Australia Considers Making It Illegal For ISPs To Advertise Inflated Speeds (vice.com) 70
The Australian government is currently considering a bill that would make it illegal for internet service providers to exaggerate speeds, or else face a fine of up to $1 million. "One constituent says he's being charged for a 25 megabit per second download speed and a five megabit per second upload and he's actually getting less than one tenth of that," said Andrew Wilkie, the Member of Parliament who introduced the bill. "In other words, people are getting worse than dial-up speed when they've been promised a whizz-bang, super-fast connection." Motherboard reports: Internet speeds can vary based on how many people are on the network and even the hardware you use, but while we can't expect ISPs to deliver maximum speed 100 percent of the time, previous probes into their performance have shown many ISPs in the U.S. aren't delivering even the minimum advertised speeds a majority of the time for the average user. Under the proposed Australian law, ISPs are simply required to be more transparent about what consumers can expect with a specific plan. Rather than advertising only the maximum speeds, they would have to include typical speeds for the average user, indicate busy periods, and clearly list any other factors that might impact service. The bill was only introduced this week, so it's yet to be seen if it will gain traction.
One Meeeelion Dollars! (Score:1)
(cue laughter from the gathered telecoms executives)
One Meeeelion Dollars! [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if it's a million dollars per day it's going to start hurting.
Re: (Score:2)
it's going to start hurting
Just check your Telstra broadband bill for the surcharge to cover the penalty.
Don't they have laws against false advertising? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They always word it as "up to" speeds to get around that. With ISP speeds there is a specific issue that the "up to" speed is only available to a tiny fraction of customers. Worse still the true speed you will get is hard to calculate - it depends on how long your bit of copper line is, what condition it's in, how congested your area is...
It's similar to car MPG ratings. Most are complete bollocks, and it's almost impossible to anticipate what a particular customer will be seeing with their driving style an
Re: (Score:2)
I would assume that Australia already has laws against false advertising. So, this would be redundant. I do not see how this is any worse than much other false advertising.
They do, but what they are doing is not false advertising, just dishonest. ISPs advertise the maximum speed and they are right that those are the maximum speed a customer (just not *you*) could theoretically attain. What they are suggesting here is not that the false advertisement stops, but the idea of a maximum being advertised stops and instead people get an average.
Kind of reminds me of the days people were advertising $50 boom boxes with 2000W power output with lots of fineprint saying what that one sp
Re: (Score:2)
In seems this case ISPs are simply retailing a shit service provided by the NBN the wholesaler. A purposefully designed shit service crippled not only in design but also in contractual implementation.
The system was purposefully designed to be a strangle band service. The wholesaler sells total bandwith allowed to a reseller and even when the wholesale can provide much more, they actually strangle off the service and cripple customer experience. So either the retailer buys more than they need or the assit t
Re: (Score:2)
They do, but what they are doing is not false advertising, just dishonest. ISPs advertise the maximum speed and they are right that those are the maximum speed a customer (just not *you*) could theoretically attain. What they are suggesting here is not that the false advertisement stops, but the idea of a maximum being advertised stops and instead people get an average.
That is fantastic! Replace a concrete limit on connection speed with an absolutely meaningless "average" metric. If "people" can't understand what the phrase "up to" means, will they have any better grasp on what "average" is?
Re: (Score:2)
The first is that every plan that deals with speed advertises "up to" that speed and usually make it clear that that is the theoretical maximum.
The second is that most of the connections are referred to as some form of "Broadband". Which is defined as somewhere around faster than dial up.
So if your up to 100mbps line is getting 1mbps you're still
Re: (Score:2)
The second is that most of the connections are referred to as some form of "Broadband". Which is defined as somewhere around faster than dial up.
In America, according to the FCC, the term "broadband" has a very specific meaning - it was actually a cause of great gnashing of teeth here on Slashdot, when the average Slashdot reader apparently thought the FCC defining down the term for "mobile broadband" meant their *home* broadband connections would slow down.
Re: (Score:2)
I would assume that Australia already has laws against false advertising. So, this would be redundant. I do not see how this is any worse than much other false advertising.
Yes, but they're currently getting around that by advertising the maximum theoretical speed which technically isn't a lie, I.E. up to "24 Mb" for ADSL 2. What this bill will do is force them to advertise the average speed of customers which would be closer to 7 Mbit/s.
It should be noted that the bill was tabled by Andrew Wilkie, an independent and long time parliamentarian who actually represents average people. One of the few members of the Australian parliament who deserves the title "the Honourable".
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, this answer seems to me to mean that the law is unnecessary. I long ago learned to pay attention to advertising qualifiers such as "up to" and "as much as", etc..
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, this answer seems to me to mean that the law is unnecessary. I long ago learned to pay attention to advertising qualifiers such as "up to" and "as much as", etc..
Actually that's exactly why its needed. Most people dont pay attention to advertising qualifiers. "Up to" is designed to deceive the reader, more so that "up to" will be in small print and 24 MB will be in massive print. Fibre and cable broadband are capable of delivering their max line speed (I.E. if it's advertised at 50 Mb/s you can achieve that on the local loop). Most broadband in Australia is ADSL, with ADSL connection speed varies based on your distance from the exchange and line quality so an "up t
Re: (Score:2)
if I ran an ISP and my top speed was less than my competitor's, but my typical speed was faster, I would promote that fact rather than the "up to" speed
Most of copper is owned by Telstra, the privatised version of the original public utility. Only a few companies (three, I think) have their own kit in exchanges. This means that to a large extent, speed is constrained by equipment owned by only a few players. There's very little room to run faster or have better average speeds when you're reselling someone else's service and trying to differentiate on service, pricing, packages etc.
I long ago learned to pay attention to advertising qualifiers such as "up to" and "as much as", etc.
Congratulations. Your virtue has been noted. Meanwhile, Australia has consum
Yep. (Score:2)
Same in the UK - they are going to have to advertise a guaranteed minimum as well as their headline figures.
We all know this was going to be abused from the second people started advertising "up to". They never really used to game it in the modem era, because it was 33.6K or 56K (or whatever) and your modem knew the difference.
Either we need to start charging based on the speed available (i.e. basically per gigabyte, which means most people on slow connections won't be able to consume enough to make money
Re: (Score:1)
Either we need to start charging based on the speed available (i.e. basically per gigabyte, which means most people on slow connections won't be able to consume enough to make money on) or we need to guarantee a figure (minimum or average, it doesn't matter, so long as you can get your money back if they can't reach it).
Sadly people don't really do complexity well, so it has to be simple. How about, if you advertise 50Mbps and your average speed really is 50Mbps when you actually use data, then your bill is as expected. If your average speed is really 25Mbps, your bill is cut in half. The key has to be that the average is only calculated when you saturate your link, or attempt to. You also need to do it often enough to be statistically significant.
Its a little work to define, but if the average user could notice they a
Re: (Score:2)
How about, if you advertise 50Mbps and your average speed really is 50Mbps when you actually use data, then your bill is as expected. If your average speed is really 25Mbps, your bill is cut in half.
That would be a good start, but things like latency and packet loss are also pretty important for a lot of applications.
Re: (Score:2)
As the old saying goes, never underestimate the bandwidth of a stationwagon full of backup tapes racing down the freeway.
Re: (Score:2)
Its a little work to define, but if the average user could notice they are not getting what they paid for, then the bill should be reduced to what they got.
Imagine two users - one gets a solid 50 Mbps connection to Amazon/Google/YouTube/Facebook/Netflix and the other gets an average of 2.5 Mbps connection to an obscure Asian anime fan website, should the "average user" pay 100% of their bill, and the "anime user" only pay 1/20th of their bill, because that's what they actually "got"?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I wholeheartedly agree with this but we really should go further. The phrase "up to" should be illegal in all advertising not just broadband data rates. For example,
This paint "Lasts for up to 7 years" - bullshit, if it peels off the day after that's fine
This toothpaste "Removes up to 100% of stains" - bullshit, it doesn't have to do anything.
The term "up to" is over used everywhere and is obviously designed by advertising agencies to confuse the gullible.
Please, let's replace "up to" with "at least" in all
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think even that goes far enough. I would argue that the *only* bandwidth number one could advertise is the 95th percentile minimum guaranteed speed. That would encompass both speed and reliability in one number. They should also be required to list maximum latency even though most of the population won't understand it - at least at first.
As to advertising in general, I personally think that it is false advertising to show any product other than how it is regularly delivered and commonly and properly
Re: (Score:2)
Please, let's replace "up to" with "at least" in all advertising then everybody will know where they stand.
If an ISP offers "at least" 5 Mbps connection speeds (for example), that means they commit to providing every user with a 24x7, 365 dys a year 5 Mbps connection between their house and... what? The head end office? Any Internet resource anywhere in the world? what? Such a claim would invite lawsuits.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting speeds you get. I'm in rural BC, lots of trees and rain. The other month (Nov) the phone company lit up their new cell tower and pushing their 4G home internet which I signed up for as dial up now a days is insanely slow. The best speeds I've seen have been about 15/1 (usually more like 12/1.5 and now in the evenings, it is more like 1/3 and even watching a crappy youtube video results in lots of time outs. It seems that it is just as easy to oversell 4G as any other type of connection and while
Worse than dial-up? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Technically true, but thanks to ads, Javascript libraries, ads, linked fonts, ads, embedded video, ads, animated GIF versions of videos, ads, etc., web page content has bloated, frequently by more than that factor of 45, since the days of 56k, so the effective speed isn't a whole lot faster.
What utter hogwash - you conflate network connection speed with page render time, which is (as you point out) a function of not only connection speed but page content. Would you make the opposite claim that the pure-text web was "faster" on 14,400 baud modems than the "modern" web with larded-up webpages and "up to 25 Mbps" connection speeds?
Re: (Score:2)
Oh you must be an ISP. You read a statement and then pointed out the *maximum* from that statement ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
He probably meant ADSL.
Re: (Score:1)
Funny I would have thought that false advertising was already illegal but apparently they need to make a new special law for ISPs in Aus
Re: (Score:2)
It is and the ACCC fined large telcos and made them pay back the differences between the plan the customer was on and the plan that was achievable on the link. Customers that were affected could also cancel their contracts with no penalty for early termination.
The ACCC also drew up new advertising guidelines which require ISP's to advertise the rate achievable in peak times.
Going forward, if after connection, it is found that the rate you signed up for is not achievable on the link you can downgrade the c
Re: (Score:2)
It's because they think the average Australian can't understand that offering someone "up to 25 Mbps" connection isn't the same thing as offering them a "guaranteed 25 Mbps" connection.
price advertising is also fraudulent (Score:1)
Maybe they can also fix the problem where they advertise "$79.99/mo" but when your bill comes it's $126.38 because of all the extra BS fees they didn't include in the advertised price.
Re: (Score:2)
It shouldn't be difficult to collect stats from the modem. Every day that the connection can't achieve that full speed triggers a discount on the bill, say 1% for each day the speed isn't reached.
Every day the speed can't achieve 67% of that speed triggers an additional discount, say 2%.
Can't get to 50% of that speed? Another discount - this time 5%.
No doubt this will result in much higher monthly bills, to cover the penalty discounts, or it might result in more realistic pricing to provide the service - yo
and he's actually getting less than one tenth of.. (Score:2)
Oh, and also your bits seem to be slightly off-color. Try adding more beige and see if that helps in the interim.
Let us know when you've completed your move and we'll bill you, I mean hook your additional location right up.
Strewth and also blue ruin (Score:2)
Interfering in the market when if they just leave it alone people will switch supplier if they get bad speeds.
Next they'll be taking everybody's guns, introducing socialised medicine and allowing poofters to get married. Married to other bloomin' poofters, that is.
It's political correctness gone mad.
(cayenne8 is on holiday)
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you for filling in ;-)
Unfortunately, the retailers buy capacity from the NBNCo. They compete almost solely on price, which means they don't buy enough capacity to cope with peak demand - hence the slowdowns between 4pm and 11pm when everyone's watching Netflix. Speeds are generally much better outside of those times. Retailers should be offering tiered pricing based on actual performance. Discounted rates during peak times, but a big discount from midnight-5am. It would help if Netflix made the downlo
What about physical limitations? (Score:2)
So this is all good and find in theory where everyone is on fiber and perfect copper, but the vast majority of Australia is on ADSL2+ which has a theoretical speed limit of 25/5 and a practical speed limit that is very much dependent on each individual customer and not at all in control of the ISP or how much bandwidth they are able to allocate to you.
I was on a pretty good ISP and never experienced peak hour slowdowns (though I left Australia before Netflix became a thing there). However that doesn't chang
Re: (Score:2)
So this is all good and find in theory where everyone is on fiber and perfect copper, but the vast majority of Australia is on ADSL2+ which has a theoretical speed limit of 25/5 and a practical speed limit that is very much dependent on each individual customer and not at all in control of the ISP or how much bandwidth they are able to allocate to you.
How are they supposed to advertise this kind of service?
The same way they do now, don't mention performance. For ADSL customers performance isn't a differentiating feature when choosing an ISP. That is in the pitch, then they offer a detailed page like Internode's [on.net] that goes into a fair bit of detail and allows you to guess at your speed.
The target of this is the NBN resellers. Particularly dodgy operators which offer 100Mbps plans over a wireless link that they know maxes out at a tenth of that, or under-provision the backhaul so everyone is crawling along.
Of
Re: (Score:2)
This discussion isn't about ADSL, but NBN connections. At least on an ADSL plan, once you knew your link speed, you would get that much bandwidth all day. Now that people are swapping to NBN, and ISP's aren't paying their extortionate rate for bandwidth, your actual throughput will vary.
I hate the fact that we are building this brand new network, with enough capacity to provide for our bandwidth needs for the next 50 years. But we're not allowing people to use it unless they pay a stupid amount of money. H
"Fast, Cheaper, Sooner" (Score:2)
The result has been an explosion of additional costs to remediate the chosen technologies, such that both cost and completion time-frame are now worse than the 93% FTPP plan.
You know what is *not* included in the new cost model?
Legislation and regulation costs & effort dealing with the vagaries of the mish-mash network that needs
Up to (Score:2)
"Up to x speed" is intentionally deceptive.
Kind of like mixing 100% beef and 100% earthworms in a 50:50 ratio and then advertising it as "Made with 100% beef". It's true, but deceptive.
Re: (Score:2)
"Up to x speed" is intentionally deceptive.
No, it isn't - it clearly states that "X speed" is the maximum possible, it makes no claim about average or minimum speed.
Legend has it that P.T. Barnum had a sign in his "oddities museum" in NYC that promoted the "Egress" with numerous arrows directing museum-goers to see the "Egress", only to have the customer arrive at a door marked "Egress" that was actually the exit. Who's fault was it when the patrons walked out the exit - Barnum clearly indicated what it was, is it his fault his customers didn't know
Re: (Score:2)
"Up to x speed" is intentionally deceptive.
No, it isn't - it clearly states that "X speed" is the maximum possible, it makes no claim about average or minimum speed.
Legend has it that P.T. Barnum had a sign in his "oddities museum" in NYC that promoted the "Egress" with numerous arrows directing museum-goers to see the "Egress", only to have the customer arrive at a door marked "Egress" that was actually the exit. Who's fault was it when the patrons walked out the exit - Barnum clearly indicated what it was, is it his fault his customers didn't know what an "Egress" was?
It's not his fault they don't know, but it seems pretty clear that he did know that many would not. So he was telling the truth, just like my two examples, but also being intentionally deceptive.
Lossy Technologies and Internet Speed. (Score:1)
Faulty Math (Score:2)
. "One constituent says he's being charged for a 25 megabit per second download speed and a five megabit per second upload and he's actually getting less than one tenth of that," said Andrew Wilkie, the Member of Parliament who introduced the bill. "In other words, people are getting worse than dial-up speed when they've been promised a whizz-bang, super-fast connection."
When has dial-up ever been 2.5Mbps or even 0.5Mbps? The best dial-up I was ever aware of was 0.056Mbps, AKA 56Kbps.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, let's exaggerate, too... that'll help! (Score:2)
So this quote presents a bit of an issue:
"... he's being charged for a 25 megabit per second download speed ... and he's actually getting less than one tenth of that," said Andrew Wilkie, ... "In other words, people are getting worse than dial-up speed ..."
So, for those of us who still remember surfing the web over actual dial-up -- or even for those of you who can look up those speeds and do a little bit of really easy math -- the peak speed of a legacy POTS based dial-up modem connection was 56kbps. One-tenth of 25mbps would still be 2.5mbps, which is roughly on the order of 2500kbps. So unless that "less than one tenth" quote really meant less than one thousandth... those broadband users are probably still getting d