MIT Study: USA Broadband May Not Be So Awful After All
53 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Good news for BitTorrent users -- a new MIT study says the nation's broadband network is in better shape than Uncle Sam thinks it is.
The Federal Communications Commission released a National Broadband Plan back in March, which included the frustrating and surprising statement that most Americans' broadband speed is half what service providers advertise.
But it might not be that bad after all, MIT researchers say -- most Internet measuring methods underestimate the speed of the access network. That's the part of the Internet ISPs actually control.
Slowness can often be attributed to home networks, users' computers, and ISP servers instead, say MIT scientists Steve Bauer, David Clark and William Lehr.
In one example, Bauer ran a speed test on his home computer in Cambridge, Mass., using a test server in New York. Most of the time, he was getting rates close to those advertised by his ISP. One afternoon, the rate fell precipitously, and Bauer realized his ISP had re-routed his connection to a different server because the New York server was overloaded. The nearest free server was in Amsterdam -- explaining why the speed dropped so much.
It's hard to tease apart end-to-end performance tests and attribute bottlenecks to a specific cause, the study says (PDF). Most testing methodologies don't do this very well, and the result is a potentially misleading diagnosis of a broadband network's quality.
In the study -- conducted by MIT labs which receive funding from telecom companies -- the authors analyzed a half-dozen systems for measuring the speed of Internet connections. They underestimated the access' networks speed for a variety of reasons, an MIT news release explains.
For instance, the FCC study analyzed data for broadband subscribers with different tiers of service. The analysis didn't know which data corresponded to which tier, so they assumed the tier could be inferred from the maximum measured rate, MIT says. But in reality, the lower-tier subscribers sometimes ended up with better data rates than they paid for. The study the FCC relied upon misclassified this, the researchers say -- good service on a cheap tier was classified as lousy service at a higher tier.
So maybe your ISP is treating you better than you think.[/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-07/mit-study-your-isp-might-be-faster-government-says[/url]
:f5:
I see that MIT education really paid off so you spend your time analysing Internet.
American internet is utter shit compared to scandinavia, korea and japan.
But americans should not worry! It's still decent, just look at Australia they will always suck 10 times more messed up internet piece of shit limited poop.
I'm in sweden right now and hell.
[img]http://www.speedtest.net/result/882844948.png[/img]
299 Swedish kronor = 31.4880469 Euros and it's unlimited, i simply can't be dissapointed.
But this is like 30-50times better then most Australian will ever get, not to mention they pay insane amounts and even get limits that can make it cost even more.
I feel fucking sad for Australia.
Order of internet shittiness from worst to best:
Middle east - Australia - Canada - America - Japan - Scandinavia
[QUOTE=Zeke129;23411645]Order of internet shittiness from worst to best:
Middle east - Australia - Canada - America - Japan - Scandinavia[/QUOTE]
Where's the other parts of the world?
And Japanese internet is better. Except maybe for accessing other parts of the world :v:
[editline]hurr[/editline]
[url=http://www.kddi.com/english/personal/auhikari/index.html]There. 1gbit/s consumer connection.[/url]
[QUOTE=DrTaxi;23411668]Where's the other parts of the world?
And Japanese internet is better. Except maybe for accessing other parts of the world :v:[/QUOTE]
I left out China because it's censored, and Africa and the eastern bloc countries because I have no clue about them.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;23411688]I left out China because it's censored, and Africa and the eastern bloc countries because I have no clue about them.[/QUOTE]
Umm... Europe? Apart from Scandinavia, that is
[QUOTE=DrTaxi;23411726]Umm... Europe? Apart from Scandinavia, that is[/QUOTE]
It's the same as the US
I'm just going by what I've heard from people, I didn't conduct studies or anything.
The speed tests were conducted using the Internets main reason for existence. Pornography, and how quick it downloaded.
[QUOTE=Richard Simmons;23412887]The speed tests were conducted using the Internets main reason for existence. Pornography, and how quick it downloaded.[/QUOTE]
[img]http://www.facepunch.com/ads/rating/tick.png[/img]
I live in the middle of nowhere and the absolute fastest connection available to me is 768kbps. :emo:
[QUOTE=Brage Nyman;23411235]American internet is utter shit compared to scandinavia, korea and japan.
But americans should not worry! It's still decent, just look at Australia they will always suck 10 times more messed up internet piece of shit limited poop.[/QUOTE]
Yeah because geographically the United States is many orders of magnitude larger with overall population density being much lower.
That means more money spent on infrastructure due to increased distances, with less money coming in due to substantially lower population density.
American's thought their internet was crap in the first place?
:wtc:
When compared to our Australian pile of mess, yours is truly godlike
[QUOTE=User-Maat-Re;23418791]I live in the middle of nowhere and the absolute fastest connection available to me is 768kbps. :emo:[/QUOTE]
Holy fuck in Australia the highest I get is around 120kbps
20mbit down
5-8mbit up
fuck yeah comcast
[QUOTE=CheeseMan;23419138]Holy fuck in Australia the highest I get is around 120kbps[/QUOTE]
Here in Canada my downloads top out around 250-300kbps tops, I feel ya.
100mbs up / down :)
[QUOTE=CheeseMan;23419138]Holy fuck in Australia the highest I get is around 120kbps[/QUOTE]
[URL=http://www.speedtest.net][IMG]http://www.speedtest.net/result/882564063.png[/IMG][/URL]
Australian Internet ain't that bad.
[QUOTE=Superwafflez;23420387][URL="http://www.speedtest.net"][IMG]http://www.speedtest.net/result/882564063.png[/IMG][/URL]
Australian Internet ain't that bad.[/QUOTE]
Try ADSL.
[IMG]http://www.speedtest.net/result/882566773.png[/IMG]
And you Americans think you have it hard.
[QUOTE=The_Putty;23420419]Try ADSL.[/QUOTE]
I'm on 20Mbit ADSL.
[QUOTE=Superwafflez;23420441]I'm on 20Mbit ADSL.[/QUOTE]
Swear to god, Telstra is fucking with me.
And to think, the CEO of telstra probably has the best internet in Australia
I get 50Mbit internet from Virgin in England, they're upgrading the internet over here. I think they're going to try and get 100Mbit soon. I know other countries have 1 gig internets, but I can't find a use for that really, my 50Mbit connection downloads most things in half an hour or so.
The thing is though, Virgin is shit.
[QUOTE=ChaosUnleash;23420826]I get 50Mbit internet from Virgin in England, they're upgrading the internet over here. I think they're going to try and get 100Mbit soon. I know other countries have 1 gig internets, but I can't find a use for that really, my 50Mbit connection downloads most things in half an hour or so.[/QUOTE]
They've started the first stage of rolling out 50Mbit here in Thailand, it won't reach the outskirts of Bangkok for ages :(
[QUOTE=Zeke129;23411645]Order of internet shittiness from worst to best:
South Africa - Middle east - Australia - Canada - America - Japan - Scandinavia[/QUOTE]
Fixed.
[QUOTE=Sickle;23422009]Fixed.[/QUOTE]
South Africa - Middle east - Australia - Canada - America - Scandinavia - Japan
Fixed further.
10 Mbit/s down and up unlimited internet :) Go Sweden! And, our landlord recently made a deal with an internet provider so they're about to change it to 100/10 Mbit/s unlimited and they will pay the fees for it. In other words, we get 100/10 Mbit/s internet for free =D
