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

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq () quarterman org>
> Date: March 12, 2010 1:57:58 PM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq () quarterman org>, ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Why I'm Skeptical of the FCC's Call for User  
> Broadband Testing

> Dave, for IP:
>
> > From: Richard Bennett <richard () bennett com>
> > Date: March 11, 2010 8:51:05 PM EST
> > To: dave () farber net
> > Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
> > Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Why I'm Skeptical of the FCC's Call for User  
> > Broadband
> > Testing
>
> > ...
>
> > I ran both the M-Labs and Ooka tests from the FCC today, and got  
> > wildly
> > different results: Ookla had me at 25 Mbps down and 2 ms of jitter,
> > and M-Labs had me at  14.6 and 112. This disparity is to vast that it
> > only says something about the tools, and not a thing about my  
> > connection
> > speed and quality.
>
> It says you've got a much faster connection than most people in the  
> U.S.
> (according to the data you recommend in your next paragraph),
> and thus your connection is not as interesting as those of
> people with slower speeds.
>
> > If you want a global view of Internet connection speeds, see the data
> > from Speedtest drawn from users all over the world:
>
> > http://speedtest.net/global.php#0
>
> > It shows that users in the USA can easily buy a connection that's  
> > as fast
> > as the average speed in the countries with the highest average  
> > speeds,
>
> Sure, if U.S. users want to pay up to ten times as much as users in  
> those
> other countries do....  And that's in places in the U.S. where such  
> speeds
> are even available.
>
> Meanwhile, the FCC RFQ of today asks for:
>
> "2.2. How the Offeror will develop a statistically significant and
> geographically representative panel of consumers that enables national
> analyses, including at least 15 of the 20 largest ISP's (as measured
> by subscribers), targeted to 10,000 households (+/-5.0%) subscribing  
> to
> fixed wireline or wireless broadband services"
>
> No doubt Brett Glass's network provides excellent quality service to  
> its
> subscribers.  However, unless it's one of the top 20 largest ISPs
> by number of subscribers, it's not what the FCC is interested in
> measuring, and thus also presumably not what the FCC is interested
> in making rules about.  I'm sure someone from the FCC can correct me
> if I have deduced that last inaccurately.
>
> Meanwhile, the data the FCC is compiling by its current methods
> can be used later to calibrate whatever comes out of the RFQ.
>
> I predict now that no matter how comprehensive and precise the
> data resulting from the RFQ is, and no matter how much more so
> it is made over time, there will be those who argue that it's
> not precise enough.
>
> Nonetheless, by both methods we'll start to get a picture
> of which big ISPs are delivering and which are not.
>
> -jsq



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