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In <3A7F7FC1.D3A1825F@home.com>, David Knight <david-knight@home.com>
wrote:

>John Navas wrote:

Re: DSLREPORTS.COM

>> At best, that kind of unverified anecdotal material is unreliable; at
>> worst, it can be highly misleading.  
>
>I disagree.  The more data points (and we are talking thousands of
>customers in many locations with many different ISPs), the more
>representative the data is, I believe.  This is much less anecdotal
>(though admittedly not scientific) than 50 news group posts saying "the
>service sucks because it is slow".  My point is that providers should
>pay attention when this many customers share their experiences (good and
>bad).

Those data points fail to meet even the most basic sampling criteria.
One of the biggest flaws is that reports are not weighted by market
share.  For example, all other things being equal, 5% unhappy customers
from a company with 20% market share would generate twice as many flames
than 10% unhappy customers from a company with 5% market share.  (I
could go on, but it's a really pointless exercise.)

>> Published reports suggest that typical speeds in general are
>> roughly comparable for DSL and cable, with DSL seeming to have an edge
>> in typical speed and consistency.
>
>Maybe you can cite these reports.  Hopefully, they are recent and
>include data from many markets.
>
>Here is a link to a PC Magazine report published a couple weeks ago
>(Jan. 19). 
>
>http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/reviews/0,6755,2675431,00.html
>
>Speeds to 8 major sites (which likely have more bandwidth) are reported
>to be much faster for cable modem customers, consistent with the DSL
>Reports archive rankings. 800 DSL and cable modem customers from across
>the country with multiple ISPs were surveyed.

I think it's patently obvious that the report measured up to PC
Magazine's usual high standards.  <g>  Do you really think that, for
example, Earthlink DSL subscribers actually averaged less than 20 Kbps
most of the week, and that performance actually varied by as much as
2.5x from weekday to weekday?

-- 
Best regards,
John Navas     <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/>
     CABLE MODEM/DSL GUIDE:  <http://Cable-DSL.home.att.net/>