Ask Slashdot: Holding ISPs Accountable For Contracted DSL Bandwidth

mcleland writes "I'm not getting the bandwidth I paid for from my DSL connection. My '3mbps' fluctuates between about 2.7 during the day down to 0.1 or 0.2 in the evening according to speedtest.net. Let's assume DSL is the only viable option for broadband at my house and I can't really move right now (rural area, on north face of the mountain, no cable service, very poor cell coverage). This was discussed 6 years ago, but I'd like to see if there are any current thoughts on whether I'm just stuck or if there is some way to make the ISP hold up its end."

The answer was the same 6 years ago:

[DogDude]

Get a lawyer. But, of course, the lawyer will be prohibitively expensive.

So realistically, no, there's nothing you can do short of terminating service.

Did you sign up for "up to" service?

[Glendale2x]

If you did, then "up to" means anything in between. You'd be getting exactly what you're paying for as part of the "up to" modifier.

The beauty of "best effort"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your DSL provider probably delivers on a "best effort" basis. See if you can get service from an alternate DSL provider. Other than that, there's really nothing you can do other than complain or cancel.

Re:What did you sign up for?

[Smallpond]

If you think about it, "up to" means "not more than". it's actually a negative feature, not a positive.

Re:The beauty of "best effort"...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

If complaining directly to them doesn't work, you might try griping about them on Twitter. My mother-in-law was able to get Comcast to make good on a bad deal that way.

Re:The answer was the same 6 years ago:

[sortius_nod]

This is why I'm happy to live in Australia.

We have an independent body called the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman, which investigates matters such as this & refers them on to ACMA if need be.

I'd say, stop letting your politicians crow on about "small government" & push them to set up consumer/business protection systems like the rest of the civilised world.

Re:I work for an ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for an ISP in the 90s and was involved in the early dsl rollouts. Someone should mod parent up since I am karmaless since a /. db error in 1998.

Shared traffic on the backhaul is why you have good BW while your neighbors are at the distillery, the hog farm or in the cab of their tractor. At night, shared bw means nobody gets good BW until someone goes to bed.

DL your movies at 3 am or 9 am and go on with your life.

Re:Read the contract you've signed

[ZenDragon]

I was able to convince my cable company to provide me with the highest plan they had at a discounted rate, after going through similar annoyances is with getting far less than I paid for. I told them I wanted to remain their customer, but I had alternative providers that I could have gone to and was willing to pay for the fastest plan they had otherwise. I guess there's something to be said for having competition in an area vying for your business.

Re:Ya be persistent with the calls

[green1]

Too many people complain about their service in public, and change providers, telling everyone how awful the first one is, without ever giving the first one a chance to fix it. If you don't tell them it's broken, how do you expect them to know?

Call, every time you have a problem. It's the only way they will know and fix it.

(well... almost the only way. I work for an ISP, and we've actually just started to do proactive line monitoring where we call people and tell them that they are having trouble and arrange to send a tech out before they even call in. The frustrating thing is most of them know they have a problem, they just never bothered to call in about it (though you can bet they called all their friends to complain about the lousy service))