Our photos are slowing down the internet.

<p>This article got me to post on this subject...</p>

<p>http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/16/technology/web-slow-big/<br /><br />...and below are some other links to articles related to this topic I came across from a search first instigated by my wanting to find out why AT&T keeps bumping me up on discount broadband package plans this year starting from my original 3mbps I've had for 3 years then to 6mbps and now 12mbps (AT&T's OOKLA test has it at 16mbps) while my overall site page download speed remains the same. YouTube video streaming speed hasn't really changed as well.<br /><br />Then a couple a days ago I saw cable news airing the article titled "The Internet Is Getting Slower". And today I see AT&T getting slammed with a 100 million dollar fine by the FCC for intentionally slowing down "Unlimited" data plans for mobile devices and not telling customers about it. <br /><br />Further searching on this subject found that FCC is planning on extending the "Lifeline" subsidy program for affordability of both phone AND internet services to the poor where AT&T is a provider for my Texas area.</p>

<p>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/2015-the-trend-line-for-c_b_6433574.html<br /> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/28/fcc-subsidize-internet-fo_n_7464786.html<br /> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/06/17/att-just-got-hit-with-a-100-million-fine-after-slowing-down-its-unlimited-data/</p>

<p>What is going on? This is just a crazy mess!<br /><br />Does anyone here know how to find the real cause of the lousy internet speeds no matter what bit per second package plan one buys into? Is it really as simple as websites becoming more bloated with data? Why was my 3mbps DSL doing fine for 3 years and now I have to be bumped to 12mbps to get the same speed?<br /><br />Your thoughts appreciated. <br /><br /><br /><br /></p>

<p>(1) You can only receive as fast as the remote server can send. That depends on how busy it is. If all it can do is 1MB/s, it doesn't matter if you have 3, 6 or 12 MB service.</p>

<p>(2) Usually, cable broadband is a shared resource, so if all your neighbors are simultaneously downloading pirates moves, your speed goes down. DSL isn't shared so should deliver full rated speed all the time.</p>

<p>Bob, where do you get this information and understanding on how broadband works and is this info verifiable? Is it derived from just what you've read or is there some trusted knowledge base go to organization that can prove what you are saying? I get so many different excuses scouring the internet and talking to AT&T CSR's.</p>

<p>So broadband bit per second numbers are meaningless? I can say that with confidence to the AT&T CSR next time they push another discount broadband plan after the price spikes to their new "standard" price?</p>

<p>I'm carefully watching my online credit card statements to catch them when the price stated on the bill that comes in the mail doesn't match what they said over the phone. But I need an internet connection to catch that. What a coincidence!</p>

<p><em>The important thing to note about cable Internet connections is that cable technology is based on shared bandwidth with many factors influencing a users download speed. With shared bandwidth the speed fluctuates depending on the number of subscribers on the network.</em><br>

http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/cable_vs_dsl.asp</p>

<blockquote>

<p>where do you get this information and understanding on how broadband works and is this info verifiable? </p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

Bob gave basic facts that have been true for years and years. If you type in "cable broadband shared" you will get plenty of links in addition to the one he gave.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>So broadband bit per second numbers are meaningless? <br>

</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No, but slow sites are slow sites and downloading one hundred web images isn't going to change with most types of connection. Speed is certainly relevant for streaming video or in locations with lots of users. If you have replaced cable TV with streaming services, it can be very meaningful. In my home, we often have two people streaming HD video and one streaming music at the same time. I don't know where the speed break is for slowing it down, we are at 115Mbps.<br>

<br>

The "intentional slowdown" is called throttling. The new FCC rules on net neutrality do not allow throttling so that should not be an issue.<br /></p>

<p>Tim, what Bob says is true. You could have a 100Mb/s link to AT&T's POP (point of presence) but you're 100% at the mercy of everything in between you and the server you're connecting so in many cases, getting a high performance package from AT&T (or most anyone else (like my FIOS)) is a total waste of money. I used to have business FIOS (30Mb/s) and dont think I ever saw more than 5-8Mb/s real-world performance (vs. 30Mb/s performance via speedtest.net) when connecting to various servers. It's all a matter of the size of the pipes between you and the target</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The "intentional slowdown" is called throttling. The new FCC rules on net neutrality do not allow throttling so that should not be an issue.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It might be an issue:<br /> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/technology/fcc-to-fine-att-for-slowing-data-speeds-of-some-customers.html?ref=technology">F.C.C. to Fine AT&T for Slowing Data Speeds of Some Customers (NY Times)</a></p>

How does one typically measure real world performance,( I innocently ask).. Never bothered to but Time Warner says it has give me a promotional Road Runner speed upgrade to 50/5 mbs at no cost. So what are the A-B-C steps to check on them guys? Anyone?

You lucky son of a gun, Gerry, that you would get 50 Mb/s (megabits per second) download speed on the "neighbor island". Around these parts, 1 Mb/s mark is barely broken (Time Warner Oceanic/Road Runner).

 

As to check your down- & upload speeds, try http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest or http://www.speedtest.net/ .

<blockquote>

<p>getting a high performance package from AT&T (or most anyone else (like my FIOS)) is a total waste of money</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br /> Once again, not if you're streaming HD video. There's a noticeable difference in video quality (some devices downgrade the video quality if it senses lower speeds) and continuity. Also, I have to sometimes download 60 - 100GB of photos and that takes a long time on a slow connection. The server at the other end is fast.</p>

<p>Also, along with higher download speeds come higher upload speeds. I am sometimes uploading 10 - 20GB of files at one time, and the higher upload speeds, while nowhere near the download speeds, help quite a bit.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Bob gave basic facts that have been true for years and years.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>True?! Who determined this to be true on how this works when you have companies that can "throttle" down or up bandwidth speed?</p>

<p>Don't get me wrong I'm not doubting Bob's and others overall understanding of roughly how data packets get shuffled around the internet pipes. I'm trying to determine if there's a way to find out if any internet provider is manipulating traffic control where and how fast these packets gets sent.</p>

<p>There doesn't seem to be any verifiable way to detect if the internet IS slowing down due to other factors other than what appears to be influenced by monopolistic telecom corporations.</p>

<p>I guess I should be asking the FCC IT people since they're the ones that are fining those like AT&T over this perceived bandwidth manipulation. How does FCC find out about this kind of crap?</p>

<p>Bob gave two facts:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>1. You can't receive faster than the server at the other end sends; and</p>

<p>2. Cable broadband is almost always shared bandwidth.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>What does that have to do with throttling?</p>

<p>You can find your speed by simply Googling "Internet speed test". That should put you on a high speed link at the server end and what you see is what you are getting. Try http://www.speedtest.net/ That's probably the best rate you'll ever get. Actual real world downloads from typical servers will be slower. Sometimes much slower.</p>

<p>I'm on a nominal "<strong>up to</strong>3Mbps" cable connection. I actually get 2Mbps down and 1Mbps up as my max rate (at the moment, it can change).</p>

<p>You'd have to be a network engineer with significant resources to figure out exactly where things are getting slowed down and by who. Then you have to ask why.</p>

<p>You can follow a packet through the network via Tracert, but that's not really going to show if anyone is deliberately slowing down streaming content. It just shows you the delay as the packet passes through each router on the network. It doesn't show how fast the server is serving packets. The server can choose to serve packets slowly, or it can be so busy that it has no option but to serve packets slowly. It can be dealing with hundred, thousands or 10's of thousands of simultaneous connections. It almost certainly can't serve packets at 100+Mbps to all of them, well, not unless you're talking to Google or Amazon and I'm not even sure they could.</p>

<p>The current internet backbone speed is about 100Gbps but of course that's shared among a lot of servers and a lot of users and there are a lot of network connections. How much of it you can grab for yourself is hard to say.</p>

<p>If you're not running a server farm and not trying to stream 4K movies, there's a point at which increased bandwidth isn't going to give you any better performance. It's more than my 3MBps, but probably less then 100 Gbps. It certainly won't make photo.net any faster.</p>

<p>Streaming video consumes a lot more bandwidth than occasionally uploading or downloading photographs. More and more people get their entertainment by streaming, hence the slowdown. The best time is probably in the morning, when fewer people are watching TV, which also loads the cable network, affecting internet speed. Don't wait until the wee hours, because that's when a lot of people download videos for viewing the next day.</p>

<p>Net Neutrality means different things to different people. IMO, it's okay to pay for greater bandwidth, as long as the speed doesn't depend on content (or more important, who supplies the content). The egalitarian approach taken by the Administration seems to be everyone deserves the same bandwidth without being charged for extra speed. In effect, that means everyone gets choked.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The egalitarian approach taken by the Administration seems to be everyone deserves the same bandwidth without being charged for extra speed. </p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

You completely misunderstand Title 2.</p>

<p>To be more specific I don't have issues with my current speed overall surfing a wide range of sites. Photo.net has always been fast enough and even a non-cached dpreview.com link from a Google search loads within 4 seconds and its servers are located across the Atlantic ocean.</p>

<p>My issue is there doesn't appear to be a rate of <em>change</em> in speed that correlates with what's being sold to customers and as defined by folks who should or say they know more about how the internet works like the FCC and telecom companies so they can create and innovate to insure a faster internet. I'm seeing it can't be controlled by anyone. It's pretty much a free for all packet shuttle crap shoot.</p>

<p>So I still don't know how the FCC can know for sure how telecom companies manipulate bandwidth speed other than listening to customer complaints. And if that's all they're going by while considering Bob's input about server performance variances across a wide range of sites affecting overall speed, it appears nothing the FCC does is going to bring change and/or a faster internet. Some sites are going to be slow and some much faster.</p>

<p>And from what I've read in forums searching on how to determine the most accurate & reliable bandwidth speed test I just find even more rabbit hole discussions of IT experts saying one thing and others saying something else with a bunch of interesting techie factoids to leave me bewildered and confused but still never certain which to choose.</p>

<p>And thanks, Bob and others, for the links and info you've provided.</p>

<p>Tim, what Bob says is true. You could have a 100Mb/s link to AT&T's POP (point of presence) but you're 100% at the mercy of everything in between you and the server you're connecting so in many cases, getting a high performance package from AT&T (or most anyone else (like my FIOS)) is a total waste of money. I used to have business FIOS (30Mb/s) and dont think I ever saw more than 5-8Mb/s real-world performance (vs. 30Mb/s performance via speedtest.net) when connecting to various servers. It's all a matter of the size of the pipes between you and the target</p>

<p>Tim, what Bob says is true. You could have a 100Mb/s link to AT&T's POP (point of presence) but you're 100% at the mercy of everything in between you and the server you're connecting so in many cases, getting a high performance package from AT&T (or most anyone else (like my FIOS)) is a total waste of money. I used to have business FIOS (30Mb/s) and dont think I ever saw more than 5-8Mb/s real-world performance (vs. 30Mb/s performance via speedtest.net) when connecting to various servers. It's all a matter of the size of the pipes between you and the target</p>

<p>Did I misunderstand Net Neutrality Title 2? The FCC ruled that content providers like Netflix could not be charged extra based on their bandwidth consumption. They shall be treated exactly the same as, say, Google Search, which barely makes the bandwidth needle quiver. Furthermore the FCC established minimum bandwidth standards for consumers which actually exceed my current service via U-Verse, which in practice is faster than anything I've measured on line.</p>

<p>I typically get 27 MB/s down (out of 30) and 5 MB/s up. I would prefer it the other way around, or at least symmetrical, but that's not an option at present.</p>

<p>Edward: that's about what I get using Comcast cable in New Jersey. But why would you prefer it the other way around. Most data you're receiving, most of the time. What to do that you want more transmit speed out of your home?</p>

<p>Download speeds are faster than upload speeds mostly because that how ISPs like it. While there are a few technical reasons (some of them legacy reasons from the early days), it's mostly a matter of choice by the ISPs today. Bandwidth has to be shared in some way between upload and download and the vast majority of people download 100x more data than they upload, so most people are quite happy with the situation</p>

<p>Those wanting high upload speeds are usually either trying to run a server out of their home, illegally sharing copyrighted music and movies or legitimate photographers who want to backup GB of images on a regular basis. The ISPs don't like the first two very much, so the third one suffers!</p>

<p>Why would I like faster uploads? Most of my deliverables, including photos, sound files and video, are via the internet. I upload at least twice the amount of data I download. I would prefer a symmetrical service, even at a premium, if it were available. It's not hard to accumulate 2 GB of photos, even in JPEG format, if the customer needs full resolution. or about an hour of 720p30 MP4 (Apple TV) video.</p>

I never checked or paid much attention to this issue since we seemed to have adequate service with occasional bump in the road. But

about a month ago bought my own modem and returned comcast's little crap box. This was a financially driven decision but probably has

better specs. Subjectively I think I see improved performance for streaming since no system is better than its weakest link. I regret that I

did test the unit before I turned it in.

 

Anyway, of course larger files will take longer and higher speeds are nicer but, considering the demands of streaming, I find it hard to

believe that photos over the Internet have a significant impact on the overall system.