We get out internet service via Mid-Hudson Cablevision, Inc. (Catskill, NY based) along with TV services. After only a month I began to notice that the internet service seemed slow compared to the service we had in Cambridge. In mid-August I searched around for a speed testing service. I settled on Speedtest.net because they offered a wide range of test-partners scattered around the world and a rolling data presentation page that makes it easy to keep track of all the tests performed.

I have had repeated emails with Craig (last name withheld at his request) at Mid-Hudson. In his first response, he wrote, “The service is burstable to 4.8 mbps, but sustained is usually between 2.5mbps and 3.5mbps.” I pointed out to him that Mid-Hudson Cablevision widely advertises and states that their high speed internet services are “Downstream is 5 Meg” or as Craig has stated it “5 mbps”. In a further email response, Craig stated that; “The 2.5-3mbps is the sustained service for the 5mbps plan, I am not sure why they don’t say that the 5mb service is “up to” 5mbps.

After I submitted further data showing that the downstream or download speeds of the high speed internet service was 0.91 Mb/s on 9/22/9, I received a visit by a Mid-Hudson Cablevision technician, Jason, who performed tests on the cable modem and our internal router/wifi system. Our internal systems are not part of the problem. Jason replaced the cable modem and confirmed that speeds in the 3.5 to 4 Mb/s were the typical performance of the internet service.

So, here we are with a company that advertises services at 5 Mb/s but has never delivered them. Further, no one has suggested that they will.

Just to put all of this in context, Speed Matters finds that for NY state the average download speed is 8.4 Mb/s. This means that if Mid-Hudson Cablevision would just meet their advertised speeds the would still be 40% slower than the state average. We are not exactly setting a high bar here.

So, now I await the next actions from Mid-Hudson Cablevision to bring their services into line with both their advertised service levels and

Here is some data to substantiate my claims. You will notice that on the best days, the service levels never reach the advertised 5 Mbps.

Download the whole spreadsheet – MHCable-speedtests-2009-09-28

Click on the image to get a full-size readable version.