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Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

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Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#341

Post by throwaway290 »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #332
throwaway290 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, a popular speed test site could gain kickbacks from ISPs who want their customers to see "correct" number. However, the deal is mostly not about speed test sites but about ISP behavior. ISP may maintain a registry of known speed test sites and shape traffic so that you get great results on those. Registries aside, your ISP may also be detecting and throttling BT and/or VPN traffic, shaping sustai…

You mention same city. That could be part of the issue, if the ISP's connection to other cities is where the congestion is. I live in the middle of nowhere relatively speaking, so all my Internet traffic is non-local, and the same at my friends' and neighbors' houses.

Yeah, same, in real life I never need my connection to download something local or have a video call locally. However, speed test pre-selected local server on the same ISP network, so it reported unbelievable and useless number.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#342

Post by beowulfey »

rglullis wrote: post #184
jyrkesh wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of electricity in the US is charged differently during "off-peak hours". I know some EV owners who take advantage of this by scheduling when they charge their cars.

Thanks, that's a more relevant example of discriminatory pricing. I wonder though if people defending net neutrality would look at this and think "off-peak pricing is wrong, everyone should pay the same..."

Actually, my point above was that if we are going to get rid of net neutrality, it makes logical sense to also get rid of neutrality for electricity since it's more likely to be beneficial there than for the internet.

I'm honestly surprised at the backlash against net neutrality on here.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#343

Post by rglullis »

beowulfey wrote: post #342
rglullis wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, that's a more relevant example of discriminatory pricing. I wonder though if people defending net neutrality would look at this and think "off-peak pricing is wrong, everyone should pay the same..."

Actually, my point above was that if we are going to get rid of net neutrality, it makes logical sense to also get rid of neutrality for electricity since it's more likely to be beneficial there than for the internet. I'm honestly surprised at the backlash against net neutrality on here.

But there isn't neutrality for electricity.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#344

Post by newaccount74 »

nybble41 wrote: post #339
newaccount74 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the full picture. Electricity prices are dominated by supply vs. demand. There are many sources of electricity available, some of them being very cheap (hydro) some of them expensive (currently gas). When demand for electricity goes up, the cheap power sources are going to be running at capacity, and utilities will need to buy more expensive power. This increases the marginal cost of electricity for everyo…

What you are describing is merely competition. Everyone pays the same marginal amount per kWh for a given amount of electricity—ignoring minor details like connection charges and time-of-day pricing. Yes, having more aggregate demand will tend to raise prices for everyone, but that doesn't amount to a subsidy. Internet access is typically billed as "unlimited" so those who use it very little pay a high rate per bit t…

> that doesn't amount to a subsidy

It's really the same thing as in the flat rate case. It's a bit less unfair since the cost rises linearly, but it's not enough to leave small consumers unaffected. People who consume small amounts of a utility still pay more because of people who consume a lot.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#346

Post by v37p »

belter wrote: post #311

Did a little bit of data mining on this thread. All Test Pages mentioned so far: ---------------------------------- https://www.speedtest.net/ https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli https://speed.cloudflare.com/ http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest https://librespeed.org/ http://134.209.196.181:8080 https://proof.ovh.net/ https://fast.com/ https://speed.aussiebroadband.com.au/ https://www.speedcheck.org/ https://speedof.m…

My go-to is https://speed.measurementlab.net/

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#347

Post by rglullis »

nybble41 wrote: post #340
rglullis wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, that's a more relevant example of discriminatory pricing. I wonder though if people defending net neutrality would look at this and think "off-peak pricing is wrong, everyone should pay the same..."

> I wonder though if people defending net neutrality would look at this and think "off-peak pricing is wrong, everyone should pay the same..." Probably not, as it has nothing to do with where the electricity is coming from or how it's being used. Having different rates for different times of the day which still apply to all users and all services is not generally perceived as a violation of neutrality.

Suppose there was a broadband provider charging more for data transmitted when the network is congested, don't you think it would be a violation of net neutrality?

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#348

Post by Abimelex »

ranger207 wrote: post #26

Yes, this is true. This is why Netflix runs fast.com: it serves Netflix content from Netflix servers, so if ISPs want to prioritize fast.com content they'll have to prioritize Netflix content as well. Of course, that doesn't help non-Netflix sites...

That would explain why fast.com is slow and speedtest.net was fast. Wow, I thought just the servers of fast.com where just a bit overloaded, when I checked recently after the tariff-upgrade.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#349

Post by nybble41 »

rglullis wrote: post #347
nybble41 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder though if people defending net neutrality would look at this and think "off-peak pricing is wrong, everyone should pay the same..." Probably not, as it has nothing to do with where the electricity is coming from or how it's being used. Having different rates for different times of the day which still apply to all users and all services is not generally perceived as a violation of neutrality.

Suppose there was a broadband provider charging more for data transmitted when the network is congested, don't you think it would be a violation of net neutrality?

No, not as long as they charged everyone equally for the same service during the congested times without regard for how the bits were being used.

The point of net neutrality is that ISPs should ignore the content, source, and destination of the packets they carry when it comes to prioritization and pricing. QoS is fine as long as it's under the subscriber's control (for example, via DSCP tags), but it can be an issue if it leads to the ISP one subscriber's traffic over another's based on the services being accessed. Tiered services (paying for higher bandwidth, lower latency, etc.) are also fine so long as the tiers assigned to each class of traffic are chosen by the subscriber and not tied to specific protocols or peers.

Consider the USPS as a model of neutrality: they offer various grades of service from bulk package deliveries to Priority Mail but everyone paying for the same service gets (more or less) equal treatment.

Re: Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest?

#350

Post by levifig »

No need for tinfoil hats. This is a very basic networking consideration: peering. I've worked at ISPs and we would see traffic struggle through some of our contracted peers but not others all the time. It would take a while for all routes to update, and that if we had rerouting setup properly (not always the case). It gets extra complicated when you add BGP to the mix.

Long story short, most ISPs run or are well peered to data centers nearby, which is where speed tests are normally hosted at. For traffic outside of those hops, peering issues can lead to a multitude of issues... and you don't have to be evil for that to happen. No ISPs control the entire IP path between the client and server (with extremely narrow coincidental exceptions).

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