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Post your comments for Is Your ISP Throttling Your Internet Connection here

[Deprivation]

"Is Your ISP Throttling Your Internet Connection" That sentence is a question. So you'd want to put a question mark at the end of it. Make sense?
Try to get your writing up to second-grade levels.

[bdubz]

My ISP is apparently blocking the entire site.

[Reichling]

I have two internet connections, one cable line through Comcast and a bonded T1 line through AT&T. The connection to the website is seriously degraded over Comcast compared to when I try to access it over AT&T. Seems Comcast might be trying to prevent people from accessing this website... What a surprise....

[mphenterprises]

Hi All.


I posted this in the other Discussion and I think it is a good idea to post it here as well. It is not fair to make that blanket accusation without fully investigating the issue. I too have Comcast and it too me a very long time to get the page, but I did get there. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)







The fact is that if Comcast was blocking the site, you would have received "Page Cannot Be Displayed" or something like that. The fact that it is taking a long time to load is that there could be many people trying to access the page at the same time.

I just tried it again and it is now loading faster. I tried to go back and get a screen shot of the error that I show so we can compare and the best I could do is this:





I know you cannot see the text, but did the page you saw look similar to this?

[Reichling]

Actually comcast is well known for throttling traffic to certain sites/services but not always blocking it...

[mphenterprises]

Oh, that is very true. I am not disputing that. I was just providing another possibility. Think how many people must be hitting the measurementlabs server right now. If their servers cannot handle the load, it may take longer for the page to load then normal...or not at all. It has happened within this forum on a few occasions.

[Reichling]

That is definitely another possibility and I totally agree with you on that. I was just responding to the part where you said: "The fact is that if Comcast was blocking the site, you would have received "Page Cannot Be Displayed" or something like that." Also I wasent making a blanket statement.. I said "Seems Comcast might be trying to prevent people from accessing this website"

[mphenterprises]

:D No worries. My post was not directly meant for you. It was meant for all who may think that. I posted the same message in another related Discussion and in that discussion, the person did directly allege that Comcast is throttling the site. My mistake, I should have edited the post better.

[CJLee89]

I think the site is just slow in general for whatever reason. I have Roadrunner (7 meg connection) and it takes a little bit to.

[nx1701]

I think you need to get your READING skills up to second-grade levels, Deprivation - I see a question mark at the end of that question! :-)

[mphenterprises]

Hi again all. I just wanted to put a lot of people's minds at ease. I again tried to get to the measurementlab.com site. This time, I was able to get straight in with no problem. I was about to start the Full Test when this message appeared: (Click on the image to enlarge it.)








It appears that the issue earlier was related to server overload and not Comcast. Please be patient with the site. If you get this error, try again later.

[WinTard]

Well throtlling isn't blocking BTW... :^0

And for bandwidth metrics I use http://speedtest.net



PS OFF TOPIC: Time Warner, Comcast, Charter, Bell, Allstream, AT&T and Rogers (amongst others) are some of our customers just in North America... Did I mention we cover South America, Europe and Asia? Australia & New Zealand are next. Oh our customers all use Windows... Most of them have IT policies forbidding Linux (alas) onto desktops. And some of their servers are Unix based. I said SOME and definitely NOT the majority. 80/20 ratio are Windows Servers / Unix. Could all these large companies be mistaken? Or is it the other way around? Did I say I appreciate Linux, but my operating system of choice is QNX? Yet I must use Windows. And it is definitely robust and performant. That's the simple truth & reality. The rest is mere delusion and insanity. I am NOT bad mouthing Linux. Just stating facts. And people, you can boot any LiveCD distribution of Linux, without having to install it onto the HDD. Learn the rules well, so you can break them properly. Simple eh? Another alternative is to boot Linux under Windows with Hyper-V. That is following the rules too, isn't it? Just be smart and think. Rules are made to be broken. As for OS X, I would gladly boot it under Windows, but Apple won't let me, unless hacked. Now why would anybody care to do that? What's the use? When anyone can boot FreeBSD with no hassles under Windows?

Everything is relative.
~ Albert Einstein

[puterdood]

As a victim of satellite internet provider Direcway (now HughesNet), I almost gave up on internet access altogether. Direcway/Hughes would suddenly just stop working with no warning whatsoever and it turns out they limit you as to what you can download, what sites you can visit, and how much you can download. It got to the point where I fought with their so-called tech support almost daily. When they finally offered AT&T DSL in my area, it was no question at all that I needed to cancel Direcway immediately and get their junk (sat dish) out of my yard. DSL has been pretty good until recently. I have started noticing the same problems as mentioned before. AT&T seems to be up to the same shady, underhanded, black-hearted practices as Direcway. I was paying $60/month to Direcway for their sorry excuse for internet service. Now I am starting to feel the same way paying $30/month to AT&T.

My big question is that why is the United States still in the dark ages of internet service when compared to Asian countries such as Japan and Korea when it comes to speed and cost? I firmly believe this is one reason we are lagging behind the rest of the world in some aspects. Shouldn't we have better service at a reasonable cost? Shouldn't the U.S. be at or near the top of the list when it comes to internet service, technology, education, health care, and more, just to name a few things? I am not bragging on the U.S. - to be honest, there are few things left to brag about anyway. What I am saying is that if we want to regain the status of being the best country to live in, something is going to have to be done to bring us up to speed with the rest of the world regardless of whether AT&T, Comcast, HughesNet, or whoever continues to rape us all with the charges for inferior service. I don't mind paying a reasonable amount for reasonable service, but I feel like I am paying good money to be bullied by AT&T. They are stealing my money by not giving me what I am paying for. Is there any solution to the problem, other than to shut off my internet service completely and not pay AT&T one penny?

[LastViper]

I have Verizon Fios and every server for every test was not able to be contacted. I do not know if it is being blocked or if the server is overloaded. I sent an e-mail to Google's company and will post the answer once I get it.

[mphenterprises]

Hi LastViper and welcome to the PCWorld Communities. :D




Please read post #11. Their servers are getting inundated with hits and cannot handle the load. Just try back later.

[tokyo77]

It already has one... Looks like someone needs to get their reading up to second grade levels.

Lol

[mphenterprises]

Okay, the results are in. It is about 4am and I am up for my daily workout. I decided to try the test again, but this time I used Internet Explorer. Well, the test ran for about five minutes and when it was done, this is what I saw: (Click on the image to enlarge it)

!http://www.mphenterprisesnj.com/untitled.jpg|thumbnail=true!



According to this test, Comcast is NOT throttling my network. However, just like doing speed tests, it is better to perform more tests to get an overall average. Hopefully, I will be able to run the test over the next several days so I can get a more definitive determination.

Something interesting to point out. According to Glasnost's Test Result Page, Comcast does, and is pretty consistent with, throttling or blocking tests. Here is a graphical representation of how often Comcast does block or throttle tests: (Click on the image to enlarge it)



!http://www.mphenterprisesnj.com/capture.jpg|thumbnail=true!




According to the graph, Comcast blocks about 50-60% of Glasnost's tests, regardless of the time of day or the day of the week. I'll post again when I am able to run another test.

[mevande]

When I try it indicates server is busy, hence there are too many people trying to hit them at present. I have Brighthouse and thus far, I have not read anything re: locking out sites/sevices.

[BAMT]

I have Verizon FiOS as well. I know that FiOS does not block or throttle, but recently it has blocked port 80 forwarding, which is why my web site went.