Orestes  wrote:
Landlord provided internet

Who is your landlord? Homeland Security?

Connor Photography wrote:
I think he got that from PS

Is this a flickr account?

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3847/147 … c37d_o.png

Brian Diaz wrote:
This is was my best result in about 10 tests.  The package I'm paying for is supposed to be "up to 105 Mbps."  So I'm getting about 30-40% of that.  Is that good enough?  I'm thinking no.

How's your internet speed?

With all the other variables to consider, what is the relevance of these speed tests?

What are the other significant "weakest links" that affect our Internet access?

I would guess that paying for a higher level service doesn't help us much if we choke it off somewhere else.


I just ran about 5 tests, and they are all basically the same.



Cox is one of the least favorite companies I have to endure as they exploit their monopoly and abuse their customer$$$. Everything is a never-ending negotiation with them as they continually jack around with their automatic rate hikes/promotion hype full of hooks and fine print/general BS.

Every time I call in to try to fix something I get a different bozo with different answers trying to churn my account and sell me something else. Most of them are telemarketers in boiler-rooms who have very limited authority to do anything that lowers my cost or improves my service without selling me an upgrade scheme, or new hardware that has been tweaked so I can't buy anywhere except from them. As a customer, I don't like being milked like a cow. We deserve better.

One thing I've learned with them: once we get something working, don't make any changes. More than likely, it will create more problems to solve and I'm always the guy who has to push that through with a huge additional waste of time. There are entirely too many layers of inane recorded messages and rerouting of my calls before I can find a person with the authority of a supervisor or a qualified technician.

Click Hamilton wrote:
Who is your landlord? Homeland Security?



Is this a flickr account?

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3847/147 … c37d_o.png

LOL got it from a gamer forum, they often compare each other and I'm pretty sure they are legit as some of them indeed have no life outside of gaming and computers.

MerrillMedia wrote:
I've had the same experience with Cox in New Orleans that Click has had with them in San Diego. They pretty much never do what they said they would do and try to raise your rate to ridiculous levels on a regular basis.

I'm going to start recording them every time I talk to them. When I inform them that they are being recorded, I going to tell them its for "quality assurance" - mine.

The telecommunication business seems to have been over-run by liars.

No doubt in my mind that you are being abused the same way I am.

http://www.forbes.com/profile/anne-cox-chambers/

When we call in, it's not local. Our calls are rerouted to the same pool of people who work the phones. They can be anywhere.

Sandra Vixen wrote:
The problem with web pages now is that they contain so much junk, an average of 1 to 2MB width of total data transferred with just maybe less than a hundred meaningful bytes (characters) of information relevant to what you really need.

In other words, most (commercial) web pages contain junk data that is transferred for no meaningful reason (other than perhaps ads).

You can check this by opening your network settings and look for something called statistics or number of bytes transferred.

Mark the number you have an open your favorate web page.

Check how much data you transferred after it finishes loading.

Then actually read how much text on the page was meaningful to you. (each character is 1 byte).

I explored several Firefox add-ons and extensions that blocked a lot of this superfluous (to me) data mining and started a thread about it a while back.

There were some that significantly made the loading of pages faster without negative side effects.

Ad-blockers help too. I have not looked into this recently, but I'm currently using Adblock Plus.
https://adblockplus.org/en/firefox

NothingIsRealButTheGirl wrote:

i got about 16 Mb/s... time warner up in Studio City. i think it was somewhat faster until a year or two ago. and i pay extra for a faster connection, too. i've been meaning to call them.

time warner sux.

Orestes  wrote:
Landlord provided internet

Working at CNAS, lol.

Gryph wrote:
Problem is, most folks don't know the difference between Mb and MB.  The companies advertise 15Mbps, and people assume MegaBytes when the reality is Mega Bits.  So the assumption is that they think they are getting 15 Mega Bytes per second.

1 Byte = 8bits.

Figure advertise a high number of mega bits because people assume the larger number must be really fast, when they don't realize that it isn't what they think.

http://www.numion.com/calculators/units.html

edit: in the link they have in the drop down mbps, I believe that is a typo as it should be Mbps.  Small "m" is Milli.

So going by A-M-P's post, 60Mbps, her speed down the pipe should be 7.5 MBps(Mega Bytes).

Damn Brian, how much you pay for this 13MBps speed?

Held the shift too long, my connection at home is 5Mbps. I still stream youtube upstairs, whilst playing online games, while my wife is downstairs streaming Netflix. I'd like a little more, like 15 (mainly for the boost in upload speeds) ... but the next plan above 5 is 50, not paying for all that shit that I won't use.

Here's my home test (vs work previously)

Note, Netflix is streaming downstairs, and I have 5 actively refreshing livefeeds on this computer. Still more than adequate (coming from an IT professional - CCNA / NET+, technophile.)




As a direct answer to the OP.... 15/20Mbps is plenty for most households.

15/20Mbps can stream HD video (Netflix, YouTube, etc) to 2-3 devices, while your teenage son is streaming porn... your 2 other children are streaming music and browsing 14 different tabs, updating facebook every 4 seconds whilst instagramming - and your neighbor is downloading tentacle porn off MicroTorrent at 3Mbps off 1,000 seeders.

Alabaster Crowley wrote:
This is fucking unacceptable. It's going to hinder my chances of getting into a good raiding guild in the fall.



I guess that's what I get for choosing the very cheapest Internet I could find.

Brian Diaz wrote:
I'm surprised you can play more than Words with Friends at that speed... 

i think my 2400 baud modem was faster than that.



look ma, i'm peeing on a pyramid!

Orestes  wrote:
LOL got it from a gamer forum, they often compare each other and I'm pretty sure they are legit as some of them indeed have no life outside of gaming and computers.

showoff!

Click Hamilton wrote:
What are the other significant "weakest links" that affect our Internet access?

I would guess that paying for a higher level service doesn't help us much if we choke it off somewhere else.

I think it makes a big difference if we are hard wired to our modem, vs through a wireless router, right?

I think Docis 3 is important over the previous generations of modems and routers as well, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS

My latest upgrades for my tenants who use wireless has been an upgrade to built in dual channel routers. I don't use wireless directly myself (except whatever my iphone and desktop might be doing with it in the background), so I don't have first hand information about dual channel as a performance enhancer.

The connection icon of my hard-wired desktop computer shows that I'm also connected to my wireless router from the same modem. I don't know the significance of this, except that someone else is probably invading my privacy

NothingIsRealButTheGirl wrote:

Click Hamilton wrote:
The connection icon of my hard-wired desktop computer shows that I'm also connected to my wireless router from the same modem. I don't know the significance of this, except that someone else is probably invading my privacy

there's a simple solution to the tin foil hat crowd (of which i am NOT lumping you in with, click).

if you don't want to be seen, get off the net. your isp knows exactly what you're doing, and exactly where you are going, at any moment. your smartphone is also following you around, and seeing what you're doing, and with whom you are doing it.

sometimes i like to think that i could ted kaczynski it (minus the psychopathy), but then i realize that it does indeed benefit me. everything in life (more or less) is a trade-off of some sorts.

1991 wasn't that long ago. if tech advances from then to now suddenly vanished, most people i know would jump off the nearest high tower.

-JAY- wrote:
15/20Mbps can stream HD video (Netflix, YouTube, etc) to 2-3 devices, while your teenage son is streaming porn... your 2 other children are streaming music and browsing 14 different tabs, updating facebook every 4 seconds whilst instagramming - and your neighbor is downloading tentacle porn off MicroTorrent at 3Mbps off 1,000 seeders.

Quit peeping through my windows!

GK photo wrote:
there's a simple solution to the tin foil hat crowd (of which i am NOT lumping you in with, click).

if you don't want to be seen, get off the net. your isp knows exactly what you're doing, and exactly where you are going, at any moment. your smartphone is also following you around, and seeing what you're doing, and with whom you are doing it.

sometimes i like to think that i could ted kaczynski it (minus the psychopathy), but then i realize that it does indeed benefit me. everything in life (more or less) is a trade-off of some sorts.

I wish I understood these things more.

----

In the meantime, I'm planting more trees and bushes, building more walls and gates, and getting more overhead cover from satellites and drones. I don't like the Google-car and other data collectors coming to check the status of my hemorrhoids through my living room window.

Orestes  wrote:
Landlord provided internet

WTF?
Y'all could suck & blow a camel thru that pipe.

Alabaster Crowley wrote:
This is fucking unacceptable. It's going to hinder my chances of getting into a good raiding guild in the fall.



I guess that's what I get for choosing the very cheapest Internet I could find.

Wow. Is your provider a homing pigeon?

Alabaster Crowley wrote:
This is fucking unacceptable. It's going to hinder my chances of getting into a good raiding guild in the fall.



I guess that's what I get for choosing the very cheapest Internet I could find.

Cherrystone wrote:
Wow. Is your provider a homing pigeon?

more like:

Click Hamilton wrote:
In the meantime, I'm planting more trees and bushes, building more walls and gates, and getting more overhead cover from satellites and drones. I don't like the Google-car and other data collectors coming to check the status of my hemorrhoids through my living room window.

there have been some pretty funny google cam photos over the last few years. i remember the one where two dorks were (fake) sword fighting in a field, in full wizard garb.

aspergianLens wrote:
I'm getting my full speed, and then some...

WTF! and it went all the way to Reno!
We have the same ISP.
My first test barely got better results than Ms. Crowley.

Brian Diaz wrote:
First, feel free to share your current internet speed.  But also, let us know what speed you're supposed to be getting "up to."



This is was my best result in about 10 tests.  The package I'm paying for is supposed to be "up to 105 Mbps."  So I'm getting about 30-40% of that.  Is that good enough?  I'm thinking no.

How's your internet speed?


www.speedtest.net

Time Warner is bullshit. I have SHIT upload. less than a MB.  I'm in Orange County, CA!! wtf!!

Paolo Diavolo wrote:

aspergianLens wrote:
I'm getting my full speed, and then some...

WTF! and it went all the way to Reno!
We have the same ISP.
My first test barely got better results than Ms. Crowley.

Dunno what your problem might be.

But I tested it even further away --

Christopher Hartman wrote:

Time Warner is bullshit. I have SHIT upload. less than a MB.  I'm in Orange County, CA!! wtf!!

I'd guess you're on their standard plan? $10- more a month would kick that up a good chunk.