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Tin Can
7-Apr-2016, 09:30
This is not an advert for any Internet provider. I have no pecuniary interest in the companies cited nor any Internet provider.

Last November we, meaning our condo building, became aware of a new to Chicago high speed Internet provider. As President of the Board, I actively pursued them and they us. We just got set up and it is truly a way better price, service and speed.

Not everybody can get this yet and I beleive we need fiber optic to every home, not just NA, but worldwide or perhaps WISP will do. Here is an article from Popular Mechanics that explains this new service. (http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a19741/can-an-indie-isp-beat-comcast/)

We did not get service from that company, but a competitor also from SF which has now headquartered in Chicago. https://webpass.net/

This new service has cut my Internet bill by more than 50% and my synchronous speed, meaning both download and upload has increased by more than a factor of 10.


I feel this is pertinent here, as so many on this forum are scanning, printing and sending very large files. This technology makes it all easier and far faster.

Combined with a fast computer, SSD and all the RAM that fits, the Internet is now flowing like we always wanted. For now. :)

Kirk Gittings
7-Apr-2016, 09:50
Whoa!!! Right now WISPs are a few bucks more than the cost of the big boys here for about the same speeds. Higher speeds cost X$.

Jac@stafford.net
7-Apr-2016, 10:13
18Mbps download here and less than 1Mbps upload. And we were one of the first communities to install a fiber-optic backbone in 1995, and improved it since. Unfortunately, none of us can use it! It serves the perimeter and some big clients such as our hospital, and even at any cost only a small area of town can get 1 Gigabit.

I just zen it out, having lived with speeds of less than 300 baud in the early days.

Tin Can
7-Apr-2016, 10:40
I realize most cannot get this now.

But, The Times They Are A-Changin’ (http://bobdylan.com/songs/times-they-are-changin/)

Willie
7-Apr-2016, 16:28
Rural farm area in North Dakota. Dial up connection with upgrading soon to a 'faster' system. Tried satellite but every time it rained, snowed or was cloudy - or just clear skies and you held your mouth wrong - no service. So much for Hughes Net. The phone connection is slow but it works - until the neighbor five miles up the road moves his cows into the wrong field and they rub against the repeater post and knock it out of alignment, open a hole and mice get in and chew the wiring. When it happens the guys come out and fix it but can take a day or two. Mid winter it may take longer as working at 20-30 below in the wind is not fun.

Would welcome both lower cost and faster connection as long as it is reliable.

Corran
7-Apr-2016, 16:39
We have two options here - ridiculously expensive cable internet that has so-so speed or moderately expensive DSL that is about the most abysmal speed imaginably this side of dial-up. Especially upload, where I get about 0.3mbps. Not acceptable. Most times I bring large files I need to upload to work (T1 line).

So, yeah I'm jealous.

Jody_S
7-Apr-2016, 16:57
Until recently I lived in the boonies where I had the choice of dial-up (averaged 24kBPS) or a municipal co-op microwave connection (had to be within eye-sight of a tower) which would average 0.3mBPS, for twice the price, but slow to a trickle during peak usage. Since moving into the city, I have DSL, now getting real 5mBPS for $43+. I have finally discovered Netflix.

I would love to go faster, but I don't know what practical application it would have. We can stream 2 TVs in HR and surf. My work could be done on dial-up. I do hope companies continue installing infrastructure for fiber optic, once there are sufficient customers we may see the next jump in web-based services. But for where we're at now, I'm ok with 5mBPS.

jon.oman
7-Apr-2016, 17:25
I considered myself spoiled using Comcast. I currently get 30 mbps download and 6 mbps upload. But speeds like you (Randy) report? Wow! I wish that would come to the Charleston area!

koh303
7-Apr-2016, 17:50
When i was young, and DSL was new, and experimental, i was chosen to be part of a regional test group who got the service. I think there were only 6000 housholds in that test group. Back then, seeing anything above 50K download speeds was a miracle, unless you you worked for hiteck and had a T1 line in your office, or you had a direct feed dish, but i was seeing things like 1.1mb (and equally then insane upload speeds). This made napster so much more fun (perhaps this puts the date into perspective), and all kinds of other things possible that were not possible before.

With that said - once the system went public, this all went away. Peak hours became noticeable, and the dream became the same old crap it was before.

I have no doubt that this new system is great now, when the user count is LOW, time will tell if it survives the masses. In any cases it is not available to single family houses (perhaps "yet").

For some reason, despite being a world power, the US has some of the worst internet service, and at one of the worlds highest rates, mostly due to the monopolized market, changing that rather then the tech might make the internet faster and more accessible.

Winger
7-Apr-2016, 19:08
We've had cable DSL for a long time and then moved to Iowa for a couple of years and the choices there were dial-up or HughesNet. Dial-up would likely have been faster and more reliable. I will NEVER use HughesNet again. Even if they pay me. So right now, cable seems fine. We have a smallish localish company (Armstrong).

Jim C.
7-Apr-2016, 19:18
I have no doubt that this new system is great now, when the user count is LOW, time will tell if it survives the masses. In any cases it is not available to single family houses (perhaps "yet").

For some reason, despite being a world power, the US has some of the worst internet service, and at one of the worlds highest rates, mostly due to the monopolized market, changing that rather then the tech might make the internet faster and more accessible.

I quickly scanned thru the article Randy Moe linked to so I'm not 100% up on how it works
but if they are in fact using lasers as the transmission medium then it won't take long before
the FCC will kibosh it and or rates will go up, DSL in my area was like that dirt cheap when it was available
every body was offering deals but it slowly crept up.

If I'm correct the US is the only country where the internet service is not Gov subsidized.

Kirk Gittings
7-Apr-2016, 19:49
I considered myself spoiled using Comcast. I currently get 30 mbps download and 6 mbps upload. But speeds like you (Randy) report? Wow! I wish that would come to the Charleston area!

Comcast sucks here-the evil empire. Expensive and terrible service.

jon.oman
7-Apr-2016, 20:09
Comcast sucks here-the evil empire. Expensive and terrible service.

Overall my experiance with Comcast has been positive. I moved from the Detroit area 12 years ago. At first Comcast here was not as good as in Detroit. But, within three or four months here, things improved. They made a major upgrade to the system about then. They have improved it many times since. I too think that it is overpriced for what you get, but it seems to be the best in my area. I am thinking about dumping the cable part though. At lease to the minimum that they allow and still have the internet...

Kirk Gittings
7-Apr-2016, 20:21
Awhile back I abandoned Century Link for Comcast, which had upgraded their lines. With CL at that time I was averaging 17 outages a day (by their count!). My wife who was taking some online classes had to go to Starbucks to get service stable enough to take an online test. Fast forward a few years and Comcast sucks now-massive slowdowns at night and on weekends-virtually no service at those times. Call them up and they say its not their problem but the whole neighborhood on Comcast has the same issues. But now Century Link has upgraded their service. So we have switched back. In another 3 years........I think they let their service degrade until a certain percentage jump ship. Shitty stupid business model.

Bob Sawin
7-Apr-2016, 22:48
Comcast sucks here-the evil empire. Expensive and terrible service.

Here as well. At least they are consistent.

rbultman
8-Apr-2016, 04:17
Waiting on Google fiber here in Louisville so I can dump Time Warner.

koh303
8-Apr-2016, 05:46
If I'm correct the US is the only country where the internet service is not Gov subsidized.


You are incorrect.
The US is one of those places where the government does not regulate the competition, and allows three major companies to control the entire market without interfeering in the monopoly situation they jointly created. Thats why, in this case specifically, service is bad and prices are high, and the captive customer base has no one to complain to. In most areas in the US there is only one provider option per service, so it's their way or dial-up. :(

jp
8-Apr-2016, 08:44
You are incorrect.
The US is one of those places where the government does not regulate the competition, and allows three major companies to control the entire market without interfeering in the monopoly situation they jointly created. Thats why, in this case specifically, service is bad and prices are high, and the captive customer base has no one to complain to. In most areas in the US there is only one provider option per service, so it's their way or dial-up. :(

I used to have a business being an independent Internet service provider. That's the short answer basically.

For Telecom, the phone companies were greatly subsidized by cold war projects (including Internet) based on my visiting CO's, microwave tower sites, and digging into the history of Bell Labs. After the cold war and increases in computers and Internet, phone companies made promises for digital upgrades that didn't work out (See Fred R Goldstein's books that details this fleecing).

Rural phone companies continue to be subsidized in the interest of universal coverage. This rural subsidy has also made it's way into mobile phone companies as well.

Susan Crawford's book "Captive Audience" covers the rise of the cable companies particularly and their dealings with government. http://scrawford.net/books/ There are also oral histories of founding cable executives on youtube if you want some first person information.

For the past several years ISPs have wanted to gain access to public infrastructure, and the utility requirements to get that access create substantial barriers to entry by way of regulation. That's not going change quickly as normal lawmakers of all political persuasions either don't understand the business and technology and/or have developed friendly relationships with the monopoly/duopoly providers.

I have Time Warner at home now and the download speed is fine, but 1mbps upload is terrible for uploading video files, tiffs, backups, etc.. The faster upload choice is only marginally faster and prohibitively more expensive. If I upload a video, even just a couple minutes long, I start the upload and then go to bed and check on it in the morning. Good thing I don't do it professionally. Because of my prior business, I don't mind a provider charging a going rate for service, but I would welcome competition in terms of speed and customer service to keep that in check and serve my interest as a consumer.

Alan Klein
8-Apr-2016, 09:00
I'm getting download of 90mb and upload of 6mb with Comcast copper cable in the mid New Jersey area. I just tried some 4K video from Youtube-looks good. No wait times.

Alan Klein
8-Apr-2016, 09:09
I notice that it will change depending on where the server is connected - higher from NYC (89.39mb) than LA (47.62mb) .


4/8/2016 12:06 PM 47.62 Mbps 4.70 Mbps Los Angeles, CA
4/8/2016 12:05 PM 89.39 Mbps 6.13 Mbps New York, NY

Jac@stafford.net
8-Apr-2016, 09:42
The US is one of those places where the government does not regulate the competition [...]

They do not regulate, per se, but since late last year the FCC's Open Internet rules were established. It is too early to know if they have, or will improve competition.

Tin Can
8-Apr-2016, 09:59
Slow upload is really hard on image uploading users, both still and video.

A point to be made for our WISP provider, is they completely installed their own infrastructure and used no existing wiring owned by AT&T or Comcast, which were our only wired providers. Their products and infrastructure still exist undisturbed. I know because I have been watching and inspecting every part of the WISP install. Direct TV still has 13 ugly satellite dishes on our roof and I expect some units here will continue to use all 3 prior providers.

Below is a snapshot of today's speeds. I don't necessarily believe speed tests are at all accurate or indicative of actual file transfer, but I have never seen this type of speed anywhere. Our WISP claims the Microwave Transceiver provides 1 Gigabyte to the building in a pencil sized beam. They are linking building to building from center city Fiber, despite the fact that a Fiber Optic cable runs right by my building along the abandoned railroad tracks. (http://www.the606.org/#heroAnchor/1)

To get max speeds I needed to upgrade to Gigabit switches and a new WIFI AP.

Interesting that almost immediately upon switching on free Lobby public WIFI, people on the Bloomingdale Trail (http://www.the606.org/) were accessing our building's website, which is linked below in my signature. The least connected guy here, Roberto Lopez, noticed this new public interaction when a user showed him his own art on a phone 1 day after we went live.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1577/25707582403_cc6a6663e4_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/FaG5Bn)Speed test (https://flic.kr/p/FaG5Bn) by moe.randy (https://www.flickr.com/photos/tincancollege/), on Flickr

Jeff Conrad
8-Apr-2016, 14:47
If speedtest.net (www.speedtest.net) is to be believed, I get about 40 Mbps down and about 11 Mbps up from Comcast—not great but not terrible either. Service has been OK; there are occasional outages, but they aren’t frequent enough to be a serious problem. It’s pricey, but on my part of the Peninsula, AT&T’s DSL is only good for about 768 kbps, and that’s running interleaved.


Combined with a fast computer, SSD and all the RAM that fits, the Internet is now flowing like we always wanted. For now. :)

There is no substitute for cubic inches ...

onnect17
8-Apr-2016, 15:19
I notice that it will change depending on where the server is connected - higher from NYC (89.39mb) than LA (47.62mb) .


4/8/2016 12:06 PM 47.62 Mbps 4.70 Mbps Los Angeles, CA
4/8/2016 12:05 PM 89.39 Mbps 6.13 Mbps New York, NY

My currently contract (Verizon FIOS) set the limits at 25/25. The company offers plans in this area all the way to 500 Mb/s. If they would offer less speed for less money I would take it. Why?

Most of us use the Internet via applications using TCP as the IP protocol and, as any other using ACKs packets, it is sensitive to caps in performance, depending on the window size and latency. And that does not include other real life parameter involved, including shared topology, channel congestion, packet loss, etc. In the case of "over the air" channel, it's even worse, due to all kind of interference, radio or weather related.

So you should not be surprised for seeing only 50 Mbps to LA, even if the local company offers you 10 Gbs. In the case of 4K streaming, I use it via Netflix and 15 Mbs is enough for the Ultra HD in the best quality mode.

HMG
8-Apr-2016, 17:58
Our condo contracts with Comcast for a group rate. Service level is defined (note not guaranteed) at 20mbps down and 6 up. Testing a week ago, I was getting 30-35 down and about 7 up. One neighbor pays extra for Comcast's upgraded service says he gets about 175 down and 20 up.

But I've had poor performance with Netflix and Skype - poorer than 20 mbps download would suggest. I recently moved my cable modem so that my TV and skype box will be hard wired. I left town soon after so have not had an opportunity to test.

Throttling? Don't know. Do speed tests get the fast lane to make things look better? Again, don't know. And in a condo building, there's a lot of wi-fi signals floating around to cause conflict. But I'm more concerned with net neutrality than pure speed.

Alan Klein
9-Apr-2016, 06:00
I'm getting download of 90mb and upload of 6mb with Comcast copper cable in the mid New Jersey area. I just tried some 4K video from Youtube-looks good. No wait times.


Does the cable for the HDTV get the same speeds as those to my computer? Is there a way to check it? I'm going to get a 4K UHDTV soon and was wondering if I'll be able to watch 4K movies?

Jac@stafford.net
9-Apr-2016, 06:16
[...] Most of us use the Internet via applications using TCP as the IP protocol and, as any other using ACKs packets, it is sensitive [...]

At the risk of making this more confusing, pray tell how one separates ACK from the TCP protocol? Are providers messing with terms for marketing reasons?
.

barnacle
9-Apr-2016, 11:52
TCP/IP sends packets as and when required but requires an acknowledgement from the receiver to say the packet has got there. It doesn't have to have packet 7 arrive before packet 8, but if an acknowledgement is not received within a timeout period then it is sent again. This guarantees, as far as possible, that all the data sent arrives, and it's put back in the right order at the receiver. There are complicated algorithms that decide what the timeout period should be based on past transmission times and the measured time before the ACKs get back, which gives the maximum throughput.

UDP just throws packets out and hopes that the various links and routing options between the sender and receiver are working; in this congested world that's by no means guaranteed, but for protocols that can accommodate missing packets and particularly where timing is important over completeness (e.g. audio or video) it can be more useful than TCP.

If a cow eats your cable though, all bets are off.

For comparison, I get around 30Mb/8Mb here in the UK for about US$50 a month because I'm too tight to pay for higher rates - I believe my provider goes up to in excess of 200Mb.

Neil

onnect17
9-Apr-2016, 12:02
Does the cable for the HDTV get the same speeds as those to my computer? Is there a way to check it? I'm going to get a 4K UHDTV soon and was wondering if I'll be able to watch 4K movies?

Well, depending where are you getting the 4K from. As I said, 15 Mb/s should be more than enough for the 4K content if you getting it from Netflix or YouTube. But not much is available at the moment, especially in Netflix.
Based on the speeds posted, you should fine.

The biggest problem with cable is that for many years the providers shared it with most of your neighbors, which could overload the segment and increase packet loss at peak time. Sure, in the middle of the day you should be OK, but at night the end user apps will spend extra time and bandwidth in retries that could become easy the bulk of the traffic. I am the speed is not the same 9:00 AM and 9:00 PM.

The good news is that many cable providers are increasing network capacity and installing better technology in the last mile, as a response to the fierce competition coming from other technologies (satellite, fiber, wireless, etc.). The bad news is many locations around the US have only one cable operator so not pressure to upgrade the systems.

Then streaming services arrived, i.e. Netflix, etc. What a headache for the providers! That consumes a considerable amount of bandwidth, and worse, the customers are spending less time watching cable channels. The reaction was to start using throttling. The provider could sell you 150 Mb/s but your are lucky if you get half of that at night.

Regarding the 4K TV. If you are "into color", check the Samsung SUHD JS700D. I found one for sale in BJs for around $900. Netflix is one of the apps inside the TV and is WiFi ready.

BTW, I use once in a while a little dongle called Wi-Spy. It's just a WiFi tuner functioning as a spectrum analyzer that allows you to check the use of the WiFi frequencies in your location. Pretty handy to set you WiFi router to work in the channel with the lowest use. I purchased it for less than $100 long time ago (I think it sells for a little more nowadays).

Willie
9-Apr-2016, 12:16
Did a test and download was 0.21 and upload was 0.25. How does that compare? We are the last people on the line 9 miles out of the nearest town.(600pop)

Jim C.
9-Apr-2016, 12:26
You are incorrect.
The US is one of those places where the government does not regulate the competition, and allows three major companies to control the entire market without interfeering in the monopoly situation they jointly created. Thats why, in this case specifically, service is bad and prices are high, and the captive customer base has no one to complain to. In most areas in the US there is only one provider option per service, so it's their way or dial-up. :(

I stand corrected, when I said subsidized I should said gov encouraged competition.

onnect17
9-Apr-2016, 14:46
At the risk of making this more confusing, pray tell how one separates ACK from the TCP protocol? Are providers messing with terms for marketing reasons?
.

Well, imagine you visit the car dealer and the salesman tells you the new car model can go 200 mph, able to travel from coast to coast in 15 hours. In reality the speed limit in many highways in the USA still is 55 mph so it's likely the trip will take much longer. Is the salesman being deceptive? You tell me. It's not for me to judge.

As Neil mentioned, UDP protocol is more target towards streaming, however that's not the way providers run the speed tests. They show you a web page with some graphics and at the same time initiate multiple TCP connections simultaneous in the background (typically 4) which reduces the effect of the "windowing". A site using a single connection (like testmy.net) will give you a closer idea of the effective speed. Another simple way to test it is downloading a file from an ftp server. You can connect via ftp to speedtest.tele2.net and transfer a file big enough to take at least one minute. That should give you a good idea.

As a sample of how misleading a test can be, check post #22. A similar test can be perform at www.dslreports.com/speedtest
The image with the results seems to show in the right upper corner of the box showing the speed a number 12, which I guess is many connections/streams the test opened simultaneously. The first time I tried it used 32 connections/streams! I am sure the forum member did not intend to mislead anybody but I would suggest repeating the test changing the settings to a server on the west coast and the number of streams to 1. The results will be quite different, I am sure.

Keep in mind also the data need time to travel. Even over fiber optic, a packet will need close to 50 ms to make the round trip (RTT) coast to coast. Now introduce all the hardware infrastructure in the middle and most likely the RTT is closer to 70ms. That delay brings the theorical maximum throughput coast to coast via TCP (using the default window) close to 7 Mb/s (not kidding!). Search for "TCP throughput calculator" for more info. That's why most users transferring large files would benefit more via "TCP Tuning" than pursuing bigger speed connections from the telco.

Another interesting link in this Wikipedia page --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUIC

At the end, regarding the users perception of browsing speed, once you go over 10 or 15 Mb/s the computer hardware becomes the bottleneck. You better off making sure your browser is configured to use video/hardware acceleration. A fast processor, good amount of memory and an SSD drive would help too (as the opening post mentions).

I am very glad we are having this discussion. The more money we save in Internet access the more we can spend in photography! :-)

jp
9-Apr-2016, 18:15
Then for streaming netflix and popular content, the content providers have content distribution networks to bring the content closer to the customer. If I watch a movie it will likely come from a source in the Northeast.
At my previous job, I knew exactly which building the netflix servers were in for certain regional providers. If Randy watches a movie, it will come from a source in the midwest. This reduces the round trip times, increases capacity, redundancy, reduces costs for long haul carriers, etc.. The traffic acknowledgements will not have to travel to the other side of the continent for common traffic, speeding up the whole process.

Most wifi will not do crazy gigabit speeds; it's advertised, and it works in labs or in engineered situations with precalculated antenna gains and noise figures, and such. Most laptops won't do it even if the AP can. And if the AP can do it, the router/firewall part may not be able to keep up. Any noise at all and it's back down into more normal high speeds. Sort of like that 200mph car, which will do 200 if you take it to a certain place in the country on a certain day and have it inspected by a team of professionals and you have a certified helmet and training and the weather is just right and so on. If you have a high capacity Internet need, wire it in with a $5-10 ethernet cable, it will just work and you won't need to be an RF engineer and Internet troubleshooter to make the most of it. It's still good to have these options and mess with it, so it brings the cost of the technology down for the people that actually need it.

onnect17
9-Apr-2016, 22:28
I think Alan asked about 4K and I mentioned using it via Netflix. I missing the post about Randy and Netflix.
As I said (IMHO) the best simple and comprehensive way to test a link is to transfer a file from a remote location. It relates to the OP in:
...
"I feel this is pertinent here, as so many on this forum are scanning, printing and sending very large files."
...

Leszek Vogt
9-Apr-2016, 23:51
I've had really awful time with Comcast...they jacked up my payment several times...without increase in service. Subsequently went to Clear (the "air" internet) and it was v. reliable for many years....till Sprint swallow them up. I keep hearing that the local govt here wants everyone to have a reasonably fast connection, but that may not happen for couple of years. Yet, Korea has v. fast internet (probably fastest) and they pay about 1/2 of what I pay for 1G (fiber optic). The foot dragging is real and gives everyone a taste of monopolies. At least I can order faster internet if I wish...other places don't have that option. But, we are still at the whim of the traffic...

Les

jon.oman
10-Apr-2016, 09:27
I just found out that my local Comcast has a plan that would give me 2000 mbps. Trouble is, it is almost $300.00 a month! I won't get that any time soon....

monotux
10-Apr-2016, 22:54
European here, I'm paying approx. 20 USD / month for my 100 Mbit downstream and 10 Mbit upstream. I'd have to pay 30 USD to get 100/100 but this is more than enough.

In my town (Linköping, approx. 150 k ppl) the municipality run utility company Tekniska Verken created an open city network in which operators can offer services to customers like me. The same principles applies for electricity and water, Tekniska Verken owns the network but any operator is welcome to use it and sell their service using it.

I've spent some time in a friends mountain cabin, located in a small village close to the Norwegian border, not too far from the Polar Circle. Last time I was there they had some GSM EDGE coverage (I'm one of few people who has used EDGE in it's highest theoretical speed - but that was in Ericsson's lab environment...) which wasn't very fun but it was Internet up in the mountains. Last year they got optical fiber installed in the cabin so now it is 100/100 mbit even up in the mountains. Heh.

As for testing network speed, latency is another variable relevant to the perceived quality of service. If you have high latency your experience will not reflect the actual transmission rate. If I could live without my current latency (I'm very close to the major backbone connecting Sweden to the rest of Europe) I would go with a 4G modem.

Tin Can
11-Apr-2016, 09:35
Tell us more about Latency as it does seem to be very important.

Notice in my image post of my Speed Test, Latency or Ping is listed.

Jac@stafford.net
11-Apr-2016, 09:51
Tell us more about Latency as it does seem to be very important.

Yeah, and reciprocity failures, too! (no ACK). :)

onnect17
11-Apr-2016, 11:16
http://www.linfo.org/latency.html

I think the explanation here, although basic, it's easier to understand than what I found in Wikipedia.
Also related is the Round Trip Time (RTT). It's the latency in both ways.

Tin Can
11-Apr-2016, 12:10
http://www.linfo.org/latency.html

I think the explanation here, although basic, it's easier to understand than what I found in Wikipedia.
Also related is the Round Trip Time (RTT). It's the latency in both ways.

Depending on the Speed Test and time, I regularly get 0,2, 3, 4 ms latency which seems good to me. I have been researching file transfer times.

I expect in 10 years, what I now have will be crap and something way faster will be au courant.

I also imagine real need for that speed as imaging changes to include something like augmented reality and holographic intervention. It's all described in our ancient texts. Sci-Fi has been a good predictor of technology.

onnect17
11-Apr-2016, 14:46
20 years ago the amount of IP traffic related to video was insignificant. Today is 3/4 of all the traffic and growing every year. The irony? Video is probably the most resilient of the services. Latency is mostly absorbed by buffering.

Regarding latency, you should test a server out of Chicago area. The current theoretical speed limit is around 2/3 of light speed, approx. 120 miles/ms, so any location out of a 500 miles radio should report more than 4 ms latency.

tonyowen
18-Apr-2016, 11:26
Rural UK here.
My supplier is BT and It costs (circa) USD285 per year line rental and USB35 per month for copper-line unlimited high speed broadband usage.
But this is only as good as the length of copper from the nearest 'substation'.
My contract promises/guarantees a minimum of 32Mbps but I'm getting around 39. A few minutes ago a speed checker showed 37.86 download, 8.84 upload and 19.38 ping latency (whatever this means).
I had a lot of hassle with BT to ensure that I got good connection speeds - initially they claimed that the lost speed was due to lines, equipment, UFOs etc etc etc.
Fibre optic is not available here but if it was I could get around 80Mbps which is ridiculously slow compared to the 300 Mbps available in some countries.
However, I'm finding that for the majority of the computer work I do, there is little difference in the perceived speed of operation irrespective of the claimed speed of the installed broadband system. Don't know if this info is relevant to the OPs query
regards
Tony

Nigel Smith
19-Apr-2016, 06:19
Rural UK here.
Fibre optic is not available here but if it was I could get around 80Mbps which is ridiculously slow compared to the 300 Mbps available in some countries.


haha, I can only dream of such speeds... yours included

recently upgraded from 1.5Mbps to 8Mbps (bandwidth of 100GB+100GB off peak) (actual between 2 and 6.5Mbps) and yep, that's as fast as we can get without going to a 4G connection which would be twice the price for about 5GB/month.

GavinCash0012
7-Nov-2016, 14:20
What a waste of money! My internet speed sucks! To verify I tested with different tools suggested in this http://www.androidcanvashq.com/2016/05/top-6-best-internet-speed-test-tools-online.html

Bad surprise! I got 5 different results from testing on various sites. Don't have a clue...

Jac@stafford.net
7-Nov-2016, 14:35
The USA began the Internet and we are so far behind in terms of speed than later adopters it just plain pisses me off.
.

Drew Wiley
7-Nov-2016, 14:47
We were hooked up to DSL and it was very fast, then they pulled the plug on the service to our whole neighborhood. So now, other than stand-alone unconnected applications on the Mac, I use this antiquated PC at work; and once I retire, I'll probably just use a computer at the library like my wife does now. Maybe after the AT&T merger we might or might not get our DSL service back. The fiber optic gravy train is an utter joke. Up at my home town millions and millions of pork barrel bucks under the still-extant 1930's Rural Electrification Act were used to install fiber optics to a cowpoke's trailer who doesn't even own a computer, another branch
to a logging ghost town, and the third branch to a summer-only fishing resort without electricity. But it turned out darn good for an ole high school buddy of mine
who inherited the local phone company and got the fiber optic contract, at least if he didn't laugh himself to death.

Leigh
7-Nov-2016, 15:09
my synchronous speed, meaning both download and upload has increased by more than a factor of 10.
So are there any real numbers available for your u/d speeds?

A factor with no present value and no previous value is a meaningless number.

- Leigh

tgtaylor
7-Nov-2016, 15:17
Speakeasy is a reliable testing site: https://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

Thomas

Tin Can
7-Nov-2016, 15:23
So are there any real numbers available for your u/d speeds?

A factor with no present value and no previous value is a meaningless number.

- Leigh

This is a test 2 minutes ago and typical, unless we have very heavy rain. It's microwave from a daisy chain.

157118

Willie
7-Nov-2016, 16:03
How much faster than dial up? With our rural service watching most videos online is not worth it. HD is impossible as taking 6-8 hours to download before they can play and then the constant stop/start drive you nuts. Trying to watch an NFL game online is the same thing. A few seconds of action and then 5-60+ of buffering or downloading or whatever it does.

Satellite is not as reliable tho a bit faster. Nothing like no signal with clear skies or it is snowing and you can't get a signal. Just when you want to be inside and check stuff out waiting out a bilzzzard the satellite doesn't work through snow and often not through rain.

Dan Fromm
7-Nov-2016, 16:34
Dial up? In 1986 I used a TI Silent 700 with acoustic coupler to dial into a remote mainframe from home. When the connection was poor it dropped back to 110 baud. When it was typing, click ... click ... click.

I just used speedtest (thanks, Thomas, for the link). Depending on the city I chose download speeds ranged from ~ 30 to ~ 60 MBPS, upload from 10 - 12 MBPS. Comcast tells me I have 150. So much for Comcast.

Grumium
7-Nov-2016, 17:32
You may relocate to Europe? 1 Gbit symmetrical (up/down) without artificial limitations (rarely less than 900 Mbit @ speedtests). Annual fee: USD 800.
;-)

sepiareverb
7-Nov-2016, 17:35
I live in Vermont, so anything approaching "high speed" means being able to get your email in a half hour. The world of technology is only something t those in cities are really able to enjoy.

Eric Woodbury
7-Nov-2016, 17:39
I'm in the sticks. I have an 801.11 radio bridge that connects to a friend's cable service 6 miles away. Getting 50 Mbps, which is plenty. My friend is being nice and I pay nothing. Service is almost flawless, except right after I say this. Needs an occasional reset. Neighbors are using hot spots, dial-up, satellite, and reading books by lantern light. My neighbor is from Sweden, where even rural is high speed and cheap.

Two23
7-Nov-2016, 19:51
Did a test and download was 0.21 and upload was 0.25. How does that compare? We are the last people on the line 9 miles out of the nearest town.(600pop)


I think it would be faster to just mail your photos from the post office.:D



Looks like my cable is giving me 51 to 70 and 14 to 16 pretty consistently. (They advertise 100/25 LOL.) I have an i7 quad core, 32gb DDR4, updated motherboard two months ago, to handle big PS files.



Kent in SD

metalsmith
7-Nov-2016, 20:35
My basic is 100 Meg up and down. Rural Nebraska. 5 teenagers at home. They all want to stream Netflix at the same time.

andy
8-Nov-2016, 12:19
We have gig up/down in burlington, vt. it changed the way I use the internet.

Eric Woodbury
8-Nov-2016, 13:35
Andy, so what does one do with a gig? How did it change usage?

andy
8-Nov-2016, 13:46
Andy, so what does one do with a gig? How did it change usage?

cloud storage/backup of giant files becomes super easy, so does downloading/transferring large files. The fast up speeds make uploading things to various file sharing (wetransfer, ect) take almost no time.

I have it at home and work, so I can move big files back and forth really easily, or you can set up a home machine as your own network storage and work on files from there without lag.

Leigh
8-Nov-2016, 14:33
A relevant point that is always true...

The achievable throughput on any connection depends critically on the equipment and configuration at each end of the pipe.

If you connect to a host that limits the datarate on any port to 1Mbps, then you'll achieve at most 1Mbps on any line.

Of course, with a high-rate service you can run multiple 1Mbps connections simultaneously, but generally they're not additive.

- Leigh

Miner1985
4-May-2020, 01:09
We live in the 20th century. All the providers are great! With very good services and fast cellular data I’ve ever had.
I’ve starter to use it a year ago and never regretted. The best thing is that all services are chosen based on the model of your phone, to make service the most efficient. So, my advice is - don't waste time on such “extraordinary” offers and find a good provider. That web-site that helped me a lot - usave.co.uk (https://usave.co.uk/broadband/how-to-find-broadband-deals-with-free-gifts/). Moreover, I had known how the internet works, and how to differ one type of the internet from the other one. If you neaed the number, then write me in the PM.

Vaughn
4-May-2020, 10:41
If it wasn't for LFPF, I think I'd just say f**k the internet, I have a flip phone!