Connection speed and other technical jargon

What happened to Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, wherein he complained of losing his cellphone loads, brought to light the problem many Filipinos were experiencing with regards to cellphone loads, particularly on pre-paid accounts. Loads that suddenly disappear into the microwave rivers that invisibly rage all around us.

If Sen. Enrile did not complain during an official session in the Senate, many Filipinos would have just remained silent, knowing very well that complaining to a giant telecom would not get anywhere.

But there is another thing that should be complained about and brought to light just like the disappearing cellphone loads. I’m referring to these so-called internet speeds.

Basically, internet speed is measured in kbps. To illustrate this, a regular song is about 4 megabytes. So an internet connection of 384kbps should take around a minute and a half. If you Google these figures, it should only take 1.33 seconds to do so.

Why is this? That’s because what we are actually getting is a speed of 384 kilobits per second, and not 384 kilobytes per second. If the ISPs were advertising in KBps, then that would be kilobytes per second. There is a huge difference between the upper and lower case “B”.

But since they never make mention of kilobytes or kilobits, many people assume that these are all kilobytes, which is a term people are more familiar with. Honestly, I only heard of the term kilobits when I was researching on this.

No wonder all ISPs always advertise in kbps. If your connection speed was in KBps, that would be super fast, and super expensive.

But the thing is, ISPs do not disclose this, citing that it is the industry standard to use the term kbps anyway. It just smacks of making people feel that their connections are superfast, when in fact they’re not. And the fact that downloads are measured in kilobytes, while connection speeds are in kilobits even makes it more confusing for those uninitiated.

Full disclosure in advertising is something that is widely practiced in most countries. Apparently, not here.

There should be a regulating body that oversees such “fine print”.

Today, cellphone loads are more closely monitored than ever, because of the events surrounding the disappearing loads of a Senator.

There are complaints of internet connections slowing down to a crawl, even if they’re touted as “super fast”. Are we going to wait for another Senator to complain during a session before close regulation is done?