About Internet Speed

Hi,

I'm a novice as far as computing and the internet is concerned and hence I need to get some concepts cleared about the same.

I've availed for a broadband internet service at my residence for personal use from my local WAN service provider. The plan I've availed for is for 256 Kbps download speed. I was a bit uncertain about the speed and hence ran an online speed test using 'Speedtest.net' internet speed testing site. The following were the results of the test;

Latency test (ping test) = 25ms
Download speed = 310Kbps
Upload speed = approx. about 70Kbps
The bandwith speed is 10Mpbs as displayed at the task bar connectivity icons of my PC.

When I ran the same online test for other computers (i.e. at my workplace) I got the following results;

Latency test (ping test) = 30ms
Download speed = 420Kbps
Upload speed = approx. about 430Kbps
The bandwith speed is 100Mpbs as displayed at the task bar connectivity icons.

What I want to understand is, whether I'm getting a good bargain for what I'm paying the ISP. Does bandwidth speed has something to do with low download speeds (10Mpbs at my residence, 100Mpbs at my workplace)? I feel my network connection speed is not up to the mark. I will be very grateful for any help received in this regard as it is bugging me for quite sometime and am losing sleep over it.

Thanks & best regards,
Shahvir

you may need to upgrade your router at home, sounds like it's an older 10Mpbs

What connection method does you modem use to your pc? Ethernet or USB?
Do you know what these are?

Hwy101 may be right about your router (if you have one) but it would make no difference ti the performance of either your work or home connections.

10Mbps is 20 times faster than 400kbps so there is no gain using 100Mbps kit.

I would be more concerned about the ISP's provision, but I don't know the available capacity in India.

256K is desperately low, 420K not much better for a downstream.

70K is usable and 430 K quite respectable for upstream. (The 430K would be just enough for video conferencing )

At Studio T we get around 3-6M downstream most of the time, This is plenty for our needs. One of my client's using ADSL2+ who needs more runs at 16- 20 downstream but still only manages just over 400K upstream.

I don't know if you are aware but you have an ADSL connection.

This stands for Asynchronous Digital Signal Link. This is because most users don't upload anywhere near as much as they download so the capacity is skewed towards download, so you don't pay for upload capacity you will never need. (They don't provide it anyway on this type of connection).

Thank you all for reply.
The connection method used by the router to my PC is Ethernet port. To be honest, I consider router and modem as one and the same. Pardon my ignorance if it is otherwise! The router is located at the terrace of my building and as such I do not have direct access to it and is maintained by the ISP person. The 256Kpbs is standard plan in most parts of my city and as such this is the best I could avail for from an economy point of view.

Earlier, I did have an ADSL connection which was hooked up to my phone line by the local phone company. It was pretty fast but unfortunately I had to discontinue the same due to lack of after sales service.

At the outset, does bandwidth speed (10 Mpbs or 100Mpbs) has something to do with internet performance? some people say it does not make a difference. All in all what do i conclude?... since many factors are not in my control. Can someone plz summarize this for me?

Best regards,
Shahvir

I've come across several online adverts of internet speed boosting free softwares. are they genuine or just a sham? is it advisable to download such softwares to boost internet speed?
Thanx

I see you are ready for your next information installment.

A modem is a device that connects your equipment to the coomunciations line - in your case a telphone line. As such its job is to translate the voltage levels and signal protocols operated by the signal line and the equipment.
Modems may allow communications in only one direction at - simplex operation
they may allow comms in either direction, but only one at a time - half duplex operation
they may allos comms in both directions at the same time - fullduplex operation

Modems may be built to connect to almost any of the ports of a pc, serial, parallel, pci bus, usb etc.

Notice I excluded the network port from my list.

Ethernet the most universal electrical network these days. There are also optical networks and optical modems.

Ethernet comes in three main types

10Mbits per second
100Mbits per second
1000Mbits per second

These are all speeds your network operates at - not the modem

A router is a device that facilitates (and usualy controls) the process of interconnecting two or more devices by using a common arrangement of voltages and signal protocols called a network.

In the past router and modem were usually separate devices, now they more often come combined into a single box.

So the 10 Mbps is the speed of the network part of your combined box. This will only become an issue if there are enough others also connected to the network to slow things down, since it is many times faster than the modem input speed.

I've come across several online adverts of internet speed boosting free softwares. are they genuine or just a sham? is it advisable to download such softwares to boost internet speed?

Click to expand...

As the sage said,

'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, boy'

Unless, of course, you pay your dues to the Church of Overunity.


Yes you can indeed sign up and maybe even speed up your internet activity. AOL used to do it as a matter of course, maybe I think it still does and there are settings somewhere to turn it off.
But this catch is this occurs at the expense of quality.

It works like this:
Every graphic on a webpage has to be downloaded. The larger and higher the resolution the larger the download file.
The speedup system diverts your request for the webpage to its own server where it downlaods the page and degrades the quality of the graphics before forwarding the lower quality version to you.
Your subscription pays for the extra communications and processing power to achieve this faster than a direct download by your own slower system.

This is often worthwhile on dialup but I have never seen anyone benefit on ADSL.

Thanx very much for the guidance and info.

In conclusion, is my worry unfounded then??

Best regards,
Shahvir

Currently, I carried out a speed test which displayed the following results;

Ping test = 42ms
Download speed = 280Kbps
Upload speed = 60Kbps

As is evident the results keep deviating widely from what i had mentioned earlier and these recurrent variations are buggin' me!

How do i interpret and compare these observations?

Thanks & Best regards,
Shahvir

Speeds vary widely with time of day, day of week, international events etc.

All of these determine how many are online.

Also response time varies. I am often waiting for popular servers like Ebay. Google has enough money to buy bigger servers so is usually still fast.

A peculier problem i face when watching music videos on youtube.com. Many a times the buffering of content ain't quick enough and the playback 'seek' quickly takes over causing the video to interrupt and keep buffering in between. This is an irritant. Also, sometimes the buffering is comfortably fast and there is no inturruption in viewing. What does this phenomenon depend on?
Thanx

You often have to let the download complete and then replay on streaming media, especially the popular sites.

If you watch the progress bar you will see a download 'shadow bar' hopefully leading the solid playback bar. So long as it remains comfortably infront of the playback bar playback will proceed smoothly.

studiot said:

If you watch the progress bar you will see a download 'shadow bar' hopefully leading the solid playback bar. So long as it remains comfortably infront of the playback bar playback will proceed smoothly.

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That's correct, but many a times the playback bar starts to overtake the shadow bar and that's when the interruption starts ruining video experience. It also sometimes happens on less popular sites too. What's the best one could do in such a case?

Sometimes waiting for the buffering to complete takes lot of time. I know patience is a virtue, but still, there's no substitute to human greed!

Thanx

Long story short, the connection between your pc and the modem/routing equipment is more than sufficient for your broadband connection and the speed that you are receiving is directly in line with what you can expect from your service provider. As mentioned, you are using an ADSL connection and the speeds of which varies but it looks like you seem to be getting good connection speeds.

I work in AOL tech support and have seen ALOT WORSE

mentaaal said:

As mentioned, you are using an ADSL connection and the speeds of which varies but it looks like you seem to be getting good connection speeds.

I work in AOL tech support and have seen ALOT WORSE

Click to expand...

Thanx . I understand. Actually i was using ADSL connection much earlier, not anymore. In ADSL the ISP claimed to provide min. download speed of 256Kbps upto 2Mbps. Is ADSL connection technically superior to normal broadband connections? I just want to know for academic interest.... but I must admit the speeds I experienced with ADSL was much faster!

Best regards,
Shahvir

Hello,

Over here I have a ADSL2 connection.
The maximum speed should be 20 Mbps.
I have measured 13 Mbps, still quite fast.(depends on the distance to the connection point).
My upload speed is 1 Mbps.

Greetings,
Bertus

Thank you . So, I'm the loser now with my present internet connection since it's not ADSL, I understand!

Hello,

In holland there are a lot of users with broadband connections.
These can be ADSL, ADSL2, cable or even glassfiber.
I have read that there are connection speeds upto 100 Mbps ( up AND download) via glassfiber.
Here is an add from such a glasfiber connection (in Dutch):
http://www.internl.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=355&Itemid=402

Greetings,
Bertus

Shavir you have an ADSL connection.

Digital telephony signals come as follows:-

Leased Line - your own line - T2 and T4 designation.

DSL - Digital Signal Line has the same speed upline and downline

ADSL - Asynchronous Digital Signal Line has different speeds up and down

ADSL2+ - faster than ADSL but still Asynchronous.

ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network (128KBps) in both directions

Hello,

@ studiot.
You are not correct ADSL means Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line.

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

Also found in: Acronyms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson



(communications, protocol)Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line - (ADSL, or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop) A form of Digital Subscriber Line in which the bandwidth available for downstream connection is significantly larger then for upstream. Although designed to minimise the effect of crosstalk between the upstream and downstream channels this setup is well suited for web browsing and client-server applications as well as for some emerging applications such as video on demand.

The data-rate of ADSL strongly depends on the length and quality of the line connecting the end-user to the telephone company. Typically the upstream data flow is between 16 and 640 kilobits per second while the downstream data flow is between 1.5 and 9 megabits per second. ADSL also provides a voice channel.

ADSL can carry digital data, analog voice, and broadcast MPEG2 video in a variety of implementations to meet customer needs.

["Data Cooks, But Will Vendors Get Burned?", "Supercomm Spotlight On ADSL" & "Lucent Sells Paradine", Wilson & Carol, Inter@ctive Week Vol. 3 #13, p1 & 6, June 24 1996].

See also Carrierless Amplitude/Phase Modulation, Discrete MultiTone.

ADSL Forum.

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Greetings,
Bertus