Your internet connection?

[tjwett]

I recently moved into a new apartment and am stuck with dial-up far a little while. After using cable for a year this 56k thing feels terribly frustrating and slow. What do you guys use and are you happy with it? Is anyone else still dialing up or am I the last dinosaur?

[King Cobra]

tjwett, welcome to my world!

Would you like some popcorn or maybe BBQ while I wait for this 10MB Stuffit Expander updater file to finish downloading? :rolleyes: :p :D :eek:

I've been stuck with dial-up in the NJ house (and here in Maine) even since I first used the internet. And this has been for almost 10 years. TEN!!

I've gotten used to it, actually, so I don't mind waiting for a 10MB file to finish downloading. (Man, I sound like a total loser! :D)

28.8Kbps

[edesignuk]

I did a poll (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5943&highlight=connection) regarding internet connection speeds a whileback, that'll give you a good idea.
Me personally, I have just been able to upgrade from my 512k cable connection to 1024k cable, and I'm loving it :D I could not imagine being on dial-up ever again after cable, I feel for you guys.

[tjwett]

Originally posted by King Cobra
tjwett, welcome to my world!

Would you like some popcorn or maybe BBQ while I wait for this 10MB Stuffit Expander updater file to finish downloading? :rolleyes: :p :D :eek:

I've been stuck with dial-up in the NJ house (and here in Maine) even since I first used the internet. And this has been for almost 10 years. TEN!!

I've gotten used to it, actually, so I don't mind waiting for a 10MB file to finish downloading. (Man, I sound like a total loser! :D)

28.8Kbps

lol! do they even have high speed connections available in Maine? by the way, Maine is my absolute favorite state in the country, and i've been to all 50 and lived in 6. Maine rules. one day i'll retire to the woods of Maine. we used to have a cabin on Poppom Beach. that was awesome. i feel better just thinking about it. ahhh...God's country. damn, 28k?!

[Sepulchre]

I'm on a 1mb cable connection, which is pretty new to the UK, however I still have to use dial up at work so I know how you feel. Thank god I dont need to use it to much though.

Anyone seen the 10mb connection they have in Italy, absolutly amazing and also very cheap. You know I think I might emigrate :D

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by Sepulchre
I'm on a 1mb cable connection, which is pretty new to the UK
Who are you with? I am with Blueonder for my 1Mb cable connection, they only released in the the last couple of weeks so indeed is is VERY new!

[MacMaster]

I have 1.5Mb/sec DSL and I love it! (most of the time) The only problem I have is with the stupid provider! PacBell...The service is usually down at least 2 times a week and for at least 2 hours each time! And, the modem that they gave us seems to crash/overheat alot! (turning it off and back on after 30 sec seems to fix this)...It's just kinda annoying. Especially when I'm playing elite force multiplayer and I lose my connection! Other than that I love having this connection.

[topicolo]

Originally posted by tjwett
I recently moved into a new apartment and am stuck with dial-up far a little while. After using cable for a year this 56k thing feels terribly frustrating and slow. What do you guys use and are you happy with it? Is anyone else still dialing up or am I the last dinosaur?

I feel your pain. I just had to downgrade to a 33.6k from a 1mbps DSL connection. It's horrible

[MacAztec]

I have supa speed cable. 2.5mbps download!!! 50kbps upload. I cant even use 56k, i would cry!

[arogge]

I still have a 56 kbps dial-up connection and I'm hoping for DSL soon. My current connection might be slow, but it is always up except during a power outage and it supports an ethernet network. Despite the hype, you don't need Cable/DSL to have an always-on connection that supports multiple clients.

[mymemory]

Originally posted by King Cobra
tjwett, welcome to my world!
I've been stuck with dial-up in the NJ house (and here in Maine) even since I first used the internet. And this has been for almost 10 years. TEN!!


Damn it man, I'm in the 3rd world and I have 256k DSL, I couln't live without this thing.:)

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by MacMaster
I have 1.5Mb/sec DSL and I love it! (most of the time) The only problem I have is with the stupid provider! PacBell...The service is usually down at least 2 times a week and for at least 2 hours each time! And, the modem that they gave us seems to crash/overheat alot! (turning it off and back on after 30 sec seems to fix this)...It's just kinda annoying. Especially when I'm playing elite force multiplayer and I lose my connection! Other than that I love having this connection.

PacBell/SBC pul the same junk here in SD, so I switched to cable...much better.

I think it's time for another connection speed pissing contest!:D

Here's an online test:
http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

Attatch your scores in a jpeg format...let's get it on!

[Rower_CPU]

Here's my connection speed on campus @ work:

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Here's my connection speed on campus @ work:
:eek: Holy crap! :eek:
That's awsome! I want some of that! :D

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Here's my connection speed on campus @ work:

campus@work is sort of cheating - lets see the stats you have at home.....

[King Cobra]

:( Here are my sad, depressing results.

Communications: 28.4 kilobits per second

Storage: 3.5 kilobytes per second

1MB file download: 4.9 minutes

Here's the worst part:

Rating
Compared to all connection types worldwide, yours is poor.

My father has DSL at the store and it loads pages WAY faster than dial-up. Literally, it can load pages up to 50 to 100 times faster. :eek:

[Rajj]

On average, I get about 1.8 megabits per second via Airport and Cable modem:p

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by dukestreet
campus@work is sort of cheating - lets see the stats you have at home.....

It's not cheating...just bending the rules.:p

I'll post my results when I get home.

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by xrhajj
On average, I get about 1.8 megabits per second via Airport and Cable modem:p

Post a pic of your results...

[Rajj]

So what's holding you back from getting cable or DSL?



Originally posted by King Cobra
:( Here are my sad, depressing results.

Communications: 28.4 kilobits per second

Storage: 3.5 kilobytes per second

1MB file download: 4.9 minutes

Here's the worst part:

Rating
Compared to all connection types worldwide, yours is poor.

My father has DSL at the store and it loads pages WAY faster than dial-up. Literally, it can load pages up to 50 to 100 times faster. :eek:

[King Cobra]

Money issues, my man. We're short on green.

We're movin' to Maine, instead of being on vacation as I am now. We have to save as much "dinero" as possible since we have bills to pay.

[Rower_CPU]

Since dookie asked for it, here's my home connection speed (cable modem/airport):

[Rower_CPU]

...and here's my speed plugged into the network directly:

[ibookin']

I'm stuck on 56K until either PacBell builds a new CO in Feb. 2003 or Megapath decides they can give me DSL at 16,800 feet. My only solace is my connection at school: averages 6Mbps down and 8Mbps up.

[saabmp3]

HAHA, I can beat you all (at work that is :) ) 4 (yeah, get that!) bridged cable modems. We can do it cause RCN needs to get approval in the town gov to get contracts, and I work for the town gov. 4 cable modems can typically pull speeds around 5-7 but I'll get a spec page tomorrow for a test.

BEN

[galstaph]

Lemme See this is what i'm Pulling right now:

Raw Speed: 2012245.23 bits per second

Communications: 2 megabits per second

Storage: 245.6 kilobytes per second

1MB file download: 4.2 seconds

Rating:

Compared to all connection types worldwide, yours is fantastic


Hehe Good ol' Canadian Cable companies...

[ibookin']

Originally posted by saabmp3
HAHA, I can beat you all (at work that is :) ) 4 (yeah, get that!) bridged cable modems. We can do it cause RCN needs to get approval in the town gov to get contracts, and I work for the town gov. 4 cable modems can typically pull speeds around 5-7 but I'll get a spec page tomorrow for a test.

BEN

How is 5-7Mbps more than 8Mbps? Although I am on a T3...:D :D

Wait a minute... I should be getting 45Mbps!!! Must be because of at least 1000 computers hooked up to the line.

[MacMaster]

Here's my speed:

[mac15]

this is my speed from IE

[SilvorX]

baaaaaaaahhhhhh i only have 28.8 but i'm at my relatives on 56k

i cant wait till i get a high speed conn cuz i've been on 28.8 for so long n i cant stand it anymore

[Zenith]

I have a 2 Mb ADSL connection with 768 kbps upload. It's a great connection, but tomorrow I'll move to another city and I have to use 56k for a couple of weeks before I can get an ADSL connection again... :( And I can't get any higher speed than 640 kbps because it's too expensive... And my dad isn't paying.. :p

We have a super broadband offer here in Norway. In Oslo you can get a 10 Mb connection for just 30 $ a month! I don't live in Oslo and the best thing i can get is a 8 Mb DSL connection for about 200 $ a month..! Even the lousy ( :p ) 640 kbps connection I'm about to order will cost me around 40 $ a month...

[mac15]

wow man , that damn fast

in Asutralia, its 1.5mb down and only 128k up for $89AUS and that includes a whooping 3gig of file transfer this includes uploads also, so consider yourself lucky

[Ensign Paris]

At home I still use Dialup after BT disconnecting me from DSL about 6 months back (because of a line failure) At work we have (in London) a 132mb leased line to the net, which accomidates each sites 8x 2mb Pipes to the net, all of these are leased line.

Ensign

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Even though I can pull real-time full-screen video @ 24fps at work down the intranet service (T3 - or faster), I'm currently stuck on 56K at home - until I can talk my wife into letting me install ADSL. It's not much more expensive for the 512K line (£25/month), but it's only £35/month for 1Mb with BlueYonder Cable (using an Ethernet Modem). I'm thinking about it - ultimately, I'd want to use AirPort, and the BT service providers don't give out Ethernet Modems (only crap USB ones).

Interestingly, I was talking to a BT technician a while back. Now that ISDN's fallen off the face of the earth (and COSTS the earth, too!), he told me that there's still tons of bandwidth that can be used with copper technology. Currently, the fastest non-cable private home service in the U.K. is 512K. This guy said that the technology existed to offer up to 8MB/Sec. down existing copper wires.

Now THAT'S fast...

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by kiwi_the_iwik
It's not much more expensive for the 512K line (£25/month), but it's only £35/month for 1Mb with BlueYonder Cable (using an Ethernet Modem). I'm thinking about it - ultimately, I'd want to use AirPort, and the BT service providers don't give out Ethernet Modems (only crap USB ones).

Go for it, get BY 1Mb Cable, I could not recommend it more!
I'd say it's the best connection available to the home user in the UK at the moment, and the fact that the cable modem connects via a regular LAN patch cable (RJ-45) means that you can plug it into cable routers to share the connection easily....which you can't do so easily with BT's USB ADSL modem.

[tjwett]

impressive stats all around. the worst part about this whole thing is i have a DSL modem and an ethernet router sitting right in front of me and i can't do anything until my roommate gets back with his password and info so we can set me up. 3 more days in the slowlane;) BTW, i will be able to split the DSL line thru the router, right?

[edesignuk]

I am on 1Mb cable, yet when I test my speed at speed411.com it says I am at over 4000kpbs, and with the downloadable exe for PC tested it says 2003kpbs? WTF?? :confused:
I don't think either of the above are possible and so there for the readings they give on your connection speed seem to be total crap.

[topicolo]

Originally posted by verbose101
I am on 1Mb cable, yet when I test my speed at speed411.com it says I am at over 4000kpbs, and with the downloadable exe for PC tested it says 2003kpbs? WTF?? :confused:
I don't think either of the above are possible and so there for the readings they give on your connection speed seem to be total crap.

that's because you're reloading the page. It's pulling the info out of your hd's cache. duh :D

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by topicolo


that's because you're reloading the page. It's pulling the info out of your hd's cache. duh :D
What a crap test then, if that is the case. It still does not explain why the exe is returning a speed twice that of what I know it really is. :rolleyes:
Plus one minite it says maybe only 174kbps then the next 2000kpbs+ (the exe I mean), there is not network activity difference when I run the test (no one accessing the web, downloading etc) so why the hell would it return such different results? Just seems a bit off to me.

[resm]

that's mine

[AlphaTech]

We have three T1 lines here at work (shared between ~250 people) and I have a 1.7Mbps DSL connection at home. That's 1.7Mbps downstream with a 384kbps upstream. Not bad, considering how I have seen it burst at up to 2Mbps before (downstream).

I have Earthlink at home (been with them since mid-1997) and have only had a few problems with them over the years. I'll check the connection uptime when I get home (since I use the Airport base station to keep me connected 24/7) but I have seen it in the hundreds of hours before.

Once you go high speed, it's very painful to go back down to dial-up. I know I couldn't do it now... Hell, even my mother is on a high speed connection (courtesy of a router and ~50' ethernet cord) but she is at ~650kbps (that's what my sister and bro-in-law signed up for a couple of years ago). I pay ~$10 more, and get over 2x the speed they do. :D

[Sepulchre]

Originally posted by verbose101

Who are you with? I am with Blueonder for my 1Mb cable connection, they only released in the the last couple of weeks so indeed is is VERY new!

Bleuyonder also :D

Well worth the extra 10 quid to upgrade from the 512k in my opinion.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by Sepulchre


Bleuyonder also :D

Well worth the extra 10 quid to upgrade from the 512k in my opinion.
For sure, it feels much faster and download speeds (from decent websites) are greatly improved, now I want 1.5Mb from Blueyonder, but I have a feeling that's a little way off yet, but hey, 1024k is pretty decent :D ....for now at least ;)

[Sepulchre]

Originally posted by verbose101

For sure, it feels much faster and download speeds (from decent websites) are greatly improved, now I want 1.5Mb from Blueyonder, but I have a feeling that's a little way off yet, but hey, 1024k is pretty decent :D ....for now at least ;)

I still want the 10mb connection they have in Italy for €60. But hey 1mb is better than 56k :D Do you think Blueyonder will drop the prices soon? Or maybe increase the speed? from what I can tell the upgrade from 512 to 1024 went pretty smooth for them so maybe another speed bump isnt so far away.

[MacMaster]

This is mine from speed411.com:

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by Sepulchre


I still want the 10mb connection they have in Italy for €60. But hey 1mb is better than 56k :D Do you think Blueyonder will drop the prices soon?
Yeah, that 10Mb Italian would be nice!
I can't see the price dropping, I think £25 for 512 and £35 for 1024 is very fair and competitive here in the UK.
So far as speed increases I think it'll be a while, mainly because it was at 512k for about 2 years or more before finally the 1024 line has come along.

[bousozoku]

Hmmm...isn't that just too fast? Do you have time to brew coffee or make lunch or go out to lunch? No!!!

A 300 bits per second connection is speedy enough for anyone. I can remember when my buddy had a BBS (bulletin board system) on his Atari 800 with two 180KB diskette drives and a 300 bps connection. :D

I'm stuck with 56K for right now and it's not so bad in comparison. BellSouth announced DSL service in my neighbourhood outside Orlando, FL but I don't have a job right now, so...what can I sacrifice to get the extra speed?

:::makes a sign "Will work for speed":::

Oops, that doesn't sound quite right. :D

[Sepulchre]

Originally posted by verbose101

Yeah, that 10Mb Italian would be nice!
I can't see the price dropping, I think £25 for 512 and £35 for 1024 is very fair and competitive here in the UK.
So far as speed increases I think it'll be a while, mainly because it was at 512k for about 2 years or more before finally the 1024 line has come along.

True. But do you remember the problems Blueyonder had early on with their 512k service, I lost my connection every couple of days.

I'm in Scotland, where they tested the 1mb connection, and it pretty much went nationwide as soon as the trial ended. Pretty impressive stuff!

They seem to be on top of all the early problems now (wait for the shouts of no they are not!:D ). Which makes me wonder if they will keep moving up in speed.

But maybe i'm just being greedy :p

[Sepulchre]

Originally posted by bousozoku
Hmmm...isn't that just too fast?

Yep :D, but hey why not if you can get it :cool:




:::makes a sign "Will work for speed":::

Oops, that doesn't sound quite right.

lol :D :D

[aznatari]

I use RCN 2-way cable modem and it certainly kicks 56k's ass. It goes like 25x faster than 56k and goes up to 400k per second. Its awesome! For like 20 bucks more a month, its considerabily better to go with anything other than dialup. And yes.....you probably are the last one that actually uses dialup.lol.

atari

[topicolo]

beat this everybody :-)

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by topicolo
beat this everybody :-)
Photoshoped? Or and error in the speed tester?

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by verbose101

Photoshoped? Or and error in the speed tester?

Or run from 100% cached information... My cousin has run the speed411 test before, and using the cached information, was able to get all 9's to show for the speed... :p :D

[pgwalsh]

I received 1.2 megabits per second on the bandwidthplace. Not bad considering this is a wireless connection. 2.4mb on the main line which is in another building.

[topicolo]

Originally posted by AlphaTech


Or run from 100% cached information... My cousin has run the speed411 test before, and using the cached information, was able to get all 9's to show for the speed... :p :D

D'oh!! I've found out :-). GJ Alpha :rolleyes:

[blackpeter]

My T1 rocks! Mostly because I get equally fast uploads, for an extra-smooth ride. $40 bucks a month too*

----- From DSL Reports ------

2002-08-08 15:02:57 EST: 1394 / 1415
Your download speed : 1394601 bps, or 1394 kbps.
A 170.2 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 1415762 bps, or 1415 kbps.

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by topicolo


D'oh!! I've found out :-). GJ Alpha :rolleyes:

heh heh heh... Blame my [semi]logical mind on that... When you are solving other peoples computer issues all day long, you pick up on things like that rather fast...

Sort of like a system where you have to open and close the Appletalk control panel every time you start/restart the computer to get a network connection... The solution is to put the person onto a different subnet in the router room (network closet). Now the iMac can get the network connection when it needs to (on boot) without having to muck around with settings. :p :D

[topicolo]

Actually, I should've added "been." As in "D'oh! I've BEEN found out"

:)

Alright, both of my posts were stupid :D

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by tfaz1
My T1 rocks! Mostly because I get equally fast uploads, for an extra-smooth ride. $40 bucks a month too*

----- From DSL Reports ------

2002-08-08 15:02:57 EST: 1394 / 1415
Your download speed : 1394601 bps, or 1394 kbps.
A 170.2 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 1415762 bps, or 1415 kbps.

Not bad, here's my cable on DSLR:

[AlphaTech]

I just ran some speed411 tests, and have been getting some great results... This image has not been touched by PS, I took the screen shot and used GraphicConverter to make it a jpeg file... :D

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by AlphaTech
I just ran some speed411 tests, and have been getting some great results... This image has not been touched by PS, I took the screen shot and used GraphicConverter to make it a jpeg file... :D

I tried speed411 but I found the results to be too variable to give me a decent speed rating.

I mean if I run the test and get 400 one time and 3400 the next, WTF am I supposed to with that?:rolleyes:

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
I tried speed411 but I found the results to be too variable to give me a decent speed rating.

I mean if I run the test and get 400 one time and 3400 the next, WTF am I supposed to with that?:rolleyes:

For me, it's a crap shoot in even getting the DSLR applet to load and run. Then they only allow you to run it four times a day. :rolleyes:

Bandwidthplace gives me a range from under 1Mbps to over 1.5Mbps. I think a lot of the web site speed testing depends more on the traffic site then your connection speed. I have seen downloads at over 225Kbps (~1.8Mbps) which matches what I am paying for.

As long as I am getting speeds close to what I was told (when I signed up for the DSL service) I am content.

[Computer_Phreak]

Standard cable connection.