it has get frustrated and leave. Verizon, meanwhile, is taking an even classier route: waiting until natural disasters strike, then refusing to repair DSL and phone customer lines it no longer wants.
The good news is that once you're actually connected at the speed your ISP advertises, more often than not you'll be able to reach those speeds consistently. An annual FCC study informed by custom firmware-embedded routers shows that most ISPs (with the exception of most DSL providers) deliver the speeds they advertise. The FCC has been naming and shaming ISPs that don't with fairly good results. Still, these DSL lines nobody wants to upgrade are going to be a notable problem going forward. And with billions of subsidies already thrown at companies like AT&T and Verizon over the last generation to avoid exactly these problems, people are justifiably skeptical that throwing more federal taxpayer dollars at these markets is actually going to help things.
That's of course where municipal broadband and the FCC's push to eliminate protectionist state laws comes in. Poorly-served towns and cities need the right to craft their own, flexible and customized broadband solutions in cases of market failure -- whether that's a publicly-owned fiber ring or a public/private partnership with somebody like Google. Instead, we've watched as the same telcos that don't even want to serve many of these DSL customers -- pass protectionist law preventing these communities from doing anything about it. We're only just starting to see this logjam starting to break, but it's going to take a lot more work to get many of these broadband black holes out of the grip of mega-ISP apathy.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: broadband, competition, dsl, false advertising, misleading, speeds
Companies: at&t
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
talk to a tech
The field techs know first hand what is available because they do this work, in this area, every day.
Calling the main corp line means you are talking to someone who is looking at a potentially out of date database.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: talk to a tech
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: talk to a tech
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just a thought
I, like many internet subscribers, HATE bandwidth caps/metered broadband. Both of these two companies have that form of extortion in place. As a cord cutter, I am forced to choose between expensive mediocre service from both of these companies. As much as I detest AT&T and their artificially low metered bandwidth and additional charges, their DSL internet service while slower has been consistent, reliable and nearly trouble free in the 8 years I have been a customer.
They are way better than Comcast. Comcast service on the other hand has had issues with internet going down, throttling, cable TV transmission issues, and remember the company for years had a fuzzy TOS that has bandwidth limits in place but the company refused to tell subscribers what it was.
I was one of those many subscribers that made national news whose service was disconnected because they flagged me as using the internet too much. I remember the phone call from their 856 area code with an individual claiming to be a rep from their abuse department threatened me to "limit my usage" or I "would face disconnection for a year". I was angered by the threat and I kindly told the guy to go FUCK himself. Sure enough my internet was cut off but not before I and many former comcast subscribers brought this to the local and national media. I also was able to get internet from Verizon even though it is DSL and they are one of the few telecoms that does not impose caps or overage charges.
Getting back to the metered broadband : What I don't understand is how they can justify this to a subscriber AND demand payment from Netflix and other streaming TV platforms. Check out www.stopthecap.com. I'm not the only one who is disgusted with this "take what we give you cause that's good enough and too bad if you don't like it or can't get in your area" attitude by telecoms AT&T, Comcast and Verizon.
THESE are the reasons why cities and towns around the country FED UP with the status quo duopolies have decided to get municipal broadband and are laying down fiber despite the objections of the giants who are using ALEC to bribe public officials in setting up roadblocks to keep muni broadband from coming into other areas AND are trying to do this under the cloak of secrecy. Everyone is raging about slow speeds and all want fast. For me, I see the writing on the wall : internet streaming and live TV is on the rise. Its inevitable. The telecom giants also see it.
You would think realizing this, Verizon, AT&T would want to exit the cable TV business and provide just broadband by itself. The costs of broadcast TV are enormous compared to just internet. Instead of paying out a huge check to the broadcasters, that money could be used to invest in the broadband infrastructure instead.
You would also think the broadcasters would be on board and all over this due to the fact they have control of their content and can strike deals per platform and delivery mechanisms.
Bandwidth caps are not and still not necessary nor needed.
WE are being ripped off. We deserve better.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Just a thought
And yet companies like Comcast are making public claims that people don't want fast speeds.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Just a thought
Now go back to watching us pay grown men millions of dollars to play children's games on TV. The internet is a fad anyway; once we get control it'll all be better.
Trust us.
Sincerely,
Your friendly neighborhood "news" corporation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Just a thought
Classic paranoid delusional thinking. "Those guys in that huddle down on the field must be conspiring against me!"
A guy quoted on Ars after getting a letter from his ISP explained he's doing SETIatHome processing.
Go talk to your psychologist. You need your meds dialed up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Just a thought
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Just a thought
That's what my sister (spit!) told me was the reason why she was dosing her kids with Talwin & Ritalin. My b-in-law and I thought they might be just as well off smoking weed. They appeared to have the same effect as far as we could tell.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Just a thought
That's like an opiate dude, stronger than morphine, orally. You're thinking of something else for sure.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Just a thought
I've pretty much disowned her and hope never to see her again. Ditto for my sociopath brother. What a family. It's good to be out of it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Just a thought
But you must have it wrong, unless they are hurt somewhere, no way a kid will get Talwin for ADHD. I'm a pharmacologist, medication for ADHD fit into about 4 categories :
-The piperidines : Methylphenidate (Ritalin, since it must be dispensed more than once a day because of its 3 hours length of action, they came up with Biphentin (Gelcap with plastic beads that last over 12 hours) and Concerta which is an impossible to abuse plastic pill with a tiny hole that delivers the Ritalin over 12 hours. Yeah some people like to snort crushed ritalin/biphentin beads so they had to come up with that. You poop that plastic out intact too...creepy
-Good Old Amphetamines : Adderall XR (lasts 12 hours, we don't have the instant version american have which can be abused much more easily, Adderall XR is also beads in a gelcap.
Dexedrine, the oldest and the safest (so hilarious when you think of it) which is dextroamphetamine, only, Adderall is a mix of 3 different salts of dextroamphetamine and 2 salts of LEVO-amphetamine, if you had basic organic chemistry you should know that some molecule have mirror images of each other that don't necessarily act the same. Levo-amphetamine only cranks up (slows down in the case of people with real ADD/ADHD) the peripheral nervous system, not the brain and the spine, so all the bad side effects from Adderall are caused by this.
Dexedrine is 100% dextroamphetamine, and available in much lower doses than Adderall XR (that goes up to 30mg), there is 5mg instant release ones that last 3-4 hours then the beads in a gelcap thing for the 10 and 15mg ones, in fact it was the first medication to ever be used this way to slow its delivery and at the same time the side effects/dangers.
Then there's Vyvanse which lasts 18 hours, mostly for adults with ADD, it is also 100% pure dextroamphetamine, beads in a gelcap, but these beads cannot be crushed and abused, well they can be crushed, but it wont work if snorted or injected,since it is a compound of lysine and dextroamphetamine, only the liver destroys the lysine which then releases the D-amphetamine very slowly for 18 hours, goes up to 70mg in the US, they kept it max 50mg in Canada
Then there is a weirdo antidepressant like medication that nobody likes called Atomoxetine (Strattera).
And then we have things like clonidine (a medication that is used for MANY things) and Intuniv XR which is of the safest non-stimulant kind of medication which makes people calm down in a non addictive way...it's a shame it doesn't exist in an instant release form like in the US though where it's called Tenex, it's in the same family as Clonidine, it's all very safe. Often the smart docs give a small dose of dexedrine with a dose of Intuniv XR at the same time in the morning, cancelling all the bad effects of amphetamines and Dexedrine or Adderal XR in small doses can't be given to children under 16, unlike the Ritalin they try on everyone first.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Just a thought
Is there a medication I can take to understand how my clearly sarcastic post became a discussion on ADHD treatment?
Because I need some of that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Just a thought
A family of 4 with parents renting movies on netflix and watching videos on youtube at 1080p with 2 children playing online video games on their PC's and consoles broke caps and got insane bills in Canada when they decided to let ISP's implement them. Giving people a 60mbps/10mbps connection only to put a 120gb download and upload combined (true story with my former cable ISP) until they had to offer 10 dollars more a month and you get unlimited data.
I got cable modem in 1999 which was 8/8 (symmetrical, very rare for cable isp's to be close to symmetric) for 29,95 a month and encouraging people to massively download ANYTHING. Following ISP's offering other broadband later in the '00's were all about offering INSANE SPEEDS XTREME DOWNLOADS. Then they tell people no more and raise prices massively in a recession. Of course all of that is gone now, because even them acknowledge that what you bring forward here is BS.
(The "offensive" intro is a parody of those bills people received with insults as names in case you don't get it.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Just a thought
Fight the Broadband Monopolies - call your locally bribed elected officials to express your dislike of the Municipal Broadband Restrictions!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Just a thought
And in most cases, local franchise monopolies are bound to cable tv services in some fashion... trying to drop the tv endangers many of those protections.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Just a thought
I'm with you. And other utilities (gas, water, electricity, etc) should all be un-metered as well. It's time for the meters to go!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
Now, how wide-spread and influential is Google Fiber?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber
It's in all of THREE Midwest cities so far: Austin, Provo, Kansas City.
Google Fiber is NO BIG DEAL, just a few demonstrations.
So the obvious cause for these propaganda placements is that Google pays for them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
Saying that Google Fiber is a good thing hardly makes somebody a shill.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
It hasn't done much of anything to these same players outside of Google influenced areas.
So in the end, nothing has changed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
I believe it's changed a lot. It's put paid to all the others' protestations of, "You're just not being realistic. This is the best that can be done, and at the best price that it can be done." Guess what, Google, even as a sideline to what it does as its core business blows them out of the water and has people all over the country praying Google fibre will come to their town too. It's also dragged the incumbents grudgingly into upping their game, *in the places Google's rolled it out*. Well, why aren't they now rolling it out everywhere now that they've shown how empty were their earlier protestations?
Because they don't have to as long as Google's not done it everywhere. They're happy to just rake in the bucks in their captive markets providing overly expensive lousy service and ignoring consumer complaints knowing their customers have little choice but to accept it or move.
This's pretty insulting when taxpayer's money has gone to subsidizing improvements which the ISPs have avoided implementing, because the FCC prior to Wheeler's let them get away with it.
These big ISPs are lucky there aren't mobs of pitchfork wielding consumers and taxpayers storming their boardrooms demanding heads for the guillotines.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
In the markets where it exists, it is making a HUGE positive difference. But I think you're missing the point. The point isn't the "Google is good", the point is that when real competition enters a market, the historically awful behavior of the old-guard ISPs improves a lot.
In other words, Google is demonstrating the need for competition. And that, all by itself, can make a big difference.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
Indeed!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Four-Years-Later-Just-How-Big-is-Google-Fibers-Impact-126 717
I'd like to know where this Google money I get paid is supposedly hiding, since my kitchen is from 1978 and could use an upgrade.
Maybe register and we can have an honest conversation about who pays YOU?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: OKAY, we get it: AT&T, Comcast, Verizon BAD -- Google good.
I think paid shills (some substantial proportion of ACs here) really think that people who disagree with them are other paid shills.
Because...why express an opinion if you're not paid for it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Screw these companies. PAY THE TAXPAYER BACK if you aren't going to add or maintain the lines. GET OUT OF THE WAY.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
In the early 80s you had mostly text-based websites.
Then with the 56k modems you started seeing more, large and animated images and (regretfully) compressed background music.
Now that we have 10+Mbps speeds, we have full-blown video and interactive websites.
The modern web would be completely unusable on 80s speeds.
As gigabit speeds become more normalized, the web is going to evolve as well and people still stuck on old kbps speeds are going to suffer.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Just like putting a modern American on a 10-speed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
In the early 80s websites didn't exist. Sir Tim Berners-Lee didn't invent the world-wide web until March of 1989, and websites weren't really around until November.
In the early 80s, we called the text based "websites" Bulletin Boards or BBS.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Gopher didn't exist until 1991. It was actually invented after Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web, and was direct competition to the world wide web.
Many BBSs were on the internet before 1991, including my own BBS. They used UUCP or other protocols to get there. Sure, they weren't the same, but they existed before the web, in the time period of the 80s.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I had a Racal-Vadic triple modem in the mid-1980s that did 1200 baud.
That was three decades ago. I can now easily buy a device that can compute a million times faster. You can't really compare anything with what existed back then.
More to the point, 20 years ago I was paying $10 per month for 56K dial-up service, and ISPs were rushing to get into the profitable business. 15 years ago I could get a $20 DSL line that was 20x faster. That was effectively the same price, since it included a dedicated copper pair.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
AT&T caps rate below contracted agreement.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But think of the Free Market
Stop complaining.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: But think of the Free Market
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: But think of the Free Market
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Heller's Catch-22
Ok, that quotation is about broads rather than broadband. And the article does not suggest any involvement of Virgin Mobile.
But the pimp could likely get a job at AT&T any day.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
AT&T
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
pedantry, sorry!
AT&T actually has a strong interest -- in eliminating DSL subscriptions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Just a thought
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's a bonus
Silver linings.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"Broadband: the only technology that goes backwards"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Cap
Congratulations: you've not only found a capped user who can download at maximum speed without hitting it in a few hours, you've found the one guy whose cap is so high it's literally impossible to exceed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Cap
If it's anything like my DSL line - you're lucky to get ~300kbps during peak time, but it improves after midnight and most of the following day until 4pm again. Too much congestion upstream.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It isn't all doom and gloom
The question I always like to ask: Since we will subsidize a City to build a fiber network, do you think we should provide some help to the telcos to bring fiber to a city and have them manage it? Capital does not grow on trees and based on my bill, the governments get 30% of it for....what?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
My experience exactly
[ link to this | view in chronology ]