Legal recourse??
Thread Starter
Black Pearl
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 2,517
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From: Wisconsin
Legal recourse??
I've been talking to DSL support for my area regarding the overhead (the difference between advertised speed and actual speed). I sent a letter to the company regarding this:
(The names have been changed to protect the innocent)
This is what I received back from them:
To me this sounds like false advertising. They advertise speeds of "up to 768 download" but it seems they limit the connection so it will never achieve that speed to prevent errors in the system. What do you guys think?
(The names have been changed to protect the innocent)
Originally Posted by Me
Good day!!
I am a DSL subscriber in the bustling town of ******, Wisconsin. I
recently changed my DSL connection from a 512/256 to a 768/256. Before doing this, I took the liberty of testing my download speed and received values of 450/209. Very respectable numbers I must say. Doing the math, this gave me an overhead of about 14%. Now since I've switched to the 768/256 I've checked it once more. I've been receiving values of 600/200 on average. This leaves me with an overhead of about 22%.
My question is why has my overhead changed so much just by switching to a
faster connection? Everything remained the same at my end. Can you offer any explanations?
Thank you so much for your time!!
I am a DSL subscriber in the bustling town of ******, Wisconsin. I
recently changed my DSL connection from a 512/256 to a 768/256. Before doing this, I took the liberty of testing my download speed and received values of 450/209. Very respectable numbers I must say. Doing the math, this gave me an overhead of about 14%. Now since I've switched to the 768/256 I've checked it once more. I've been receiving values of 600/200 on average. This leaves me with an overhead of about 22%.
My question is why has my overhead changed so much just by switching to a
faster connection? Everything remained the same at my end. Can you offer any explanations?
Thank you so much for your time!!
This is what I received back from them:
Originally Posted by DSL Provider
I followed up on this all day yesterday. Since the other service was working with a lower percentage of overhead and nothing had been changed on the lines going to your location, I was leaning more towards a bandwidth issue rather than an equipment problem or a line issue. I called our NSC department to check and see if there could be a bandwidth issue in your region and the technician that I spoke with checked the equipment in your area and he stated that there was plenty of bandwidth in your region and you should not have any problem concerning bandwidth.
After hearing this, I called the area supervisor in your area and he told me why the overhead percentage had risen but he would go out to the central office and run some test anyway just to verify there was not a problem. He ran some speed tests and checked the equipment at the central office and the speeds he was getting there were also in the 600 down range with the 22% overhead. I was like you not knowing why the overhead would rise with a speed increase and I questioned this. He told me along with my supervisors that with an increase in speeds more bandwidth or overhead is needed for maintenance of that connection. This involves error control and flow control of that connection. The area supervisor's words were "more maintenance for MS is needed to maintain a faster connection." I will also say that I have seen this with other customers with our 1.5MB down service that could only pull 1.1MB due to the increase in overhead and with their other connection the overhead was not this high. This is the first time that I had questioned this and that is why I did not have a direct answer for you. I wish there was
something that I could do to lower the overhead on this connection and I even asked the area supervisor about this but he said there is nothing that he could do as did the tech at NSC who monitors the bandwidth. If anything could be done, I would definitely take that road but my supervisors told me that an increase in speeds will cause the overhead percentage to go up.
After hearing this, I called the area supervisor in your area and he told me why the overhead percentage had risen but he would go out to the central office and run some test anyway just to verify there was not a problem. He ran some speed tests and checked the equipment at the central office and the speeds he was getting there were also in the 600 down range with the 22% overhead. I was like you not knowing why the overhead would rise with a speed increase and I questioned this. He told me along with my supervisors that with an increase in speeds more bandwidth or overhead is needed for maintenance of that connection. This involves error control and flow control of that connection. The area supervisor's words were "more maintenance for MS is needed to maintain a faster connection." I will also say that I have seen this with other customers with our 1.5MB down service that could only pull 1.1MB due to the increase in overhead and with their other connection the overhead was not this high. This is the first time that I had questioned this and that is why I did not have a direct answer for you. I wish there was
something that I could do to lower the overhead on this connection and I even asked the area supervisor about this but he said there is nothing that he could do as did the tech at NSC who monitors the bandwidth. If anything could be done, I would definitely take that road but my supervisors told me that an increase in speeds will cause the overhead percentage to go up.
Card carrying badass
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 768
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From: Little Rock, AR
I haven't done any legal research into the field of false advertising but just based on common sense, I would also go with you and say that this is false advertising. It's b.s. to advertise a speed that you will never be able to achieve.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Originally Posted by Hondaman
They advertise speeds of "up to 768 download" but it seems they limit the connection so it will never achieve that speed to prevent errors in the system. What do you guys think?
