Are You "Up to Speed"?

Don M.

Don M.

SF VIP
Location
central Missouri
It looks like some of the Internet providers in NY are coming under scrutiny for not giving their subscribers the Internet speed they are paying for.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ders-face-new-york-scrutiny-over-speed-claims

This is always an ongoing issue with some of the providers. Often, they do not have the infrastructure to fully support their users during peak periods. I had to fight my provider....the Only one in this rural area...for about 3 months last year before they Finally fixed a problem, on their end. At least they were good enough to refund 3 months of my payments. There are several programs available to quickly test your download/upload speeds to insure you are getting what you pay for....I use Speedtest.net.

If you suspect you are getting shortchanged, it only takes a minute to run a speed test.
 

How is one supposed to know what speed the ISP is actually supposed to provide, if no claims are made regarding speed? Our old dial-up modem was clearly marked, something like 48K. We rarely downloaded at over 10K, email was difficult, pictures took 15 minutes, video impossible.

Here we have DSL, a modem/router plugs in to the same line as our land-line phone, same phone number. (Digital Synchronous Logic, everything goes together). Might there be some discerning info on the router? imp
 
After 4 years + of AOL Dial-up, any speed is fine with me!!!!!!! comp017.gif

I know have broadband and am happy with what they send me...
 

imp said:
How is one supposed to know what speed the ISP is actually supposed to provide,

OK...it sounds like you have the same setup as I do....we too have the phone and Internet on the same line, and are paying for 6MB download/600KB upload speed. If you check your phone companies web site, under Internet Options, you should find the speeds offered, and your phone bill should tell you what you are paying for. Then, run a couple of the readily available Speed Tests to see if you are getting the proper speed. Many providers, especially in rural areas, seem to have problems keeping the speed constant. They have sold more subscriptions than their servers can handle...especially during peak periods, like between 6 and 10PM.

By next year, the local power company should have fiber optics installed in our area, and we will get phone, TV(with the same 250+ channels we have now), and 100MB/10MB Internet, for $35 a month less than we are paying now.

http://www.speedtest.net/
Click to expand...
 
The town near us has high speed Internet but we're still waiting for ours and are told next year, next year. Sometimes at night we have problems as everybody is streaming Netflix etc like us.
 
Here in rural Scotland, we're not exactly high priority when it comes to providing high speed internet. I find it very annoying when I see ads. on TV for mega fast fibre optic - bit of a sick joke here. I often say that we'd be better having carrier pigeons:)

We can just about watch TV online and fortunately we have no desire to stream movies or play games with every other human on Earth. I do resent paying good money for a lousy service.
 
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