How the Raspberry Pi complained about the slow internet helped


    Raspberry Pi Zero (photo: Raspberry Pi)

    Contacting your service provider about a slow communication channel or a lack of communication is a tedious and inefficient routine. This is characteristic of any country, although in some regions the situation is still not much simpler. But even in the US capital, Washington, there are communication problems, it is not uncommon here.

    A resident of Washington (known for his nickname on Reddit - AlekseyP) decided to automatically send messages to the provider if the channel bandwidth is lower than promised. The provider in this case is Comcast, and the promised channel width is 150 Mbps. AlekseyP used the Raspberry Pi Zero as the control element of the communication speed check system. As soon as the speed drops below 50 Mbps, the computer captures the situation and sends the data to the Comcast twitter account.

    The message is: “Hey @Comcast why is my internet speed XX down / XX up when I pay for 150 down / 10 up in Washington DC? @ ComcastCares @ xfinity #comcast #speedtest. "



    For those who would like to try the system in work, the user published the source code of the program here . However, he states the following: "I am not a good programmer, so do not talk about the fact that my code is ugly or can be improved."

    The decision to create a similar system appeared with the user after January 1 of this year, the speed dropped to 2 Mbps for the incoming channel and 9 Mbps for the outgoing channel. In a post on Redditthe user says the following: “I know, some may say that I should not complain about 50 Mbps on the incoming channel, but when they advertise 150 Mbps, and I get 10-30, I’m not happy.” The bandwidth of the Raspberry network port is 90 Mb / s, but the inventor also begins to complain when the speed drops below a threshold of 50 Mb / s. According to him, the average channel bandwidth is about 82 Mbps .

    At the same time, AlekseyP claims that the provider each time responds to its automatic messages by asking for its address and account information, after which the speed returns to the declared values.

    According to the user, all Internet service providers deserve the speed promised by the company.

    I wonder if it makes sense to do something similar in the CIS, will companies react?

    Only registered users can participate in the survey. Please come in.

    Do you think this method of interaction with domestic providers will be effective?

    • 18.7% Yes, of course 198
    • 7.6% Must be checked, already doing 81
    • 73.5% What are you talking about, most of our providers and accounts in social networks do not have 775

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