Re: Why I'm Skeptical of the FCC's Call for User Broadband Testing

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
Date: March 11, 2010 4:55:39 PM EST
To: dave () farber net, "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Why I'm Skeptical of the FCC's Call for User Broadband Testing

These tests will do little or nothing to determine a connection's bandwidth or quality.

My network routes different types of traffic through different connections which are optimized for that type of 
traffic. But the test doesn't "know" this; it tries to access random, uncacheable data through our cache and thus gives 
results which are not typical of what users will experience. This hurts the outcome. So does the fact that our network 
does traffic shaping with bursting (a technique which optimizes it for interactive activities while deprioritizing 
unattended tasks such as long downloads) -- a feature which our users love.

In short, the tests are "dumb" tests designed for "dumb" networks. My network uses innovative, "smart" techniques which 
optimize the bang per buck for real life users but not for these artificial and unrealistic benchmarks.

The tests also, for some reason I cannot determine, report wildly varying numbers for jitter. And they access only 
certain destinations on the Net, including Google and "speedtest.net", thus biasing the results in favor of ISPs who 
happen to be close, network-wise, to those sites.

And they don't make sure that the user's connection is not congested by other traffic, nor that the user's computer 
doesn't have a high processing load which hurts its responsiveness and hence the speed of the connection.

In short, these tests appear designed to give the worst possible appraisal of an ISP's network, and to penalize an ISP 
for implementing innovative technologies that optimize the use of scarce and expensive backbone bandwidth.

--Brett Glass





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