AT&T uverse to cap data usage.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by jeff061

Holy crap, what you need that pipe for. I'm thrilled with my 50/35 on FIOS, you paying extra?

Ended up paying about $10 more or so a month. "Need" is a pretty strong word I would say. The only time that I probably use that much bandwidth is when I do DOS testing for work. (I am a network engineer).

For me, being a network guy, it is more about a cool toy I guess similar to a car person having a shiny new car

Plus it is fun to tell my team that I have better connectivity than over 100 of our remote offices at work.

[jeff061]

10 bucks is worth it. For me it was 10 bucks to get from the listed 25/10 to 25/25 (real world perf is steady at 50/35). Next step up was an order of magnitude more.

[jeff061]

Also god damn love, LOVE FIOS.

I'm moving soon, god help me if its to an area without it.


/first world problems

[kcchief19]

I've found that my "need" for bandwidth is at least 25mb. I'm on uVerse now, and while I'm paying for the 18mb service, I'm lucky to get 15mb. During peak hours it can range from 2-10 mb. Ugh.

If Google Fiber ever gets to my neighborhood, watch out.

[finketr]

i get a whopping 12/2.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Ended up paying about $10 more or so a month. "Need" is a pretty strong word I would say. The only time that I probably use that much bandwidth is when I do DOS testing for work. (I am a network engineer).

For me, being a network guy, it is more about a cool toy I guess similar to a car person having a shiny new car

Plus it is fun to tell my team that I have better connectivity than over 100 of our remote offices at work.

are you on quantum or something above that? i'm 25/25 on fios now and will prob go to quantum sometime this year

[Alan T]

Yes, went to quantum. Seemed a no brainier with the pricing in my area

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by jeff061

10 bucks is worth it. For me it was 10 bucks to get from the listed 25/10 to 25/25 (real world perf is steady at 50/35). Next step up was an order of magnitude more.

You're literally right down the street from me - how were our speeds so different??

[jeff061]

Which package you paying for? I'm on the 35/35(not 25/25, mistaken earlier).

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by jeff061

Which package you paying for? I'm on the 35/35(not 25/25, mistaken earlier).

Good question...I forget..hmm.

I'm on 35/35 apparently.

[jeff061]

No clue, pretty lame, I'd call them.

[jeff061]

Also, make sure you aren't on wireless when you are running speed test. I've found my internet connection runs faster than my wireless.

[DaddyTorgo]

I'm on my wifi - i didn't mention that.

[JonInMiddleGA]

So, related to my might-switch-to-Charter-for-ISP thread ...

Had another batch of connection issues a few nights ago, called AT&T again, this time in addition to the pending new-lines-from-road-to-house repair, they also wanted to send me a new modem. (the tech support guy actually laughed when he realized I still had an old Westel that was about to celebrate it's 7th birthday).

Modem swapped today.

The wireless connection down here (which I understand is different from up/down speed) has jumped from 56mpbs to 130mpbs. My up & down results from speedtest are still identical to my previous peaks (around 7mpbs down / 0.45 up)

My question is: if up & down results are the same, why does it seem like speed -- in terms of how long it takes to load a frequently visited page/site -- seem as though it's improved at least a noticeable amount?

All in my head?

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

So, related to my might-switch-to-Charter-for-ISP thread ...

Had another batch of connection issues a few nights ago, called AT&T again, this time in addition to the pending new-lines-from-road-to-house repair, they also wanted to send me a new modem. (the tech support guy actually laughed when he realized I still had an old Westel that was about to celebrate it's 7th birthday).

Modem swapped today.

The wireless connection down here (which I understand is different from up/down speed) has jumped from 56mpbs to 130mpbs. My up & down results from speedtest are still identical to my previous peaks (around 7mpbs down / 0.45 up)

My question is: if up & down results are the same, why does it seem like speed -- in terms of how long it takes to load a frequently visited page/site -- seem as though it's improved at least a noticeable amount?

All in my head?

It sounds to me like your old modem was giving you some high ping times and/or packet loss.

[Tekneek]

Originally Posted by Atocep

It sounds to me like your old modem was giving you some high ping times and/or packet loss.

Better traffic management, fewer dropped packets, etc. Some milliseconds saved on every packet makes a big difference after a while, even if straight up speed tests show no difference in peak speeds, especially if your old hardware was forcing the resending of lost packets on a regular basis.

When I bought my own cable modem to use instead of the default business gateway from Comcast Business, everything got better (including having IPv6 addressing). That hardware makes a bigger difference than some people might think.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Finally gave up & switched to Charter for internet (gave them the landline phone too, virtually never use it anyway).

Last speed test I ran with AT&T I was getting 0.8mpbs. Yes, that's what I said, it's not a typo, it was below 1.

And here's my first Speedtest result with Charter
[IMG][/IMG]

Gee, think I can tell any difference

[stevew]

[CU Tiger]

AT&T is literally the only internet service available at my house.



They tell me the buffering problems I have are all on my end...

[MrBug708]

I have Verizon (Live in a condo so no FIOS despite having a box outside the condo complex) and am stuck with DSL for 40 dollars a month (plus phone line for an additional charge). I'm getting a stellar 1.33 download speed. My FIL lives a mile away and has FIOS and pays 50 or so for about 50 mbs.

[JonInMiddleGA]

The exact numbers escape me at the moment but I actually ended up knocking about $25/month off the total bill (combined internet/phone) for the first year, with a $10 increase in cost yr 2, $5 increase yr 3.

[Umbrella]

I guess I have it pretty good compared to a lot of you.

[CU Tiger]

The upload is what kills me for voip or video conferencing.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

The upload is what kills me for voip or video conferencing.

Yeah, it's crazy that TWC has these 20/2; 10/1 plans. The DL is great for my family, but we can't hardly even video chat. It's very frustrating. If they could bump me up to 20/5 I think I'd be much better off.

[Izulde]

[Izulde]

Wow my speeds suck compared to y'alls. How much are you guys paying? Mine's 65 a month.

[JPhillips]

My upload is really surprising to me.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

Yeah, it's crazy that TWC has these 20/2; 10/1 plans. The DL is great for my family, but we can't hardly even video chat. It's very frustrating. If they could bump me up to 20/5 I think I'd be much better off.

Up until the last few years, most people didn't have much use for nice upload speeds, so companies tended to push their download speeds and ignore upload. When I was on Bellsouth before switching to a business setup for our home offices, we were at 6/.25, and that was the fastest plan available in our area. I suspect that as desire/need for upload speed has increased, many companies haven't kept up and/or don't have the infrastructure in place for it, and they just do what they can get away with.

[johnnyshaka]

[johnnyshaka]

40 Mb/s uploads...WOW!

[CU Tiger]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Up until the last few years, most people didn't have much use for nice upload speeds, so companies tended to push their download speeds and ignore upload. When I was on Bellsouth before switching to a business setup for our home offices, we were at 6/.25, and that was the fastest plan available in our area. I suspect that as desire/need for upload speed has increased, many companies haven't kept up and/or don't have the infrastructure in place for it, and they just do what they can get away with.

bingo we are on bellsouth/at&t and DSL now USVERSE is all that is available at my house.

Given my background and connections I actually reached out to the local cable company and offered to run the last 2,100ft of Cable to get my entire neighborhood (only 11 houses) at my cost..they declined so I am tuck with what we have.

[sovereignstar v2]

I pay 70 including taxes and fees for this:

[CU Tiger]

Is everyone else using wifi to run the test?

[stevew]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

Yeah, it's crazy that TWC has these 20/2; 10/1 plans. The DL is great for my family, but we can't hardly even video chat. It's very frustrating. If they could bump me up to 20/5 I think I'd be much better off.

When is the last time you checked? We just recently got 50/5

[Alan T]

I work from home but this is fios residential service as of last week when we were speed testing a few VPN solutions.

I believe I pay $99 a month but it is subsidized by my company

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by stevew

When is the last time you checked? We just recently got 50/5

Oh I check constantly. I can get the higher speeds. I'd have to go with a 30 to get a 5 DL. Even with 5 people using the internet/streaming in my house we still don't need the extra bandwidth.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

Is everyone else using wifi to run the test?

I was/am.

[Buccaneer]

I was just told that I can trade in my home modem for one that is 3x faster (Comcast $40/month, I think). Going to post before and after to see if it makes a difference



But I would not pay any more to have faster results - why would I? Nearly everything I do online is very fast but I don't stream movies or stuff like that. Even the fastest connection in the world is not going to make YouTube and their weird buffering go any faster, I don't think.

Something curious though. My son watched just about every March Madness game. But he much preferred to watch on our iPad via wifi vs. on my PC with wire - he said it was really sluggish on the PC. I had wondered why?

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

It amazed me how slow broadband is over here when I emigrated (and how expensive) - for comparison this is 'general' use broadband speeds in the UK:

UK population density = 660 persons/sq.mile
US population density = 83 persons/sq.mile

Out here in the West and in place in the Great Plains, you can do many hundreds of miles without encountering a place over 50,000 people. That's impossible in much of the East Coast and in most of Europe.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

Oh I check constantly. I can get the higher speeds. I'd have to go with a 30 to get a 5 DL. Even with 5 people using the internet/streaming in my house we still don't need the extra bandwidth.

I don't know what the difference in pricing is, but I think it was like $20 bucks where I live to go from the 20/1 to the 50/5. For me the 5up is such a world changing event for uploading the OOTP MP files. It seems like even way more than just 5 times faster. It now takes a negligible amount of time. I used to have to hang out in order to make sure it completely uploaded before going to do something else.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Okay, crazy first-time cable 'net customer question.

The speedtest I posted was with one & only one device (this desktop) connected. A few hours later I test again & get only about half the speed both up & down ... but that was with 3 phones (inactive but connected) & 3 computers (all in use) connected.

Okay, that makes sense to me honestly BUT I swear that the sales rep on the phone said repeatedly that there would be no change in speed as long as there weren't more than 8 devices connected simultaneously.

So cable-net veterans ... was the sales rep full of shit OR are the speeds that variable at different times of the day (and I would have gotten the same result regardless of the number of devices connected)?

[stevew]

sometimes you dramatically change speeds just by refreshing and then reloading.

[PilotMan]

Are you in a rural or urban or suburban area? More rural it shouldn't be as noticeable, but during prime time hours in the 'burbs you can see some variation of speeds as more and more people are using the internet as it's not a dedicated service for the neighborhood.

Although generally that's pretty rare. You will see fairly large fluctuations from time to time but on the whole they don't last and/or are pretty minor. If you start seeing a substantial drop over a period of days and it doesn't seem to abate, I'd call the IP and have them run some checks. I've had cables replaced from the street to the house already and this house is only 13 years old.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

Are you in a rural or urban or suburban area? More rural it shouldn't be as noticeable, but during prime time hours in the 'burbs you can see some variation of speeds as more and more people are using the internet as it's not a dedicated service for the neighborhood.

Although generally that's pretty rare. You will see fairly large fluctuations from time to time but on the whole they don't last and/or are pretty minor. If you start seeing a substantial drop over a period of days and it doesn't seem to abate, I'd call the IP and have them run some checks. I've had cables replaced from the street to the house already and this house is only 13 years old.

I guess you'd call Athens, GA "suburban". It's interesting because, among the things I learned from the installation guy yesterday was that our neighborhood was a long-standing "trouble spot" for Charter until they eventually replaced most of the physical cable about a year ago, complete service outages on a weekly (or more) basis were common. Since then he said it had been pretty stable.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Okay, crazy first-time cable 'net customer question.

The speedtest I posted was with one & only one device (this desktop) connected. A few hours later I test again & get only about half the speed both up & down ... but that was with 3 phones (inactive but connected) & 3 computers (all in use) connected.

Okay, that makes sense to me honestly BUT I swear that the sales rep on the phone said repeatedly that there would be no change in speed as long as there weren't more than 8 devices connected simultaneously.

So cable-net veterans ... was the sales rep full of shit OR are the speeds that variable at different times of the day (and I would have gotten the same result regardless of the number of devices connected)?

I think it sounds more like a a wifi thing than the cable modem service (though, anything is certainly possible).

When you have multiple devices connecting to wifi, your wireless router needs to communicate with each of these devices. In order to communicate with each of these devices, the router's fixed max RF emission power (signal level...which in my area is limited to 200W) may need to be slightly reduced (for each device) in order for the router to simultaneously communicate to them all (i.e. the devices don't just wait their turn). This reduction in emission power can reduce your effective data rate to each device if the power reduction is significant enough.

It happens to be the case for me but my wifi is still pretty reasonable with 10+ devices connecting to my wifi at any given moment. But....if I disconnect every other device from my network & reboot my wireless router...I'll get an even stronger wifi signal with increased data rate & ping times.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

I think it sounds more like a a wifi thing than the cable modem service (though, anything is certainly possible).

Dola,

Just noticed you posted your test about 4:40pm and said a few hours later your tests came back lower. I assume that may have been at approx 7-9pm...which happens to be a common peak usage period.

So I guess it might not be unreasonable to assume your peak period test may not be as high as your off-peak test. I'd be curious if you tested it at another time of day & see what you get (then repeat the peak time period).

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

Dola,

Just noticed you posted your test about 4:40pm and said a few hours later your tests came back lower. I assume that may have been at approx 7-9pm...which happens to be a common peak usage period.

So I guess it might not be unreasonable to assume your peak period test may not be as high as your off-peak test. I'd be curious if you tested it at another time of day & see what you get (then repeat the peak time period).

Just ran it again moments ago -- and with only this computer actively using it -- got an absolutely stunning result



Now the question will be whether multiple devices decreases things OR if the time of day has more impact ... but right now I'm not inclined to run all over the house to fire up YouTube videos on all the computers + my phone

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Now the question will be whether multiple devices decreases things OR if the time of day has more impact ... but right now I'm not inclined to run all over the house to fire up YouTube videos on all the computers + my phone

Well, even if your other devices aren't actively being directed to streaming or surfing, they are still "connecting" to wifi unless you have specifically configured them not to (and checking for updates to apps, syncing mail, etc.).

It actually sounds like you may have just hit a peak period (where peak means you & the roughly couple of hundred neighbors around you are all doing internet "stuff") when you had poor (or less good) performance before.

Thats how cable operator internet works. In theory, there is a big enough pool of bandwidth for "many" users to hit max speed for "much" of the time (which is why they typically commit to "speeds up to" unless you have a business class account which actually is dedicated). The "many" and "much" numbers can vary by cable operator, location, and even sub-location as it is a perpetually evolving technology. And by evolving, I mean upgrading & expanding data rates but its done geographically in general, and is one of those things that by the time you finish half a location you may be changing technology again.

[jeff061]

Never thought I'd get this from Comcast after moving off FIOS.

[jeff061]

That said, I'm paying extra to get to 20 up. The 150+ down comes with that, I don't really need it.

With FIOS I didn't need to pay extra and got 35 down. So still prefer FIOS.