Share Your Connection Speed

This is from Work...

~*Ash*~

 

I'm using a connection at the library

 

Cox high speed - not bad for flooded New Orleans

 

At the fire house, not good for a T-1 Line.

 

Shawn...I did a retest, and I am back to my normal 6MB down speed...bye bye 11 for now

Upload is still garbage

 

Hi Gamer, Shawn is very close but I am afarid I can not post more details than that...sorry

 

Ok.

I didn't mean to get you in trouble.

Am I going to get questioned by higher authorities now?

 

Here is my connection at school using the wireless-G network in my library on my laptop:

Test 1:



Test 2:




I will hopefully post two tests using the Dell desktops tomorrow.

 

My Comcast Cable Connection rated 6Megs down/384k up.

 

It seems you aren't getting what you are paying for. I would point this out to Comcast using these data. If they can't improve it, they should at least drop your monthly charges down to the 4Meg rate. Here in MA, I think there is roughly a $10 /month difference. (BTW, it's 6 Megs down/384k up, but we knew what you meant. )


SW

 

I know I'm not getting what I pay for, sometimes my connection speed will be about 5megs down, but other times, like right now it will suck. I have pointed this out to Comcast and they say that everything is fine. I haven't had time to further pursue this, but I will when I have more time and energy to call them. Oh yeah, sorry about the down/up error. I will go back and fix that. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

You might report this to Comcast and have them come out to your house and check your lines. My friend had a problem similar to this and he has his speed increase once his lines were "cleaned." He said that the technician said that there was some corrosion on them.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I figured maybe it may have something to do with that...but if the lines are corroded, then why does my speed sometimes go up to what it's supposed to be and is sometimes slow? I wonder if me getting bad connection speeds has something to do with my picture quality on my Cable TV often not being the best.

 

I just tried it again....

 

AFAIK, cable is still a shared medium - the activity of others affects your service. This could be a factor, especially if you see slow service during peak times. If you have digital cable TV, perhaps this is a factor in your picture quality also, although I wouldn't think that it would affect analog picture quality.


SW

 

Ok. Then I think Steve is right with slower and faster times of day.

Either that, or Comcast has overloaded your lines like they have did in my area.

 

Well they get enough money every month- you'd think they could upgrade their capacity!

 

Insight Communications. They just recently increased speeds to 10Mbps down and 1Mbps up. A few isolated times I have got up to 9.8Mbps down, but as another member pointed out it is contingent on time of day and usuage by others. Still, I'm not complaining.

 

I agree, but I am sure once Verizon starts offering their FIOS around here, Comcast is going to have to either lower rates or boost speeds big time.
They started laying the fiber in my area just recently, can't wait to see what the total TV,Phone & Internet package is going to cost vs Comcast.

Here is tonights Comcast test



nKrypteD1 I didn't realize that the standard was 1.5 each way, everyone always makes it sould like it's much faster then everything else & I see what your saying about the latency.
Thanks.

 

Actually what is latency and how does it impact connection speeds? Also, what would be an realistic "ideal" number one would like to see?

 

at panera bread, using thier wifi.

 

T1 used to be considered fast, but these days it's not particularly impressive. As Shawn said, T1 refers to a 1.5 Mbit frame-relay connection, which is common in businesses and government agencies, such as your fire house. The advantages are that you should get 1.5Mbits in both directions, simultaneously and it should be more reliable - your service provider will guarantee a level of reliability/availability. The main disadvantage is cost - just few years ago, a T1 line could run several hundred dollars in setup costs and $1,000 to $1,500/month. A quick check today shows me that some service providers are offering T1 connections for $300-$500/month, and 2 T1s "bonded" together (3 Mbits) for <$1,000/month.

Your Comcast data shows the advantages of modern cable modem or ADSL connections at home (fiber connections to the home are just becoming available, as you mentioned). The obvious advantages are much higher download speeds than frame-relay for a much lower cost (I assume you are paying Comcast $40-$60/month). Disadvantages are that both of these are asymmetric - upload speeds are much slower than download speeds. Your ISP assumes that, unlike a business/gov office, you are probably not running a Web, FTP, Mail or any other server. Most of what you do is browse the Web and download files, so you are downloading much more data than you are uploading. Also, ADSL and cable modem connections are not guaranteed to be up 24x7. They can, and do, go down for hours or even days at a time.


SW

 

Very nicely explained & put Steve and yes I am paying around $50.00 a Month for Cable.
The only thing that has been in my favor, is Cable very rarely goes down around here & if it does it's only for minutes so far.

 

Thanks. You're right that cable and DSL are usually pretty reliable, I just wanted to point out that there isn't a contractual availability guarantee, and that's one of the reasons that frame-relay is still more than 10x the price of an ordinary home broadband connection. If you aren't running a business out of your home, this is usually fine.

As an aside, if you are running a business, there are other ways of handling this issue. Many small businesses find that shared hosting services, or an eBay or Yahoo store, are pretty cost effective - you are renting part of somebody else's expensive servers and bandwidth.


SW

 

Just for completeness, this is my connection at work. I haven't asked our network guy, but it looks like a normal T1 - similar to Fire14.





SW

 

This is from my home Comcast connection.