Choosing a high speed vendor

***Zardon*** · Mar 9, 2005, 10:24 AM

^_^ has written a nice little guide for all the USA guys here new to broadband and looking for an ISP.

you can read the guide over here

Drakon · Mar 9, 2005, 10:35 AM

Nice article ^_^

I tested my cable internet and here are the results:

Quote:

2005-03-09 10:32:50 EST: 4112 / 359
Your download speed : 4211213 bps, or 4112 kbps.
A 514 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 368165 bps, or 359 kbps.

Btw, comcast only charges $3 for a rental fee of the modem. Dunno if that's a good deal or not.

aaronbond · Mar 9, 2005, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Before we get down to choosing it’s time to educate you on their marketing, especially with speed. The companies have decided to trick you into believing that they’re offering you more speed than they actually are.

Quote:

So they’re not false advertising or anything, they’re just being deceitful.

I think that's an unfair statement. In no way are they tricking you nor are they being deceitful. They are being 100% true to their capabilities. The wording is abit harsh. I always believed 3mbps = 3mbps never 3MB/sec.

Like mine is 5mbps/384kbps which is roughly 640KB/sec down and 48KB/sec up

Use the bit calculator if you want to find out in the "Byte system" as it's called in the article.

http://www.matisse.net/bitcalc/

btw I get 620 consistently from good servers with good routes. 44 out on my FTP.

I find that the site below is better than the dslreports servers because they are usually overloaded and don't get the values right. Testmy has truer results.

http://www.testmy.net/

Nonetheless thanks for the article ^_^

mike2h · Mar 9, 2005, 12:06 PM

nice article! gets the basics out to people in an easy to understanf format. thx.
bty i just went through all this with my cable provider. kinda funny.
the above poster needs to reread your article. they are NOT saying 3mbps, they ARE saying 3 meg. which is exactly what you stated. and you hit the level1&2 support not having a clue about this diff right on the head.
one thing you might want add in is latency. overall cable is faster but tends to have higher latency. dsl is slower but lower latency. at least this holds true for where i live, a part of oregon, parts of the la area, & a small part of florida. i know quite a feww gamers who have gone back to dsl just for this reason.
thx again for a nice article.

**MIG-31** · Mar 9, 2005, 12:06 PM

http://www.testmy.net/

that test does not show good results. i just upgraded to 2mb (this were tested by a demo download yesterday and the download rate were bang on) bb and this link states i have 1mb for downloads.

uploads is not good either.i am also taking a small note of router differences as im in the uk....but this did also note who my provider is.

but as the main article in question,it were a good read.

***Zardon*** · Mar 9, 2005, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MIG-31

http://www.testmy.net/

that test does not show good results. i just upgraded to 2mb (this were tested by a demo download yesterday and the download rate were bang on) bb and this link states i have 1mb for downloads.

uploads is not good either.i am also taking a small note of router differences as im in the uk....but this did also note who my provider is.

but as the main article in question,it were a good read.

Its a USA site mig, you are in the UK, use one of the many UK broadband tests.

**MIG-31** · Mar 9, 2005, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zardon

Its a USA site mig, you are in the UK, use one of the many UK broadband tests.

i Know just stateing a small point.. (i meant to add this to my original post) i am aware of the performance drop of the distance between all tests.

(got sidetracked on the time for the edit)

the test were still interesting..

**Vikingod** · Mar 9, 2005, 12:53 PM

Good guide, i told a guy I work with about it, he found it helped him understand a lot. Good work

@/2ct!< · Mar 10, 2005, 12:11 AM

I would also like to add some generalizations that I tend to see. Cable is more susceptible to prime time slowdown in evenings than dsl, more tv watchers and more people in general overloading the community node. My DSL is slower than local cable for download, but much higher for upldoad. Also, my DSL has some craptastic interleave error correction for more stability than cable, but it also has an increase ping. In general, it seems people with cable have lower pings than people with DSL.

Judas · Mar 10, 2005, 01:18 AM

i find DSL reports and that testmy.net site absalutely terrible.

Specially if your load balancing... it'll totally throw you out.

For example... my nets rating is this : 5mb/1mb

DSL reports reguardless of what one i use, spits out that i'm running a smidge over 1.5mb/32kb connection

testmy.net preformed even worse, spitting out a 512kb/8kb connection saposedly

IMO, for your general overall "round the world" test.... not to mention load balancing support if you pick test with 2+ things to load at once...

[color=#232d35]http://performance.toast.net/default...vers=1&checkid=[/color]
[color=#232d35][/color]
[color=#232d35][/color]

Article was good though

digerati · Mar 10, 2005, 02:31 AM

I'm glad you all enjoyed my article.

And Aaron, I do not think it's unfair to call them deceitful. When they first started advertising around here they would not use the term "Meg" and they would state speds such as "50 times faster than dialup" comparing it to a 56k modem. But now they're doing things like calling it 3 meg system and saying "100 times faster" and are comparing it to a 33k modem which I don't even think any company makes anymore! So I do think that they have gone down a deceitful route in their advertising.

And when I get home and have some free time I think I'll work on an Internet Shopping Guide as I can see it being really useful to a lot of people. I'll go through information nranging from choosing what sites to buy from, how to protect yourself from false sites, and how to take care of yourself on ebay

Anyways I've got to go back to entertaining my friend. I'm really happy you guys enjoyed the guide and I hope many more will enjoy it soon

Judas · Mar 10, 2005, 03:03 AM

remember to try and include canada....

digerati · Mar 10, 2005, 03:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judas

remember to try and include canada....

lol All I know about Canada I learned from jokes. eg.
Robin Williams: "You know the canadian currency is also called the looney. How can you take an economic crises seriously? The Looney Is Down! Oh how sad for you!"

TJ- · Mar 10, 2005, 07:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ^_^

You know the canadian currency is also called the looney.

so true....

the loonie and the toonie.... soo funny, gunna be going back for a holiday soon, cant wait...

Randy P · Mar 12, 2005, 08:23 AM

Yeah gotta love us whackey Canadians.....

Great article by the way!!!

FDM80 · Mar 12, 2005, 11:54 AM

In addition to dsl and cable, people should start watching out for fiber if they live in Verizon or SBC territory. Fiber can pretty much run circles around both of those 2 types of connections. The closer you live to a big city the faster you'll see it coming to you. Right now it's very isolated to specific suburbs outside some cities, but that will slowly change. Nothing beats it when it comes to the performance/price ratio. Pretty good review.

scobywhru · Mar 19, 2005, 12:10 PM

My Experience differs then what your article suggests but none the less is spot on.

DSL ends up giving me better latency, I used to get a ping of 20 in HL and its mods on SBC DSL but now that I am on Comcast the best I get in game is 50ish. Not to be nitpicky but it always bugs me but Latency is a measure of time from one point to another but people claim bandwidth as speed but if you have lower latency packets get to and from there point faster there are just fewer of them. Something like a sports car VS a moving truck sure the moving truck is great when you have alot to move you can get it in one trip but the sports car is better at getting the small stuff there faster, like many packets for games but not a constant deluge from a file download. I just want people to stop saying one is faster then the other Its relative to what you are doing.

On another point all I want is Internet and I hate watching TV for 90% of the time but if I go Cable and I don't want Cable TV they charge me $45 for it in addition to my Internet, and if I want DSL I have to have a Phone Line when all I want to use is my Cell, and these are things that do matter to those of use who don't want them

Judas · Mar 19, 2005, 06:51 PM

you point a fact there scoby.... indeed, actual down/up rates doesn't always translate into speed... typically... it does usually work though that the faster your download rate or upload.. or both, the better your pings usually are. But it varies from ISP to ISP how much of it is actually true...

My DSL ISP touts a 7mb/640kb connection.. however, my pings to the closest server range from 60-90ms...

my Cable Connection.... 5mb/1mb however gets as low as 3ms to the same server... why?

well one being the fact that for the cable connection, my internal cable network conneciton is usually 0ms... or 1ms.... it's damn amazingly fast.... (if i step down on from 5mb to 3mb, my ping would be 35-50ms to the same server due to running on a different backbone for the cable)

Doing traceroutes explains pings.... internet connection be it dsl or cable... as not always, do the same connection route the exact of even similare ways.... my Cable gets to a server in 5 hops.. while it took my DSL connection to the same server 8 or 9 sometimes 10 hops... (3-5 more then my cable)

course it works both way, i've encountered numerous servers were doing a traceroute showed my dsl getting there in 5 hops and my cable taking an additional 3-5 hops to get there.... which = higher pings... more unstable connections/slower speeds...

However, i disagree with the "only want cable internet but not tv or dsl but not phone..."

I can get straight cable internet WITHOUT the tv ... currently i pay say, 100 bucks for my current highest speed cable internet.... and the full maximum channel bundle... for just the net, it's about the same.... bundling the 2 together saves me 10 bucks....

however, were i live... government ones the phones.... no other contenders at all.. so right off the hop.. just for a phone and using the basics.. .i'm already hitting 100 bucks.... if i want JUST the net, no phone, well i could do that.. but it would still put me over 100 bucks due to the extreme cost of the internet through dsl... hell, if we didn't want anything, we still get charged for the damn phone line... and it's not cheap.... (we plan to get our phone over cable as soon as it rolls out here... which as far as i know, it's very soon)

franciscomprg · Mar 12, 2006, 09:38 AM

hi
i live in angola nd i want to buy a new portable
having in consideration the prices i have chosen a few ones nd if someone could give me an opinion about the best choice to make i'd apreciate
-acer aspire 1694LMi
-Asus A6VM-Q008H PM740/15.4/1GB
-Toshiba Satellite M70-164 PM750/1GB/15,4"
PS.here in angola there aren't as many choises of pcs like in the US so these were the best I found in reasonable prices

digerati · Mar 13, 2006, 12:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by franciscomprg

hi
i live in angola nd i want to buy a new portable
having in consideration the prices i have chosen a few ones nd if someone could give me an opinion about the best choice to make i'd apreciate
-acer aspire 1694LMi
-Asus A6VM-Q008H PM740/15.4/1GB
-Toshiba Satellite M70-164 PM750/1GB/15,4"
PS.here in angola there aren't as many choises of pcs like in the US so these were the best I found in reasonable prices

Um?