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this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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Ehhh, I get what you are saying but I would rephrase the above poster's comment a little then. If a person is paying for 100Mbps and they are able to get/find a source or some combination of sources that are able to supply them 100mbps of data then that's what they should be getting. The easiest example being a torrent for popular Linux distros.
I personally think the solution to that should be some kind of regulatory minimum around the advertisement of speed or contractual service obligation. For example if a person pays for a 100Mbps connection then the ISP should be required to supply that speed at +/- 5% instantaneous and -.5% on average (because if you give them a range you know they will maintain the lowest possible speed to be in compliance).
Don't look too hard at my numbers, I pulled them out of my ass, but hopefully it gets across the idea.
Keep in mind that because few residential users max out capacity simultaneously the ISPs "overbook" capacity, and usually this works out because they have solid stats on average use and usually few people need the max capacity simultaneously.
Of course some ISPs are greedier than others and do it to the extreme where the uplink/downlink is regularly maxed out without giving anything near the promised bandwidth to a significant fraction of customers. The latter part should be disincentivized.
Force the ISPs to keep stats on peak load and how frequently their customers are unable to get advertised bandwidth, and if it's above some threshold it should be considered comparable to excess downtime, and then they should be forced to pay back the affected customers. The only way they can avoid losing money is by either changing their plans to make a realistic offer or by building out capacity.
Yeah, I wish we'd do this.
I have a good ISP that has worked properly pretty much every time I've tested it (usually a few times/year, and usually during peak hours). But I've had bad ISPs where I've never gotten the advertised speed (best I got was 15% less than advertised, but it was usually 30% or more less).