Internet Speed (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Gerald LaFrance YouTube isn't uploading videos to their ISP as you're downloading them. The typical consumer upload speed of 1Mbps is irrelevant for YouTube.


You're right in that my SpeedTest and ISP claims of 25 Mbps don't necessarily correspond to YouTube download rates. But my upload rate is irrelevant for watching videos, I need better downstream capability from my ISP and perhaps from YouTube's content-distribution network.

 

[JohnRice]

Yeah, that argument really doesn't make sense with how most people use internet. The heaviest single use of internet in the US it NetFlix. NetFlix is NOT on some residential 3Mb upload pipeline. The argument is only valid with a single peer-to-peer connection. Most people don't work that way very often. Plus, it completely disregards the fact that most households will have multiple devices accessing the internet at the same time. So that 20 Mb main pipeline coming into the house allows several devices to access at the same time and still get speeds of several Mb, even if each one is only a 4Mb, the total might be 20. Again, in the real world, I most definitely do get the full 20Mb at times, such as when doing a software update through the Apple server. Recently I did a clean install on several computers and the initial update was about 1.25 GB, which it did it in less than 20 minutes. No, most of the time a single connection will not get 20Mb, but I definitely can run 3 or 4 simultaneous downloads and get 20Mb total, so it is anything but bogus.

 

[JohnRice]

...plus, I have web hosting as well. My ISP and my personal upload speeds have absolutely NOTHING to do with how fast the DL speeds are from my server or what DL speeds my ISP offers. The two are completely unconnected. It does affect how fast I can upload TO my server, but that is an entirely different thing.

 

[John Dirk]

Originally Posted by Gerald LaFrance

The USA is supposed to be near ALL FIBRE and these abysmal speeds they limit us too are not what they could be..They are still alot better then 56k but not as near as fast as they could be..

Others have adequately addressed the bulk of your assertions, but I must tell you that the above claim is simply not true. As a pioneer in telecommunications, the US actually has an ageing infrastructure in dire need of an overhaul. Major players in the industry [Comcast, AT&T, Verizon etc] are working hard to address this issue, but nations like Japan, Korea and even Thailand have far greater fiber penetration than the US, [since they never installed our legacy infrastructure from decades past] which is why super fast Internet speeds are commonplace there.

Then how come if they can not control sp[eeds when you do a close by speedtest you do attain your Rated Speeds..

The reason most tests return rated speeds is that they are only measuring from your home or business to their nearest server, usually in the same city or metropolitan area. This is not a valid test of Internet speed since, in the real world, your destination server is likely to be in a different state or even a different country.

 

[JohnRice]

You know John, the funny thing is when I test local servers, including Comcast (Comcast is my ISP) in Denver, 60 miles away, I typically get slower speeds than when I test servers in Western Oregon or Washington, which is over 1,000 miles away. I always get better ping results from Denver, though.

 

[John Dirk]

Originally Posted by JohnRice

You know John, the funny thing is when I test local servers, including Comcast (Comcast is my ISP) in Denver, 60 miles away, I typically get slower speeds than when I test servers in Western Oregon or Washington, which is over 1,000 miles away. I always get better ping results from Denver, though.

Yes. This is a perfect example of how multiple factors ultimately affect speed and why no one entity will ever guarantee it. Your experience sounds more like an issue with the servers in your area. Are the speeds consistently and appreciably slower?

 

[JohnRice]

I just ran a bunch of tests and I think the bottom line is that the Comcast server in Denver is just spread too thin. I got a great ping of 11ms, but download of about 8Mb. I tried several others in Colorado and one in Wyoming (Cheyenne, which is the closest to me at about 40 miles, but being Cheyenne, no telling how limited the capacity is. Ping was a miserable 112ms.) and every one of them beat the Denver Comcast DL, by 50-100%. Then I ran a Comcast server in Salt Lake, which is about 500 miles away, and got a ping of 24 ms and DL of over 20Mb. My service is stated as 15Mb. UL with everyone was around 4Mb.

 

[RobertR]

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/08/26/google-brings-ultra-fast-internet-to-homes-near-stanford/

 

[KeithAP]

Sonic, the company managing Google's high speed internet project, is also rolling out gigabit internet to a small number of people.


http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110607/ARTICLES/110609527?p=all&tc=pgall


-Keith