Is it possible, or legal, for my ISP to throttle my internett? USA

[Adultism]

Did a speed test from like 4 different sites, all giving me a 0.1 DL and UL speed and 7 ping. AT&T is my ISP and I think I'm paying for 20MB a second which is around 1MB of dl speed on steam a second. Not sure exactly whats going on but I know a couple years ago when I was living with my parents they were being charged for 20MB and they were only giving them 10KB a second, and even told me over the phone that they were on a 10KB a second plan. Obviously they take me for a fool so I was wondering what I should do, if i can even do anything.

Takes like 15 seconds to load a damn internet page by the way, and I can't play anything online.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Any questions about legality really need to specify the jurisdiction.

 

[Starnerf]

Do you have a bandwidth cap? It's common practice for companies to throttle aggressively after you exceed a bandwidth cap. Also the contracts are usually carefully worded so they don't actually promise that you'll get the listed speed. They'll say something like "up to 20mbps down" to cover their asses if there's a lot of traffic. I would imagine that also covers them in the case of throttling when going over a cap, too.

If you don't have a cap, then I don't know what would cause it. If the details of your plan are correct according to customer service, then I'd suggest saying you'll switch to a competitor and see if they decide you do want that speed after all.

 

[Comocat]

You pay for the maximum possible speed, not the speed you actually ever achieve. You should be able to call ATT and have them explain the discrepancy. My ATT uverse had throttling kick in around 250gb per month but this depends on the contract.

 

[Mezahmay]

I haven't tried this but have seen anecdotal evidence suggesting this: call AT&T and threaten to cancel your service due to the high discrepancy between the speed you pay for and the speed you actually have. That should grease wheels enough to get less shitty service, as I don't think 10kbs down has been an acceptable speed in several years. I doubt they'd be willing to lose a customer to someone else like Comcast or...Comcast.

 

[seris]

every ISP states that you get "up to" whatever the advertised speed is, some ISP's are more honest than others when it comes to enforcing this statement, for example my ISP here in missouri advertises 100 down and 5 up, but i usually pull 106 megabits down and 3-4 up. if you are unhappy with your service try calling them on the phone and complaining, or threaten to switch to a different ISP (they'll do anything to keep from losing a customer)

 

[Something Amyss]

But it might not be that. It might just be a problem with your line.

Or it might be that these are not guaranteed speeds, but the possible max. They promise speeds of "up to" for a reason--the main reason being they don't have to deliver those (and seemingly rarely do).

 

[Smooth Operator]

In the US they probably made that shit legal by now yes.
However those speed tests don't seem legit at all, especially that 7 ping, you would only ever get that when the server is in your LAN and no other way.

It is very possible someone messed up at your ISP and your account is set to something it shouldn't be or a hardware malfunction, call them up and work it out. If you are legitimately paying for a 20Mb plan and the ISP insists on lying about it however then contact your local consumer rights office... or whatever you call it. A threat of investigation from those guys is usually enough for shit to get sorted.

Also very crucial to understand, all plans list bits as their measure because that inflates the number 8x compared to what everyone else uses as their basic data measure which are bytes. So while your plan might say 20 mega bits this is actually only 2.5 mega bytes, which is what all your software will say.

 

[False Messiah]

Did a speed test from like 4 different sites, all giving me a 0.1 DL and UL speed and 7 ping. AT&T is my ISP and I think I'm paying for 20MB a second which is around 1MB of dl speed on steam a second. Not sure exactly whats going on but I know a couple years ago when I was living with my parents they were being charged for 20MB and they were only giving them 10KB a second, and even told me over the phone that they were on a 10KB a second plan. Obviously they take me for a fool so I was wondering what I should do, if i can even do anything.

Takes like 15 seconds to load a damn internet page by the way, and I can't play anything online.

Are you on ADSL or Cable?
20 Mb (Mega BIT) should net you a download speed of 2.5 MB (Mega BYTE), but ADSL speeds suffer from distance to co-lo. If the copperline is more then two miles you'd be getting about 4 Mb (and download at .5 MB). Cable doesn't have this problem but on Cable the speed suffers if too many people in your area are using the connection at once.

Like Seris said, call the company, there could be something wrong with the connection but at least you can get an explanation.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Yeah, it's all in the wording. As other have said, "up to" means everything from below stated speed is ok.
I'm not in the US so I don't know about alternatives, actually I don't even know about them where I live either.

What I look out for is the dreaded hard cap. I can't find a single ISP that still offers it in Sweden.
I would love to pay more for any other soft cap deal than the one I'm currently stuck with.
Up to 7Mbps down (is actually 5-600kpbs down) and a soft cap of 20gb per month and 12-20kpbs down after hitting the cap.
At least I know that my ISP is definitely throttling me. ^^

 

[Adultism]

Did a speed test from like 4 different sites, all giving me a 0.1 DL and UL speed and 7 ping. AT&T is my ISP and I think I'm paying for 20MB a second which is around 1MB of dl speed on steam a second. Not sure exactly whats going on but I know a couple years ago when I was living with my parents they were being charged for 20MB and they were only giving them 10KB a second, and even told me over the phone that they were on a 10KB a second plan. Obviously they take me for a fool so I was wondering what I should do, if i can even do anything.

Takes like 15 seconds to load a damn internet page by the way, and I can't play anything online.

Are you on ADSL or Cable?
20 Mb (Mega BIT) should net you a download speed of 2.5 MB (Mega BYTE), but ADSL speeds suffer from distance to co-lo. If the copperline is more then two miles you'd be getting about 4 Mb (and download at .5 MB). Cable doesn't have this problem but on Cable the speed suffers if too many people in your area are using the connection at once.

Like Seris said, call the company, there could be something wrong with the connection but at least you can get an explanation.

Every time they have done this I've called and they usually send someone out to fix it, but it always ends up messing up within a week.

 

[False Messiah]

Every time they have done this I've called and they usually send someone out to fix it, but it always ends up messing up within a week.

You'll have to be persistent and call every time you have a problem, and point out the problems before. Eventually they'll find the problem and fix it. I've worked at an ISP for years so I know the hoops you have to jump through before your problem reaches someone who can actually fix it.

 

[TechNoFear]

There are 4 main forms of 'internet';

DSL: Over copper wire, including ADSL, ADSL2+, SHDSL, VDSL, VDSL2 and VDSL2 + Vectoring.

Cable: over HFC

Fibre; over optic fibre via GPON.

Wireless; over LTE / 4G or 'fixed wireless'

DSL.
ADSL2+ is the most common form and has a max download of 24 Mb/sec. However line length, thickness and quality affect speeds.
Unless you are within 200-300 m of the ISP's PoP (exchange / RIM / DSLAM etc) you will not get over 20 Mb /sec.

Cable
HFC suffers from contention. The cable is shared between a number of people and so slows down at peak usage times.

Fibre
Dedicated fiber to you. Speed will be ~90% of advertised within 20 Kms of a PoP (up to 120 Km with extenders). Sometimes called FTTP, FTTH etc.

Wireless
4G / LTE is common now, but each cell tower can only deliver 100 Mb / sec total to all people connected to the tower (per 10 MHz spectrum).

Sounds like you have ADSL2+ (sometimes known as ADSL2 Turbo) given your download speeds, but your ping says Cable / Fibre

Without more details it is not possible to give any more advice.

 

[RICHIERICAN]

When I had Verizon I notice that around a certain time it slow down I think they do like to throttle during fall and winter when people use them more because of holiday shopping!

 

[Lilani]

Did a speed test from like 4 different sites, all giving me a 0.1 DL and UL speed and 7 ping. AT&T is my ISP and I think I'm paying for 20MB a second which is around 1MB of dl speed on steam a second. Not sure exactly whats going on but I know a couple years ago when I was living with my parents they were being charged for 20MB and they were only giving them 10KB a second, and even told me over the phone that they were on a 10KB a second plan. Obviously they take me for a fool so I was wondering what I should do, if i can even do anything.

Takes like 15 seconds to load a damn internet page by the way, and I can't play anything online.

It is certainly possible, though whether or not it's legal is still a bit up in the air. Just more than a week ago AT&T got in trouble with the FTC [http://time.com/3544164/att-throttling-ftc-data-speeds/] for throttling the speeds of customers who had unlimited data plans. The FTC ruled that "unlimited" data means UNLIMITED data, and that because it is "unlimited" it is never acceptable to throttle any customer's usage at any point, no matter how much data they use. So if you have an unlimited plan watch this closely, because you may be one of the ones they were trying to screw. And if your speeds continue to be throttled you may have a case against them.