[Tech4me]

This is the best I can get for my Wireless speed from my area through DSL/Emb. ( With Netgear draft N shared G's)

In case you need to test : www.speedtest.net/ Give it a shot,see what you got?

!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
1!

[Flashorn]

Hey Tech4me!!

I presume you are using Firefox,right?

Well, this is the link to download a a Speed test AND diagnostic Add-On for Firefox .

It will test your download and up-load speed and tell you if your configuration is the right one plus more details.

It will install directly in Firefox and is available through the tools tab in Firefox. It should be the last entry in the Tools tab.



https://addons.mozil...efox/addon/2360



Check it out . You won't have to go anywhere else to verify the speed of your connection



FLASHORN.

[Tech4me]

Flashorn. I'm using IE7/Vista.

Can you post your speed where you're at.....? I Just want to have some idea if mine is normal ?

[Flashorn]

!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
1!

This was a few months ago but it is the same now as it was then

How come you are not using Firefox????



FLASHORN

[Tech4me]

You guys are the Lucky D.......Gs......up there in Canada.

Would it make different if I run Firefox? I had for along while but it Crashed so I go with IE7,Since It comes with my new laptop.

Thinking about it though.........Convince me?????

[Flashorn]

Hey Tech4me!!

First the speed is more isp than browser.

Yes , some of us are faster but, that also depends on the company providing your dsl . If it promised you a 5Gig connection and you only get 2or3 Gig. then I would be looking for another provider that would in fact make good on the speed of the connection.

There is also the fact that ,at certain times of the day there are ALLOT more people on line which, will affect your speed.

Here my 5 Gig. connection NEVER goes below 4.6 Gig.

As far as Firefox goes , YOU should know that it is way more secure than IE7. I have both and rarely use IE7 unless I have to go to M$ site and even then I could always use the IE Plug-In for Firefox that turns Firefox into IE

So. up to you Tech4me. Your choice.(If I were you I would go back to Firefox)



FLASHORN.

[smax013]

Tech4me said:

This is the best I can get for my Wireless speed from my area through DSL/Emb. ( With Netgear draft N shared G's)

In case you need to test : www.speedtest.net/ Give it a shot,see what you got?


!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/

1!
>






[/quote]


My speeds are 5158 kbps for download and 2108 kpbs for upload. This is on a laptop through an 802.11g router. Running the test a second later on my desktop, it was 4747 kbps download and 2150 kpbs upload. This is a wired connection.



Note that your speed most likely will NOT be limited by the wireless connection but rather by your DSL connection...unless you are at the edges of the range of your WiFi network. 802.11g networks have maximum data rate of 54 Mbps (i.e. 54000 kbps) and a typical throughput of about 23 Mbps (i.e. 23000 kbps). This will generally still be WAY faster than any typical home broadband connection. Most US cable modem connections are in about the 6 Mbps to 10 Mbps range.

[mphenterprises]

Download:

http://www.gotomyhel...t.php?kbps=5255





Upload:

http://www.gotomyhel...lt.php?kbps=853

[smax013]

Flashorn said:

Yes , some of us are faster but, that also depends on the company providing your dsl . If it promised you a 5Gig connection and you only get 2or3 Gig. then I would be looking for another provider that would in fact make good on the speed of the connection.

Careful.



First of all, cable companies don't promise anything. Due to their type of network, they cannot. You and all your neighbor that have a cable modem have a certain "pipe" of bandwidth that you share. If you are the only one using your cable modem connection...or one of the few, it will be blazing fast. If there are a LOT of people on your little portion of the cable companies network using it, then it can be glacially slow.



DSL does guarantee you a speed...but tha guarantee is only for the "first hop" from your house to their central switching station. Once you get on the main Internet from their central switching point for your area, all bets are off. They can no longer guarantee your speed because there is no guarantee what path your traffic will take or what bottlenecks it might encounter on portions that they have no control over. You could have your nice blazing speed to their switching station, but then get bogged down on some switch/server thousands of miles away on the way to the site you are browsing to.

Flashorn said:

There is also the fact that ,at certain times of the day there are ALLOT more people on line which, will affect your speed.

This is more true for cable modem service. It is still true for DSL in that if you are broswing during a general busy time on the Internet as a whole, it will affect your speeds. Connection speed to a particular site is more a function of path and potential bottlenecks at servers/switchs for DSL in general.

[Flashorn]

smax013 said:

> Careful.




First of all, cable companies don't promise anything. Due to their type of network, they cannot. You and all your neighbor that have a cable modem have a certain "pipe" of bandwidth that you share. If you are the only one using your cable modem connection...or one of the few, it will be blazing fast. If there are a LOT of people on your little portion of the cable companies network using it, then it can be glacially slow.










DSL does guarantee you a speed...but tha guarantee is only for the "first hop" from your house to their central switching station. Once you get on the main Internet from their central switching point for your area, all bets are off. They can no longer guarantee your speed because there is no guarantee what path your traffic will take or what bottlenecks it might encounter on portions that they have no control over. You could have your nice blazing speed to their switching station, but then get bogged down on some switch/server thousands of miles away on the way to the site you are browsing to.






















Hey smax!!

I wasn't referring to cable but , in fact only to DSL

The only cable co. we have around here is Rogers Cable and I would not subscribe to them for numerous reasons but, mainly because of their reputation . I have heard horror stories.

I know that cable offers (here) a 7Meg. connection. I fact my DSL connection of 5Meg. is still faster than the cable around here and even in heavy traffic time.

I had to download a file from a site in B.C. It took 15 seconds to download a 15.2 meg. file.

I know for a fact that our switching station is only half a Kilometre away from our house so, that might have something to do with it but , this was in the afternoon. Prime time.

I'm with Bell Sympatico which does garanty me a constant connection of between 4.5 to 5 Meg. and so far in the last 3 to 4 years has not changed .

My point being that , if you get an honest provider(the operative word here "honest") then you know what to expect no matter what the type of connection you are researching. I was told that I would be having a 5 Meg. connection and that it could play between 4 to 5 Meg.. because of heavier traffic at some times of the day and this is exactly what I got.

I also have to add that I am allowed 60Gig. of up-load and download combined a month. Now I don't know if this applies to every ISPs but, this is in my contract. A contract that I have renewed for another two years.

So, unless you don't have a choice, my principle is to shop and arm yourself with facts before you commit to signing a contract with any one provider .



FLASHORN.

[RastaMon]

Quote

Here my 5 Gig. connection NEVER goes below 4.6 Gig

I'm pretty sure you mean 5 Mb/s, and not 5 Gb/s. The test results you posted show only 0.0044 Gb/s.

Personally, I can't wait until Internet connection speeds are measured in Gb/s. At 1 Gb/s, a 20GB file could be downloaded in well under three minutes!

[Flashorn]

Yes, well, you know what I meant RastaMon, right?



FLASHORN.

[Evildave]

Sprint EVDO card in a KR1 Router. That's the $59/month 'unlimited' wireless broadband.

I like the little guy peeing on a pyramid animation during the test.

[Tech4me]

Evildave......OUCH.....mine is 19.99 amonth (Slower than yours though)

I don't have any choice , This is a new Subdivision housing, Spring has the contract and won't let any other comp. come in .

Well,I can live with it for awhile,,,,Thing will change...I hope.

Thanks everybody.

[smax013]

Flashorn said:

I wasn't referring to cable but , in fact only to DSL

I fully realized that...that is why I also talked about DSL in addition to cable. My "careful" comment was more directed to the comment about guarantees in general...see below.

Flashorn said:

I know that cable offers (here) a 7Meg. connection. I fact my DSL connection of 5Meg. is still faster than the cable around here and even in heavy traffic time.


I had to download a file from a site in B.C. It took 15 seconds to download a 15.2 meg. file.



I know for a fact that our switching station is only half a Kilometre away from our house so, that might have something to do with it but , this was in the afternoon. Prime time.



I'm with Bell Sympatico which does garanty me a constant connection of between 4.5 to 5 Meg. and so far in the last 3 to 4 years has not changed .



My point being that , if you get an honest provider(the operative word here "honest") then you know what to expect no matter what the type of connection you are researching. I was told that I would be having a 5 Meg. connection and that it could play between 4 to 5 Meg.. because of heavier traffic at some times of the day and this is exactly what I got.

I will say it again...they are only guaranteeing your connection speed from your house to their local switching station. Once you get on the "mainstream" Internet (i.e. stuff that THEY DON'T control), all bets are off. They are NOT guaranteeing your total Internet connection speed. If you encouter really slow access to a site and complain to them, you will most likely find this out. Speeds to particular websites are WHOLLY a function of the path that they take. You need to go read the fine print from your ISP.



As a case in point, when you do the whole SpeedTest thing, try it with a bunch of different test sites (the little pyramids that you select). Try some close and others far. I suspect that you will find a few that will offer COMPLETELY different results. This is because they have to use different paths, including different connections, switches, and servers along the way. Not all servers/switches/paths are equal. Some servers can get bogged down, resulting in paths that have drastically slower connections to particular website. This is all stuff that your ISP will likely have ZERO control over.



The point is that the primary difference between DSL and cable is that a DSL provider can guarantee your speed to their main switching station...a cable company cannot. This is a function of how DSL vs. cable works. If you live in an area where few people use cable modem service, then cable will be a really good deal. If you live in an area where a LOT of people use cable modem service and the cable comany has not "balanced" their little subnet well, it can be a really BAD deal. But, no matter whether you have cable or DSL, once you get past the "border" between what your ISP controls and the "wild, wild west" of the Internet, they no longer guarantee squat.



Now, I am sure that for that vast majority of the time you are going to get stuff that is close to the advertised speed. But, I also have no doubt that they will times (likely few and far between) when a website will load extremely, painfully slow for you. This will happen because either the web site's server is having trouble (i.e. might be overloaded with connections) or some point along the path to the server that you got routed is having trouble. But, you connection between you house and the main switching station of your ISP will likely be just fine.



Think of it like a drive to work. If you have an hour commute to work and it is on 65 mph highway, you will in general by flying to work everyday. But, if all of a sudden on some day some moron does something stupid and crashes, all of a sudden, things can come to a grinding halt. Or thing about driving that same path in rush hour vs. middle of the day. There will be certain "choke points" along that path that in rush hour cause traffic to slow down, but that don't effect traffic in the middle of the day. The same thing can happen on the Net. You can encounter some points in a path that will slow down in heavy traffic use, but that are fine any time else. That is something that your ISP cannot control and as such they are NOT going to guarantee something that they cannot control...at least not without getting sued quite a bit for things that they cannot control if they guarantee such things.

[mphenterprises]

Hi EvilDave. Down - 807 Up - 480. Is this the average speed you get when using your Sprint connection? When I am not using Comcast, I connect using my Sprint connection and I average abbout 1.2 Down and 1 Up. Granted I am within a half mile of a tower and within 10 miles of Philadelphia but I am curious about your stats.

[Evildave]

Well, that's what I'm getting out in the middle of the desert, and I'm not sure where the cell tower is, but I'm not close to it at all. I actually use a booster antenna to reach it reliably. It's 'adequate', with the added benefit of being able to connect to the internet anywhere I take my computer. I don't generally benchmark it wherever I go. I just do work and on average the connection is good enough. Some places I've gone it's connected 1xRTT instead of EVDO, and I really notice the difference there. It's definitely a lot more stable and reliable than it was a couple of years ago when I first got it. The contract finishes later this year and I can shop again, but I'll probably stick to some sort of EVDO for my internet connection because I travel.

The only other kind of service available in the area is one of those 'wireless' services where they bolt the gadget to a wall of your home and point it at a tower, and theirs is SLOWER and less reliable somehow. Most likely because their own connection to the rest of the web is through a sippy straw. If I moved into town, I suppose I could get a cable or DSL connection, but I'd probably stick with the EVDO even then because it's convenient.

[Evildave]

Tech4me, mine is cellular based. I can connect wherever I go. At home, in a hotel, on the highway, wherever. At the time I signed up for it, I had to claim I was a small business (technically 'self employed' is).

Unless your local ISP jams cellular signals, they can't prevent you from signing up to an EVDO based service, any more than they can prevent an 'iPhone' from working. So basically my computer takes on aspects of an 'iPhone', except of course that I have a 17" WUXGA display and a real keyboard attached to mine. OK, and it runs Linux, has hundreds of gigabytes of storage, and has to be carried in a back pack because it weighs a TON. But besides all of that, 100% portable internet access, without hunting for 'hot spots'.

Also beware if you shop for a cellular phone with internal EVDO and some sort of half-baked web access. You CAN access it through a cable with your computer, but they'll charge you by the minute to do so like that poor schmuck in Canada who got a cellular phone bill for thousands of dollars out of the blue because he used his phone connected to his computer and started downloading movie torrents. You're WAY better off getting a flat rate dedicated card.

[Flashorn]

Hey smax!!

smax, it's always fun and challenging to have a discussion with you. I knew that I would be getting a response from you with my last post. I always enjoy reading all of your posts even though ,I , sometimes do not agree , I always walk away with more info. than you probably do.



My point to the last post was , that , if you DO have a choice , you should ,as you stated, read the fine print and do your home work before signing on the dotted line.



FLASHORN

[techie4fun]