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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?

#181

Post by kortilla »

KMag wrote: post #126
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and doesn't really achieve anything useful At my previous apartment, I would get a full month rebate off my internet bill if I could document speeds considerably below average on a computer plugged in with ethernet. I could very well see an ISP with such a policy looking for nefarious ways to "fix" that money loss.

There's that, and also visiting a speed test site is an indicator that a particular user is more sensitive to speed than the general user base (and perhaps considering jumping to another ISP). It absolutely makes business sense to prioritize traffic to users who pay more attention.

No, as an isp these are the worst customers. It’s better to piss off an dump people who consume a lot of bandwidth an are obsessed with throughput if you’re “business obsessed”.

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

#182

Post by ogurechny »

bzxcvbn wrote: post #52
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...

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why net neutrality is important.

It is quite obvious, at least from outside of USA, that “net neutrality” there is how certain group of corporations has been trying to lobby the codification of rules preferential to them to use in battle with other group of corporations.

Anywhere in the world there are local and global popular services that generate high volumes of traffic. Providers naturally care about getting shortest paths to them, plan in advance, join local exchanges, and so on, even if they don't have any direct agreements. For starters, it might lower your traffic costs. In some locations there are mid-tier ISPs offering just good connectivity with all locally popular networks; they offer the solution for low-tier ISPs for some extra coins. However, it is hard to imagine that some ISP would try to make the big source of traffic pay for what has already been paid by customers.

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

#183

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ogurechny wrote: post #182
bzxcvbn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why net neutrality is important.

It is quite obvious, at least from outside of USA, that “net neutrality” there is how certain group of corporations has been trying to lobby the codification of rules preferential to them to use in battle with other group of corporations. Anywhere in the world there are local and global popular services that generate high volumes of traffic. Providers naturally care about getting shortest paths to them, plan in advan…

> It is quite obvious, at least from outside of USA, that “net neutrality” there is how certain group of corporations has been trying to lobby the codification of rules preferential to them to use in battle with other group of corporations.

Complete nonsense. "Net neutrality" means that there is no preferential treatment of packets based on origin or destination.

> However, it is hard to imagine that some ISP would try to make the big source of traffic pay for what has already been paid by customers.

I think you need to work on your imagination. ISPs in the USA have already tried this (not sure if it is still happening).

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

#184

Post by rglullis »

jyrkesh wrote: post #180
rglullis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: is there any place in the US where electricity is subsidized or has discriminatory pricing?

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..."

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

#185

Post by bombcar »

mfer wrote: post #152

Speed tests often test last mile. That’s only part of real world performance. Some examples of other factors to real world stuff: 1. If you internet provider has limited bandwidth when it connects to other parts of the internet. I used to have a problem where my ISP has one connection out of its network. That bandwidth was limited and caused real world issues. 2. TCP can and often does involve multiple round trips. A…

You can often deduce the pipeline sizes from a trace route - if the next step out of your ISP is LA-NYC-1G.carrier.net you’re probably never going to see more than 1G until they upgrade the equipment and leave the name the same.

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

#186

Post by bombcar »

thefreeman wrote: post #158
vyrotek wrote: post #10

This is one feature I like from my Wifi router. It does regular speed tests and tracks the results over time. I like to think it reminds my ISP that I want the speed I'm paying for.

if this is theoretically saturating your bandwidth doesn't this lead to intermittent poor performance from your connected devices?

Saturating download can prevent acks from getting through in some cases on some mediums. So throttling download a bit speeds everything else up.

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

#187

Post by User23 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #183
ogurechny wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite obvious, at least from outside of USA, that “net neutrality” there is how certain group of corporations has been trying to lobby the codification of rules preferential to them to use in battle with other group of corporations. Anywhere in the world there are local and global popular services that generate high volumes of traffic. Providers naturally care about getting shortest paths to them, plan in advan…

> It is quite obvious, at least from outside of USA, that “net neutrality” there is how certain group of corporations has been trying to lobby the codification of rules preferential to them to use in battle with other group of corporations. Complete nonsense. "Net neutrality" means that there is no preferential treatment of packets based on origin or destination. > However, it is hard to imagine that some ISP would t…

> Complete nonsense. "Net neutrality" means that there is no preferential treatment of packets based on origin or destination.

Categorically false. There’s no “net neutrality” legislation enacted or proposed that doesn’t have giant and vague QoS and general network operations carve-outs.

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