Question about internet speeds...

[daves87rs]

Okay, I'm looking to see if I am wasting money here or not.

I currently have Comcast(my only choice until I move) for internet. I have:

Performance-Downloads up to 12 Mbps, uploads up to 2 Mbps with PowerBoost®

I'm considering:

Economy Internet ServiceWay faster than dial-up with downloads up to 1.5 Mbps and uploads up to 384 Kbps.

Besides surfing the web, I don't go too crazy. My only worry is that my wife may not be able to watch her shows (like abc.com) if I downgrade. That's about as hard core as my internet use is. (no gaming or big downloading) Should I save some money, or keep what I have?

 

[dparm]

Streaming video will not work on 1.5Mbps. I'd go for the 12Mbps; it will allow for HD streaming AND someone else to be online concurrently.

I have heard that for the 720p HD streaming you need about 5Mbps minimum.

 

[wallyuwl]

If you are using a router, your speed will be limited based on what type of router you have. If you are not using a router, your speed will be limited by what type of ethernet card you have. Rarely is anything but the slowest speed offered by your DSL or cable company necessary to pay for because you can't take advantage of the extra speed anyway because of hardware limitations.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: wallyuwl
If you are using a router, your speed will be limited based on what type of router you have. If you are not using a router, your speed will be limited by what type of ethernet card you have. Rarely is anything but the slowest speed offered by your DSL or cable company necessary to pay for because you can't take advantage of the extra speed anyway because of hardware limitations.


What?

That in completely incorrect.

Most consumer-grade routing equipment made in the last four years or so is capable of handing 15-20Mbit. Newer stuff will do well over 100Mbit/sec with some of the "gigabit" hardware pushing 300+.

Even the cheapest-junk FastEthernet card will do 8MB/sec (~70Mbit) which is FAR faster than 99% of the Internet connections available to consumers on this continent. Decent cards will come close to or hit the 100Mbit rating. And that's not factoring in Gigabit cards, which most computers made in the last 4 years come with.

And MORE than capable enough to handle a cable or ADSL connection, which typically come in around 20-40Mbit on the high-end for cable, and below 20 at the high-end for ADSL2+.

And this is for the top-tier stuff. Most consumer DSL is ~6-7Mbit. Most cable is ~7-10Mbit. No where near the capacity of even the cheapest junk router, and no where even close to the FastEthernet standard, let alone the gigabit one!




"Guys... D-Link doesn't make a wireless router for my OC-48"

 

[dparm]

And some high-end consumer equipment can handle well over 20Mbit. Tests here: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

Ethernet (Fast or Gigabit) is typically limited to about 80% of max rated speed due to overhead. That means a 100Mbps line is still good for 80+. To date, there are very few home Internet connections coming close to that. And those are DOCSIS 3.0 cable connections costing $150/mo+.

 

[KeithS_NW_Ohio]

Verify your Internet speed:

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

Check it at different times of the Day.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: dparm
And some high-end consumer equipment can handle well over 20Mbit. Tests here: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

Ethernet (Fast or Gigabit) is typically limited to about 80% of max rated speed due to overhead. That means a 100Mbps line is still good for 80+. To date, there are very few home Internet connections coming close to that. And those are DOCSIS 3.0 cable connections costing $150/mo+.


Yes. In my testing, decent gear can sustain 11-12MB/sec over 100Mbit Ethernet. Which is ~92-100Mbit. Now I want to mention that is using an Intel or 3COM NIC and a Cisco or 3COM switch. And these are large single-file transfers using either SMB or FTP.


Cogeco has DOCSIS 3.0 around here, but still cap it at ~20Mbit. Which is on par with what I get from my ADSL2+.

 

[dparm]

I see you're a network engineer -- I'm in network operations. Not building/designing networks but rather overseeing their operation. Cool to see someone else on here who can speak the same language.


I did have a friend who was getting frustrated at how "slow" his new Comcast 20Mbps/2Mbps connection felt...I was shocked to find out his router was 802.11b only. It was an original Apple AirPort! Had him buy a D-Link DIR-655 and he's much happier.

 

[dparm]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: dparm
And some high-end consumer equipment can handle well over 20Mbit. Tests here: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

Ethernet (Fast or Gigabit) is typically limited to about 80% of max rated speed due to overhead. That means a 100Mbps line is still good for 80+. To date, there are very few home Internet connections coming close to that. And those are DOCSIS 3.0 cable connections costing $150/mo+.


Yes. In my testing, decent gear can sustain 11-12MB/sec over 100Mbit Ethernet. Which is ~92-100Mbit. Now I want to mention that is using an Intel or 3COM NIC and a Cisco or 3COM switch. And these are large single-file transfers using either SMB or FTP.


Cogeco has DOCSIS 3.0 around here, but still cap it at ~20Mbit. Which is on par with what I get from my ADSL2+.



Comcast has 50 and 100Mbps here in downtown Chicago. They claim you need to rent their modem -- to which I call [censored]. Probably just because the average person has DOCSIS 2.0 which is like 38Mbps max or whatever. Newegg recently had a DOCIS 3.0 Motorola Surfboard modem on sale...was tempted to buy it just in case my next apartment has even faster stuff available.

But I digress.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: dparm
I see you're a network engineer -- I'm in network operations. Not building/designing networks but rather overseeing their operation. Cool to see someone else on here who can speak the same language.


I did have a friend who was getting frustrated at how "slow" his new Comcast 20Mbps/2Mbps connection felt...I was shocked to find out his router was 802.11b only. It was an original Apple AirPort! Had him buy a D-Link DIR-655 and he's much happier.


That is fantastic! I do a fair bit of operations and admin work too for the company I work for. Fun job! I'm sure you like yours too

I always feel blessed to have a career I enjoy.

I can relate to your experience with your friend. I have a client who has a small LAN. When I first started doing work for them, I knew they were paying for 20Mbit through Cogeco, but were getting nowhere near that in terms of actual throughput.

A quick glance in the network room revealed some rather telling topology issues

An AOpen 10Mbit hub attached to a Webramp router with a 10Mbit WAN port

LMAO!!!!

Hooked them up with a Cisco 867W recently. They had been using a PFSense box I tossed together for the last few years, but we were rolling out an IPSec VPN setup with a combo of site-to-site and roadwarrior clients and I feel the Cisco stuff is a better choice for that kind of setup.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: dparm
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: dparm
And some high-end consumer equipment can handle well over 20Mbit. Tests here: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

Ethernet (Fast or Gigabit) is typically limited to about 80% of max rated speed due to overhead. That means a 100Mbps line is still good for 80+. To date, there are very few home Internet connections coming close to that. And those are DOCSIS 3.0 cable connections costing $150/mo+.


Yes. In my testing, decent gear can sustain 11-12MB/sec over 100Mbit Ethernet. Which is ~92-100Mbit. Now I want to mention that is using an Intel or 3COM NIC and a Cisco or 3COM switch. And these are large single-file transfers using either SMB or FTP.


Cogeco has DOCSIS 3.0 around here, but still cap it at ~20Mbit. Which is on par with what I get from my ADSL2+.



Comcast has 50 and 100Mbps here in downtown Chicago. They claim you need to rent their modem -- to which I call [censored]. Probably just because the average person has DOCSIS 2.0 which is like 38Mbps max or whatever. Newegg recently had a DOCIS 3.0 Motorola Surfboard modem on sale...was tempted to buy it just in case my next apartment has even faster stuff available.

But I digress.


Yeah, DOCSIS 3.0 is incredibly promising. The throughput it offers is unreal. I'm not sure how DSL providers are going to stay around. They cannot compete with that unless it is VDSL2 and you are 20ft from the CO, LOL!

Ultimately, I think Verizon's approach with FiOS is the "way of the future". If it weren't for the cost eh?

 

[dparm]

I'm one of two NOC managers for our company. Really gives me a chance to be technical without needing the nitty gritty stuff (CCNA, CCIE, etc). Let's just say my company's network is more on the order of 2000+ Cisco switches, routers, ASAs, UCS/Nexus, etc. type gear spread across the entire continental US. ;-)

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: dparm
I'm one of two NOC managers for our company. Really gives me a chance to be technical without needing the nitty gritty stuff (CCNA, CCIE, etc). Let's just say my company's network is more on the order of 2000+ Cisco switches, routers, ASAs, UCS/Nexus, etc. type gear spread across the entire continental US. ;-)


Impressive sir!

I took CCNA back in 2000. I'll eventually get my CCIE. I love Cisco gear. But didn't get a chance to work with a lot of it until I got my current job. I was doing most smaller LAN/WLAN deployments for SMB's who weren't all that comfortable with the Cisco price tag prior to being where I am at presently.

 

[wallyuwl]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
And this is for the top-tier stuff. Most consumer DSL is ~6-7Mbit. Most cable is ~7-10Mbit. No where near the capacity of even the cheapest junk router, and no where even close to the FastEthernet standard, let alone the gigabit one!




OK, so I might be a bit nieve about the networking side of things. My DSL connection is about 3Mbps. Why does Windows tell me my wireless connection (I've got a N draft router running in g/n mode) usually say about 75Mbps and on the desktop connected via a ethernet cord it says 100Mbps? And if you supposedly need the high end speeds (12Mbps or more) to stream video, etc., why can I do it fine using my connection? Sounds a bit to me how 10 megapixels is now the standard for 5"x7" prins, when the density is 35mm-like for that size with 2.1 mpix.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: wallyuwl
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
And this is for the top-tier stuff. Most consumer DSL is ~6-7Mbit. Most cable is ~7-10Mbit. No where near the capacity of even the cheapest junk router, and no where even close to the FastEthernet standard, let alone the gigabit one!




OK, so I might be a bit nieve about the networking side of things. My DSL connection is about 3Mbps. Why does Windows tell me my wireless connection (I've got a N draft router running in g/n mode) usually say about 75Mbps and on the desktop connected via a ethernet cord it says 100Mbps? And if you supposedly need the high end speeds (12Mbps or more) to stream video, etc., why can I do it fine using my connection? Sounds a bit to me how 10 megapixels is now the standard for 5"x7" prins, when the density is 35mm-like for that size with 2.1 mpix.


What you are saying above completely contradicts what you said in your original post:

Originally Posted By: wallyuwl
If you are using a router, your speed will be limited based on what type of router you have. If you are not using a router, your speed will be limited by what type of ethernet card you have. Rarely is anything but the slowest speed offered by your DSL or cable company necessary to pay for because you can't take advantage of the extra speed anyway because of hardware limitations.


If you have 3Mbps DSL, that means you can pull roughly 300KB/sec factoring in overhead. I assume this probably sounds about right for what you see via downloads correct?

Now, the speed of all your gear BEHIND that connection is much faster. Internal transfers between devices will be limited to their individual capabilities, but they are all MUCH faster than your 3Mbit Internet connection!

Windows is telling you that you are connected to your ROUTER at 75Mbit (WiFi) and 100Mbit (Ethernet). But anything outside your network is still limited to the speed of your Internet connection, which in this case is 3Mbit. And that is your bottleneck.

BTW, you should have no problem watching things like Youtube on 3Mbit DSL. But you won't be able to watch the HD streams without letting them buffer first. It doesn't mean you can't watch them. It just means you have to wait for them to buffer. And even people with very fast connections can run into this issue due to congestion problems. My connection is 18.6Mbit, and youtube can be slow at times.

What you will have issue with is real-time streaming. Especially anything HD. If you have content that requires more than 3Mbit of bandwidth... Your connection will choke. You'll know it when you run into it.

Your initial statement was incorrect. I was simply pointing out why. I'm not saying you personally need faster Internet. For your needs, maybe you don't. That is why we have options.

 

[wallyuwl]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Windows is telling you that you are connected to your ROUTER at 75Mbit (WiFi) and 100Mbit (Ethernet). But anything outside your network is still limited to the speed of your Internet connection, which in this case is 3Mbit. And that is your bottleneck.



OK, that makes sense. I've had no issues with anything I use the internet for. I sometimes stream NFL preseason games, non-HD, and have no problem. That is probably the most demanding thing I do. Though, I do play XBox 360 online on occasion and have no problems at all. These are the two most bandwith-demanding things I do.

 

[tinmanSC]

OVERK1LL is 100% correct on this one and he did a bang up job in his explanation.