There’s a really interesting report on a recent study of broadband internet speeds that’s been released by Measurement Lab. They studied the interconnections between various ISPs, and observed performance degradation to sub-broadband speeds during times of heavy traffic. Network congestion? Nope. Interestingly, their conclusion is that the slower speeds were due to business relationships between ISPs, not network capacity. Specifically, what sort of interconnection the ISPs have with each other, what the study refers to as “interconnection-related performance degradation.” These sorts of connections are relatively short fiber-optic cables running between routers owned by each ISP but located in the same physical facility…a relatively simple and low cost connection to upgrade (add more fiber cables!).
In researching our report, we found clear evidence that interconnection between major US access ISPs (AT&T, Comcast, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon) and transit ISPs Cogent, Level 3, and potentially XO was correlated directly with degraded consumer performance throughout 2013 and into 2014 (in some cases, ongoing as of publication). Degraded performance was most pronounced during peak use hours, which points to insufficient capacity and congestion as a causal factor. Further, by noting patterns of performance degradation for access/transit ISP pairs that were synchronized across locations, we were able to conclude that in many cases degradation was not the result of major infrastructure failures at any specific point in a network, but rather connected with the business relationships between ISPs.
You can read more about this report at this link.