Is Broadband Speed Just an Illusion?
 

Over the last few years I have seen our cable speed go up from 4 mbps to 20...and yet with few exceptions, it still seems like it's at 4. Some downloads take forever. Some downloads that I have done from the same servers are no faster now than they were then. What gives?

Is this just server traffic? If so where is the benefit of having more speed? It's like driving a Lamborghini on southern California..whats the point?

Re: Is Broadband Speed Just an Illusion?
 

Need DSL get off the cable you are acually sharing that connection speed with others in the hood.... get DSL and get the signal to your house only....

Re: Is Broadband Speed Just an Illusion?
 

That is not as big an issue as it was 5 years ago. Cable companies have upgraded their hardware enough to give a pretty good signal.

Downloading depends on who you are getting it from and how you are doing it. For instance, if you are downloading via peer to peer, you can have all the bandwidth in the world, but if you are getting it from just one seed and he has ratio set too low, it will take forever to download.

My cable has went up to 12-14mbps lately, and I can download a 700mb+ distro in under 15 minutes easily. It is a delicate balance between your bandwidth and the seeder.

Re: Is Broadband Speed Just an Illusion?
 

Yet I my broadband test speed is always 20megs

Re: Is Broadband Speed Just an Illusion?
 

how do I test my DSL for speed??

I just got a new Netgear Rangemax WNDR3700 Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router.

Made a huge dif on my speed.

Re: Is Broadband Speed Just an Illusion?
 

Get a stopwatch and a really good microscope, and count the bits as they go through the wire for one second. Oh. Wait. You said wireless. OK, get a really good video camera...

Re: Is Broadband Speed Just an Illusion?
 

LOL! I did say wireless. But I pretty much just use the four ports in the back for wired connections.

Re: Is Broadband Speed Just an Illusion?
 

Ah. Microscope, then.

But seriously, there are web sites that will measure your effective internet speed. E.g., www.speedtest.net.

Re: Is Broadband Speed Just an Illusion?
 

25 ms and 1 ms jitter and zero loss.

Oh, and my firewall did not like that test!

Re: Is Broadband Speed Just an Illusion?
 

Hmm. Not sure what that means. Lemme start a poll to find out! :ursofunny