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posted by janrinok on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the s-l-o-w-e-r dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Only one of top 12 ISPs raised listed speed after new truth-in-advertising rule.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/isps-listed-speeds-drop-up-to-41-after-uk-requires-accurate-advertising/

Most broadband providers in the UK "have been forced to cut the headline speeds they advertise when selling deals" because of new UK rules requiring accurate speed claims, according to a consumer advocacy group.

"Eleven major suppliers have had to cut the advertised speed of some of their deals, with the cheapest deals dropping by 41 percent," the group wrote last week.

The analysis was conducted by Which?, a brand name used by the Consumers' Association, a UK-based charity that does product research and advocacy on behalf of consumers.

"BT, EE, John Lewis Broadband, Plusnet, Sky, Zen Internet, Post Office, SSE, TalkTalk, and Utility Warehouse previously advertised their standard (ADSL) broadband deals as 'up to 17Mbps,'" the group noted in its announcement on Saturday. "The new advertised speed is now more than a third lower at 10Mbps or 11Mbps."

"TalkTalk has completely dropped advertising speed claims from most of its deals," the consumer group also said. "Vodafone has also changed the name of some of its deals: Fibre 38 and Fibre 76 are now Superfast 1 and Superfast 2."

The new rules were implemented in May by the Committees of Advertising Practice, the UK ad industry's self-regulatory body. Which? said it had been "campaigning for an advertising change since 2013."

Previously, ISPs were allowed to advertise broadband speeds of "up to" a certain amount, even if only one in 10 customers could ever get those speeds, Which? wrote. "But the new advertising rules mean that at least half of customers must now be able to get an advertised average speed, even during peak times (8-10pm)," the group said.

The entry-level speed tiers were apparently the least accurate before the rule change. While advertised speeds dropped the most on entry-level tiers, there were drops in higher-speed tiers as well.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:42PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:42PM (#718366)

    It's just that government is, as always, useless and rarely enforces the laws it pretends to have on the books.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:15PM (12 children)

      by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:15PM (#718388) Journal

      Fraud laws already required accurate advertising.

      ...which is mentioned right in TFS:

      Previously, ISPs were allowed to advertise broadband speeds of "up to" a certain amount, even if only one in 10 customers could ever get those speeds

      Seem like what's changing is not a requirement that they advertise accurately; what's changing is the definition of "accurate" used in that assessment.

      • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:24PM (7 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:24PM (#718396)

        It shouldn't be surprising to people that their rates fluctuate.

        This is all just virtue signalling. The Market was defrauded, anyway; ultimately, a user can either watch his videos or he can't, and he's either satisfied with what he's paying or he's not. The Government's "new" rule is utterly superfluous.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:26PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:26PM (#718398)

          Sorry for the omission.

        • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:31AM (4 children)

          by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:31AM (#718538) Journal

          As a US citizen I am envious as hell of the UK's truth in advertising laws and rules. Here in the US we see cars rail surfing and jumping bridges like they were speed buggy. The ISP's advertise the highest speed attainable as their general product speed. For example here in Yuma Spectrum advertises starting at 60 Mbps and up to Gbps, when in fact 25 Mbps is the average and at NO place in Yuma can you get Spectrum Gbps service. In the US you can say literally anything in an ad, and then disclaim it in nano print at the bottom, or even refer to a web page that is filled with disclaimers and can even refute the entire claim you made during the ad. Unlimited minutes and data rate are another pet peeve of mine. There is no such thing as unlimited service, there is an inherent limit based on the bandwidth and the number of seconds in a month. Not to mention the caps that are enforced on the 'unlimited' plans. They even go so far as to offer 3 different levels of 'unlimited' service while all of them are in fact capped at some level or other.

          --
          For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:11AM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:11AM (#718552)

            The market does its job: Everyone knows that it's bullshit, so it doesn't matter.

            Those who don't know don't care. Does my video load? Yes. OK.

            • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:33AM (2 children)

              by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:33AM (#718561) Journal

              Tell that to a 5-9 year old and see how much they know of it or believe. They think the dolls dance, speak and do all the crap that is 'shown' on TV. The advertisers market directly to the children and show things the products can't do.

              --
              For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
              • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @02:51AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @02:51AM (#718617)

                Are you parents as stupid as your children or something?

                "No."

                Saying that word is the distillation of good parenting.

                • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday August 08 2018, @04:11AM

                  by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday August 08 2018, @04:11AM (#718643) Journal

                  No of course not, but should we order society around advertisers who purposefully lie and mislead in order to make an almighty $$$. I have to say no to that as well. I have to respond with the following as well, the ignorant can be educated, stupid is forever. All children start as ignorant and learn as they grow older, only some of them turn out to be stupid. Check in the mirror and tell me which one is gazing back at you...

                  --
                  For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 08 2018, @09:16AM

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday August 08 2018, @09:16AM (#718713) Homepage
          Not only is the new rule superfluous, the previous rule that effectively said "you may lie using misleading weasel wording" should be removed.

          If companies only want to hand-wavey-guarantee an average speed, then it should advertise the average speed. So I'm glad the end result is where it is, but it should have been attainable using 0 laws, not 2.
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:27PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:27PM (#718400)

        I'm almost at my limit. Are you ready to become mommy?

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by wisnoskij on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:30PM (2 children)

        by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:30PM (#718403)

        Previously, ISPs were allowed to advertise broadband speeds of "up to" a certain amount, even if only one in 10 customers could ever get those speeds

        It sounds like fraud laws would of had nothing to do with this at all, and the government just added laws that prevented ISPs from including some (correct) information in their ads.

        If an ISP has a bunch of 50MB ?distribution centers? (what are those called?) advertising "up to 50MBs" is the technically correct way of advertising. Sure, most of their customers will not be within the handful of meter radius that is needed to get 100% of that speed, but advertising 25MB connections because that is what the average customer will get is simply wrong.

        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday August 09 2018, @01:54PM (1 child)

          by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday August 09 2018, @01:54PM (#719365) Journal

          So the customer needs to understand the intricacies of exactly how a business operates in order to know if they're actually going to be receiving the service they've paid for?

          If you agree to sell something, it is YOUR responsibility to ensure that you can actually provide the service you have advertised. If the ISP doesn't even know what speed the customer is getting, then it's certainly not reasonable to expect that the customer would. And if the ISP does know, then offering anything else IS fraud.

          • (Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:56PM

            by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday August 09 2018, @03:56PM (#719437)

            Yes, exactly. Which is what the government in this case is outlawing.

            With this new law, the ISPs either have to not give a speed at all (so you have no way of comparing offered services), or give an inaccurate statistical speed. The government is literally forcing companies to lie to their customers if they want to include the single most important feature in their advertisements.

            If a tourist were to ask you what the speed of that cities streets were. Would you tell them 25 mph, or would conduct a study to find out the (pick random statistic model: mean, median, or mode) of (cars, trucks, bikes, and jaywalkers) including stops, traffic jams, speeders, and weather influences.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Revek on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:52PM (25 children)

    by Revek (5022) on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:52PM (#718371)

    The speeds we advertise are the speeds people get. I made sure of it when I padded the QOS for each package to make sure it tests a little above what we sell them. We now operate on the 80% rule. If we go over 80% for more than 30 minutes in peak time we start the process of splitting nodes in order to get it back below that. We are adding four more nodes this year and can have our main pipes turned up within 24 hours.

    --
    This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:59PM (13 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 07 2018, @06:59PM (#718378) Journal

      That's nice. It really is. But it sounds like the exception that proves the rule. Now if only all ISPs were like that.

      Big ISPs take advantage of the fact that most people don't even know what Mbps is. How to measure it. What it means in practical terms. And to know if they're really getting what they're paying for. It's like not really being sure exactly what "1 gallon" actually means.

      Then the ISPs rely on the fact that nobody will check. If if they check that nobody will complain. And if they complain that nobody will do anything about it. And under the present administration, they're right about that last point. The FCC can outright brazenly lie about feedback on an important issue.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:10PM (11 children)

        by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:10PM (#718384)

        To be fair, the ISPs do have the classic WIntel problem: any speed gain they deploy is quickly absorbed by code bloat, and people lose the absolute reference.
        You used to quickly browse the web on a T1 connection, the same way that you had a pretty quick desktop on a Pentium 70MHz under Win95 (between crashes). Multiply the speeds by 50, and somehow it doesn't feel any faster because we need 10MB to code whitespace and not resize JPGs.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:53PM (4 children)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:53PM (#718419) Journal

          I understand that is a problem. But what most ISPs do is the equivalent of selling you a 128 GB memory when it only has a measly 32 GB of memory.

          It doesn't matter whether we're talking about hardware or network bandwidth. Or gasoline, or butter or milk.

          Why does the US not have strict requirements that a gallon is a gallon, and a Mbps is an Mbps?

          Remember back in the day of AOL's Pave The Earth campaign? The goal of which was to sink the North American continent into the ocean under the weight of AOL floppy disks. They didn't not succeed. But they were able to get a lot of people to sign up to AOL. But AOL did not keep up it's capacity to accept inbound telephone calls. So people started complaining about too many busy signals. It came to a point where at least one attorney general was involved, who said something about this might be like selling 10,000 tickets to a theater that has only 3,000 seats, and that it would definitely be a crime that could be prosecuted. Soon after that AOL began expanding its capacity.

          It seems like we've gone back to those bad old days. (For you young 'uns, this is back in the horse and buggy daze.)

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @11:05PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @11:05PM (#718497)

            > Why does the US not have strict requirements that a gallon is a gallon ...

            We have this in NY state -- there is a county bureau of weights & measures (don't remember name) that randomly checks gas stations to make sure the pumps deliver the gallons indicated on the display. Same for scales in the produce dept at food stores. No idea if they are straight or crooked (maybe the inspectors are all being paid off?), but I have seem someone from this agency at a gas station, filling calibrated volumes from the pumps.

            • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:38AM (2 children)

              by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:38AM (#718542) Journal

              Most counties or states have such an authority. Gas station pumps, grocery store scales, taxi meters are measured and sealed by the authorities, and there are some very heavy fines and even jail time associated with violating these seals.

              http://consumerservicesguide.org/articles/csg_california_weights_and_measures_office [consumerservicesguide.org]

              --
              For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
              • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @02:35AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @02:35AM (#718608)

                I want to invite one of these weights & measures inspectors to my house to check the cable speed, see if I'm getting what Spectrum (former Time Warner Cable) advertised!

                • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday August 08 2018, @04:30AM

                  by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday August 08 2018, @04:30AM (#718650) Journal

                  I don't think they measure virtual items. That would be the realm of the FCC, and I am sure Ajit Pai would love to come provided the 'honorarium' was high enough to meet his hourly salary as a poster child for a telecom industry shill.

                  --
                  For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:55PM (5 children)

          by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:55PM (#718420) Journal

          oh, no, I think SIZE isn't why things feel slow.

          It's fucking wrapping everything in 10 layers of AJAX calls, shadowdom wrappers, and analytics scripts.

          Go to a twitter page, and you don't get a flat html page with tweets in it. Oh no. You get a content wrapper, and have to wait on a second request to load offsite script dependencies(starting with the ad ones). Then those finally get loaded and kick off a onload() event driving some AJAX request to get the actual URL's real content. Except that is queued after all the ad loading scripts. The slowness of a typical modern webpage doesn't even have to do with bandwidth.

          • (Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday August 07 2018, @09:07PM (1 child)

            by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday August 07 2018, @09:07PM (#718437)

            > Go to a twitter page

            Can't believe the internet got to the point where so many discussion has to devolve into terrible insults and shameless curses.
            "Go to twitter", "Check my facebook", "See this instagram post", "Read the Fox News article" ... Go wash your mouth with soap ! Can we get back to cursing people moms, bodily parts and/or fluids ?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @08:04AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @08:04AM (#718698)

              I avoid trying to load a facebook page like the plague. I have a five year old Celeron, with only a 2 GHz single core, and only 4 Gigabytes of RAM memory.

              It chokes. It does my CAD work just fine, but social media pages, ( and even YouTube these days ) will lock it up. I can still see the videos, but generally I have to download them first and convert them to .MP4 before they will play. The older stuff works great, but the newer stuff is a real pain, hence my ignorance about the later music stars.

              I am older and I really don't give that much of a damm anymore anyway. Its not like I have to impress anybody that I know who the latest Hollywood heartthrobs are anymore. The last one I had heard much about was some dude named Beeber, and I became aware of him only because he kept showing up on the news a lot... I never figured out just what he did.

          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:39PM (2 children)

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:39PM (#718769) Homepage
            Nah - I get a "We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?" page that I can then click on, and then I see just the tweets. Indirect, but on the whole lightweight. Annoyingly, the "internal" links on the legacy twitter pages are also ones that cause an intermediate questioning redirect, rather than being ones that would send me straight to the appropriate legacy page, which becomes a drag really quickly. I generally only follow twitter links if I know in advance I'm really really really interested in what someone's going to say.
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
            • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday August 08 2018, @08:11PM (1 child)

              by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 08 2018, @08:11PM (#718966) Journal

              It's so you don't copy and paste a link to share and put your friends on a "lower engagement site layout"

              Much more important to capture as many advertising dollars as possible compared to making a product people actually like, when you're a tech monopoly.

              • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 09 2018, @12:24AM

                by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday August 09 2018, @12:24AM (#719136) Homepage
                The sane way to do that is to have a JS shim in the non~JS page that immediately redirects to the full-bloat page.
                --
                Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2018, @04:43AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2018, @04:43AM (#719258)

        [...] Big ISPs take advantage of the fact that most people don't even know what Mbps is. [...]

        ISPs also take advantage of the fact that most people don't even know what 'upload' means.

    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:51PM (6 children)

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 07 2018, @07:51PM (#718417) Journal

      Okay, I've learned from this post you don't work at one of the home-service monopolies, but some smaller provider.

      • (Score: 5, Funny) by Revek on Tuesday August 07 2018, @08:13PM (5 children)

        by Revek (5022) on Tuesday August 07 2018, @08:13PM (#718422)

        What gave it away?

        --
        This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
        • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 07 2018, @08:14PM (4 children)

          by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 07 2018, @08:14PM (#718424) Journal

          I mean, i don't read the titles. Titles are for chumps.

          • (Score: 3, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday August 07 2018, @08:58PM (3 children)

            by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday August 07 2018, @08:58PM (#718432)

            So, username not appropriate?

            --
            "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
            • (Score: 5, Funny) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 07 2018, @09:02PM (2 children)

              by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 07 2018, @09:02PM (#718433) Journal

              I read everyone else's username. no idea what mine is. Don't spoil the magic by telling me.

              • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday August 08 2018, @07:26PM (1 child)

                by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday August 08 2018, @07:26PM (#718940)

                Your username is ********.

                You see, when I copy ikanreed to the clipboard and show it to you, it shows as ********.

                --
                "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:13AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:13AM (#718553)

      You don't control my connection to a server in Fiji; you cannot promise me that I'll receive a certain throughput or latency to that server.

      The Internet. How does it work?

      • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday August 08 2018, @04:03AM (2 children)

        by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday August 08 2018, @04:03AM (#718639) Journal

        I understand that but they do have control over your latency and through put within their own network. That is where you should get the bandwidth *as seen on TV.
        Once you hit the wide open spaces of the interwebs you are of course subject to internet traffic and weather, and YMMV. Even my 25Mbps is more than most single sites will grant me but the idea is that I can watch/stream Netflix, my GF can watch/stream OnDemand, my Bro can remotely connect to my Dish DVR and watch the BPL games, while Dish is recording from 3 wireless connected clients, and the GFs' kid can facetime/skype with her BF or BFF's. If my as advertised as starting at 60Mbps connection delivered something approaching 60 Mbps instead of a max of 25 Mbps I'd be happy.

        --
        For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
        • (Score: 1) by MindEscapes on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:59PM (1 child)

          by MindEscapes (6751) on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:59PM (#718755) Homepage

          Just wanted to comment on the family unit this made me think of.

          Unit is no longer the word, the family members are now independent entities each absorbed in their own little world. Perhaps related to some of societies ills. Not much interaction and communication with each other anymore.

          Who knows? Definitely a different place than humans have been before on a large scale simply due to the impracticality/impossibility of the past.

          --
          Need a break? mindescapes.net may be for you!
          • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday August 08 2018, @09:05PM

            by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday August 08 2018, @09:05PM (#719003) Journal

            Actually the GF, myself and her daughter just got back from a 2 day outing river rafting/tubing we agreed to turn off all but my phone in-case of emergencies and had a great time. It was hot as hell but the river was awesome. I see much of what you are talking about, people texting instead of talking but we do a pretty good job of interacting with each other. Our favorite family activity is going to the gun range and shooting holes in Trump shaped targets, the GFs' daughter is the best shot in the family :)

            --
            For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @10:29PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @10:29PM (#718474)

    Previously, ISPs were allowed to advertise broadband speeds of "up to" a certain amount

    In related news, reporting with misleading claims in clickbaity headlines is up 37,4% compared to the previous year.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @05:33AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @05:33AM (#718671)

      Convert to how a business would say it:

      In related news, reporting with misleading claims in clickbaity headlines is up to 37.4%, or more, compared to the previous year.

      But, getting back down to earth, it seems hard for me to even think of "honesty" in stuff like copyright violation, when the ISP flagrantly wags " we can lie any way we want, but you *are* going to remit what we put on your bill." Dammit, the purchased stuff, streamed from authorized business sites, skips and hangs up all the time. Gimme something that transfers in the time window that the ISP provides, then can play back at video speeds, and, like a restaurant, just because something was served to me, I am not under any obligation to eat any of it. I detest unskippable ads as much as I detest some chef putting garbanzo beans in my soup.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:43PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday August 08 2018, @01:43PM (#718773) Homepage
      Harhar. But different context - the headlines aren't entering into a contract with you that appears to promise a boundless stream of examples of ISPs dropping their marketting claims by 41%.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 2) by KritonK on Wednesday August 08 2018, @08:05AM (2 children)

    by KritonK (465) on Wednesday August 08 2018, @08:05AM (#718700)

    In Greece, ADSL lines are advertised as "up to 24 Mbps". This covers anything from 0 to 24 Mbps, so although you won't get what you expect from reading the ads (24 MBps), the ads are not lying. I get 9 Mbps on a line that I know can support 17 Mbps, and my ISP will not do anything about it.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @08:37AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @08:37AM (#718704)

      We passed this DMCA to bring copyright law into the internet age. We sorely need a Digital Millenium Billing Act so as to bring billing law as well into the internet age. They do not have to deliver, and you do not have to pay for what you did not get. Pro-Rate it. Have your system log just how fast you got the data... pay for that. Its all copyrighted code anyway that does this, protected by electronic lock, protected by DMCA.

      Just have it verified that it reports accurately. Like the metering valve on a gasoline pump. And pay for what you get.

      I think we will see this problem go away big-time when up-to payments start arriving that match up to the up-to speeds advertised.

      Now, we would be furious if we went to a bar and was served beer in the manner an ISP serves data. Up to 32 ounces of beer for less than $10! Order one... bill comes to $12.36 ( they added fees ), and its got three tablespoons of beer in it!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @08:55AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08 2018, @08:55AM (#718707)

        We passed this DMCA to bring copyright law into the internet age.

        Except that DMCA takedown notices are garbage because they encourage a censor-first-ask-questions-later policy; that's the entire point. Keep safe harbor and get rid of the takedown notice system. Force companies to go to court to get a court order in order to remove material. It would be harder to enforce copyright, but the principle of due process should not vanish just to make things easier for copyright holders.

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