The FCC Helped AT&T Hide Its Crappy Broadband Speeds
from the revolving-door-whiplash dept
Unless you're in fairly stark denial, it's clear the Trump Federal Communications Commision has been a rubber stamp for the every fleeting whim of the telecom sector, be it the agency's decision to effectively neuter itself at telecom lobbyist behest, or the attack on net neutrality rules with widespread bipartisan support. But such revolving door regulation has more subtle casualties, as well. The Wall Street Journal this week for example offered up an interesting deep dive into how ISPs successfully pressure the FCC to ignore slower broadband speed test data when analyzing whether ISPs are delivering the speeds they promise:
"AT&T Inc. was dismayed at its report card from a government test measuring internet speeds. So the telecom giant sought to change its grade.
The company pushed the Federal Communications Commission to omit unflattering data on its DSL internet service from the report, which assesses whether providers are delivering the speeds they advertise. AT&T also didn’t provide information the FCC needed to validate speeds on those customers, the test officials confirmed.
In the end, the DSL data was left out of the report released late last year, to the chagrin of some agency officials. AT&T’s remaining speed tiers notched high marks.
The Journal is quick to highlight how this kind of gamesmanship results in FCC studies and data that doesn't accurately reflect reality, something that obviously excites incumbent broadband executives all too eager to obscure incomplete deployments and a lack of competition in the sector:
"Companies wield tremendous influence over the study and often employ tactics to boost their scores, according to interviews with more than two dozen industry executives, engineers and government officials. As a result, the FCC’s report likely gives consumers an unreliable measure of internet providers’ performances by overstating speeds."
Hoping to use real world data to inform policy decisions (crazy, I know), just about a decade ago the previous FCC struck a deal with UK measuring firm SamKnows to measure real world broadband speeds under the creatively named Measuring Broadband America program. The firm in turn began using volunteers and custom-firmware embedded routers to obtain an objective, third party analysis of just what kind of speeds users see in the wild. Not too surprisingly the Pai FCC has been trying to discontinue the program, and AT&T says it will no longer cooperate with the FCC on the effort anyway (apparently with no penalty from the FCC).
Meanwhile, AT&T tries to claim to the Journal that the reason it wanted its slower DSL speed ratings removed from the study is because it no longer markets the service:
"AT&T said that in its case, the company asked the FCC to remove DSL data from the report because it no longer markets that older technology, which relies on copper phone lines, used by a small percentage of its customer base. The company said the commission’s own policies should have excluded the “obsolete” internet plans. AT&T also said that it did validate the DSL accounts for the FCC."
But we've noted for years that AT&T has been a cheapskate when it comes to finishing fiber deployments the company has received billions in taxpayer dollars for, leaving vast swaths of the country with the choice of either a cable monopoly or sluggish, capped DSL. AT&T would prefer it if government reports just floated the fuck over that fact, and the Pai FCC seems more than happy to oblige, with zero to no penalty for big ISPs that mislead the agency or refuse to take part in projects that give consumers an accurate view of the market.
This of course isn't the first time this problem has been brought up. FCC reports are routinely assailed as being rose-colored-glasses affairs designed not to inform, but to avoid upsetting deep pocketed telecom campaign contributors. The FCC's $350 million broadband map, which all but hallucinates competitors and speeds, and omits pricing data, is a perfect example of the end result of this dysfunction. The end goal is government reports that again hide the country's mediocre and expensive broadband shortcomings, lest somebody get the crazy idea to try and do something about it.
The Journal's report likely won't get much attention, since exclusively hating on big tech while forgetting big telecom is just as bad is all the rage right now. But uncharacteristically for a major US paper, the Journal does a nice job highlighting how a captured FCC is now a full throated apologist for the broken US broadband industry and its half-built, expensive, taxpayer-funded networks.
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Filed Under: broadband, broadband speeds, competition, data, fcc, influence, lies
Companies: at&t
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'As you can see after removing everything not 100% I'm perfect.'
"AT&T said that in its case, the company asked the FCC to remove DSL data from the report because it no longer markets that older technology,
That's fair, I mean if they're not longer selling the service then it doesn't exactly make sense for it to be included.
'... which relies on copper phone lines, used by a small percentage of its customer base.
... Or not. If they're still charging people for the service then it absolutely deserves to be counted, and if they object to their product skewing the numbers downward then they can take some of the huge piles of money thrown at them and upgrade their network rather than exec bonuses.
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One redeeming feature of the WSJ...
is that they aren't beholden to one particular industry. They tend to pursue stories that reflect a negative impact on business even if it pits one sector against another.
Of course what they really like is when they can blame government regulation for a problem that was created by a concentration of monopoly power in the ISPs to the extent that they usurp the regulatory role of the FCC.
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Re: One redeeming feature of the WSJ...
"they aren't beholden to "
Isn't the wsj owned by Rupert Murdoch?
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only thing left?
For all the money given..
Lets start charging interest.. For services not rendered.
They all do it to us, if we are late if paying, they do it to us as fines and fees and any gotcha they can figure..
Got a Social sec notince that Im getting 1.68 increase for 2020..the change in my check...$0..
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Does anybody think this admin will do anything that doesn't benefit themselves?
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the public on the whole is unaware, and if they were, half wouldn't care or would think the other "tribe" had made it all up
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Re:
On purpose? No.
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Re:
Yes, anyone who sports a MAGA hat, and is not in the top 10% of society.
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Oh that’s why
“No longer markets the sevice”
Oh so THATS why people who I won’t mention can’t get anything from it! You don’t “market” and have probably given up on it and stopped repairing it altogether!
Funny I-sorry some people saw “high speed internet” and thought it was broadband BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE SURE ARE GETTING THE BILL FOR IT!
I HOPE YOU GO CHAP 11 MO-“cut off for the children of Jesus”
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Re: question
Question...
If someone says you get “high speed internet”...
And then says for the purposes of a mr Pais study...Oh we don’t offer that anymore...
Does that count as false advertising?
Asking for a friend..who’s download speeds on Xbox are....at one 1.0gb?
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My VDSL from AT&T is sold as 24mbps, but they overprovision, so I'm getting close to 30mbps. That's on a single pair. The single pair is good for 40mbps.
The stuff that is antiquated is ADSL. VDSL is antiquated in 5-10 years, but ADSL is gone already.
The copper plant is on borrowed time. It either gets replaced by fiber or 5G. And in markets where there is 200mbps alternatives, AT&T won't compete.
Right now, with Google fiber, or Spectrum 200mbps, or AT&T 24mbps service (which is upgradeable), gotta go with AT&T on price. My one and only 1080 tube does fine on 24mbps. It's going to reach its limits once it goes to 4K.
That's a bridge to be crossed when I get there.
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They claim it’s a nonshared network, it’s just misinformation. You get held hostage for 3 min every time you call,while they tell you the lies they have been trained to tell. Customer service at att is horrible. They are only concerned about selling you more services
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Big Tech and Telecom, both suck there is no mutual exclusivity there.
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Obsolete
"The company said the commission’s own policies should have excluded the “obsolete” internet plans."
If they excluded all obsolete internet plans, there wouldn't have been enough to write a report about.
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Of course we hid the speeds. Because you're all pirates, and you don't deserve the truth. Especially you, Bodeface!
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Hi Karl, very insightful information. That's the thing with monopoly, bigger companies are always beneficial.
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