Photo.net is much easier with fast internet

For many years, I had had DSL service, which topped out at 1Mbit per second. Finally, after much anguish about putting my self back into the hands of the local cable service, I am now on a cable modem, phone, and tv for 1/3 the cost of the DSL.

All of a sudden those huge (aka yuge) long lists of images in some threads now pop up very quickly. They assure me that they are having some signal problems right now, and promise even faster internet in future. Regardless, even as it is now it's working well enough to really make the new interface here on Photo.net much easier to use.

In any case, I have felt better about Photo.net lately anyhow, since things seem to be settling down. Having a faster connection really helps too....

Since I am suspicious of speed test utilities from the company that sells you the service (am I too paranoid?), I was pleased to find Netflix in their war on the service providers has got their own speed test at Internet Speed Test

For many years, I had had DSL service, which topped out at 1Mbit per second. Finally, after much anguish about putting my self back into the hands of the local cable service, I am now on a cable modem, phone, and tv for 1/3 the cost of the DSL.

 

All of a sudden those huge (aka yuge) long lists of images in some threads now pop up very quickly. They assure me that they are having some signal problems right now, and promise even faster internet in future. Regardless, even as it is now it's working well enough to really make the new interface here on Photo.net much easier to use.

 

In any case, I have felt better about Photo.net lately anyhow, since things seem to be settling down. Having a faster connection really helps too....

Since I am suspicious of speed test utilities from the company that sells you the service (am I too paranoid?), I was pleased to find Netflix in their war on the service providers has got their own speed test at Internet Speed Test

I'm on 100 Mbps in Edinburgh, have been for the last 8 years or so.

A friend up North in Balquhidder has just laid (as in finished a few weeks ago) a private community cable for the area and they are getting 1 Gbps :)

They've been promising optic fiber here for years, but the phone company only has copper wires still ...

It's now running at roughly 75Mbps for download by Fast (above) and 80+ by other measures from the cable co.- Surely beats 1Mbps:)

Freedom!

:)

I had AT&T dsl and phone but they did not have their U-verse TV available and could not tell me if it was going to become available in my area. My brother has everything bundled with them and he's happy with it.

Now I have everything bundled with my RCN cable and my internet speed is 25 Mbit, verified by all the internet speed tests I have used, including the one you linked to, JDM.

The cable company was in the neighborhood yesterday putting in some new connectors and now my download speed is between 88 to 100 Mbps. Hoo- Haw! as they say hereabouts:D

As Gust Avrakotos said "We shall see"

I'm in Southern Illinois (note the capitalization of Southern) where everything is promised, but almost nothing delivered. I know that the new speeds I'm getting are still pitiful compared to areas like northern India were I was a couple of years ago. As a professor at the University of Ibadan [Nigeria] said when I was there during the great petroleum embargo of 1973-4:

We feel so sorry for you in the overdeveloped countries

Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan

I pay about £50 for 100 Mbps, unlimited downloads, TV package (video on demand, 1Tb recorder) landline and mobile.

Edinburgh is rolling out 300 - 400 Mbps. The centre of the city has it, up to about a mile from where I stay. The suburbs should be up and running in the next year or so.

ISP download speed is only part of the picture.

If the providing site cannot or will not stream the data fast enough, you are still stuck behind a slow truck.

I have 100Mbps download speed, and I have seen data coming down at up to 70Mbps. So my ISP download speed is verified.

But I have seen ebook downloads from Amazon seemingly capped at about 5Mbps.

Other sites similarly seem to have a data download cap, so I consistently do not see anywhere near 50+Mbps from them.

I presume this is how they purchased or configured their ISP connection.

BTW, I had to go cable ISP because back in the early days, I discovered that I was too far from the phone company's central office for DSL. So cable was and still is my only option. Luckily it is the faster option, compared to DSL.

update

My current daytime download speed seems to be about 54Mbps, presumably due to daytime traffic.

I will check again tonight.

Argh

I just checked the Comcast site.

They stratified their download speed to 55, 100 and 200 Mbps.

Of course, charging more $$ for faster download.

That explains why my download caps out at 54Mbps.

Other sites similarly seem to have a data download cap, so I consistently do not see anywhere near 50+Mbps from them.

I don't think any single site is going to reach you at anywhere close to 50mbps. Netflix streams HD video for the TV screen at 25mbps. There's not much point. There are also a number of hops along the way that can slow things down.

The reason for needing higher speed is generally more devices running more net traffic. If you have two TVs, three computers and a tablet or two streaming video, you will need the higher speed.

I presume this is how they purchased or configured their ISP connection.

Internet sites connect through hosting centers, although some self-host. They generally connect to the backbone fairly quickly. However, they may not be configured well, or, once again, they may have a heavy load. A good example of the load issue is news on election nights, when many news sites have been extremely slow. Also, the amount of usage in the neighborhood at a given time can be a significant factor in speed.

Some people have home networks with repeaters, which also drops internet speed.

Comcast not only has specific packages with corresponding speeds, they typically have data caps. As far as I can tell, in my area they don't charge for exceeding the data cap, they just slow you down.

Speeds in much of Europe are higher and cost is lower. In Portugal, for example, gigabit speed is available for €36 and is very widespread. The US is way behind on broadband. I pay $80 for 150mbps but never see it delivered over 120.

Yeah, my wife watches Netflix a lot, while I'm on the computer.

She loves the Canadian and English TV programs.

I have 4 computers hooked up (one for movie streaming), one TV, one landline, and the wifi option for access on my cell phone. Of course, they're not usually on all at the same time. With the introductory offer, less than US$40 a month, less than half what I was paying for the 1 Mbps DSL and phone.

For more than a year, I had no direct TV and relied on streaming [drip, drip, ..]. I got a lot of reading done, including most of Mann. I actually read all 7 volumes of Proust (an achievement I do not recommend to others).

Regardless of how fast your service is, you get use to it pretty fast. Then you'll find yourself complaining it seems to have slowed down.

Its like driving a car on the thruway. No matter how fast you go, its never fast enough.