Internet speed

[Ed62]

I often have trouble viewing videos because they don't download fast enough to not cause it to pause. So I thought I'd try to see what my speed was. I ran a speed test 10 times at http://www.bandwidth.com/tools/speedTest/ . My download speed was 413kbps to 561kbps. Upload speed was 299kbps to 311kbps. Average download speed was 473kbps, and average upload speed was 306kbps.

We're using AT&T DSL (sbcglobal), Basic. Should I be able to view videos without problems at the speed I now have, or would I need to go to a better package?

Ed

[Hellrazor]

What is your package rated at? I have 1500/256 dsl here.

[smorris]

That's a little slow. If the company has over subscribed you can find it gets slow like that. As hellrazor noted, it depends on what your package is rated at.

I sometimes find my viewing of videos is slow and I have to wait. I think that is a function of the sites quite often as they get overloaded. My rates are 8M down 1.5M up but I have a commercial account.

[phrog]

I, too, have ATT Basic DSL and my download was 712 but, get this, upload was 104. No wonder I go to sleep while uploading something. Thanks for the link.
Richard

[Woody]

I have Verizon Fios and get 19479 kbps down and 4306 kbps up. Fiber to the home it pretty much smokes.

[OpaDC]

Cox cable here. The middle package. About 3.5 meg down and 2.3 up. Have seen better depending on time of day. Normally have no problems with video. If I do have buffering it's normally the site causing it. 500 kb is slow for video.

[Alex Franke]

I have Verizon Fios and get 19479 kbps down and 4306 kbps up. Fiber to the home it pretty much smokes.

Oh yeah? Well I just upgraded my acoustic coupler to a brand new Hayes 300. Yeah, you heard it -- that's 300 baud... even faster than I can type!! Now that is smokin'!

(Yeah, I wish we had Fios... sigh... We have insane bandwidth at work (34M down and 13M up), so here at home (10M down, 0.4M up) it can feel sloooow...)

[Rich P]

I've always used this test as well as the SBC (now ATT) test site. The DSL reports site is good in that you can see what others in your service/area think about the SLA achievement.

For grins, you could call your provider and ask them if you need a faster link but as my tag says... Don't ever ask a <person providing what you might need> if you need <what ever they are selling>.

[LCHIEN]

ed, i imagine that you have confused kilobits per second with kilobytes per second.
both abbrev kb/sec although I'm a stickler and use kB/sec for kilobytes per second and kb/sec for kilobits.

So 400 kilobytes per second is roughly equivalent to 3,000 kilobits per second or 3 megabits per second which is what basic ATT DSL is.

Phrog, you have ADSL which is "asymmetric" DSL which has slower upload than download speeds which is usually OK since you probably download much more than you upload, or at least most home users do. Its a form of DSL which makes the compromise to use more of the available bandwidth in one direction (to you) to improve download speeds at the expense of upload speeds.


I might suggest this free utility BitMeter:
http://codebox.org.uk/controller?page=bitmeter2
shows a floating scrolling transparent graph of data download speed kind of handy to see whats the holdup in your data.
It has options to autoscale or show data in kB/S or kb/sec, too.

[crokett]

Huh. Mine is better than I expected. DSL with 2346 kbps up and 782 down. Considering I am about as far out as can be and still get DSL, that is pretty good. I was expecting about half that. I also tested that on my wireless connection, not sure that makes a difference or not.

[cabinetman]

My speed varies every time I take it (desktop wifi). Download - 3036kbps, upload - 402kbps. Supposedly our DSL (ATT)` speed will depend on the usage in the area.
.

[phrog]

Loring stated:
"Phrog, you have ADSL which is "asymmetric" DSL which has slower upload than download speeds which is usually OK since you probably download much more than you upload, or at least most home users do. Its a form of DSL which makes the compromise to use more of the available bandwidth in one direction (to you) to improve download speeds at the expense of upload speeds."

Thanks Loring,
You're absolutely correct. I do 100x more downloading than uploading and I am completely satisfied with my service even though it is slower than others available at a much greater price. I didn't realize it was called ADSL - I learned something on this site once again.
Richard

[radhak]

I have comcast cable modem, and I am getting funny results : 4901 DL, 6576 upload! Ever heard of upload more than download? (this is on laptop, wireless, and repeat tests are similar).

I checked on the other machine (desktop, wired) : 15780 DL, 9800 UL. While that makes more sense (DL is more), I wonder why my wireless is so bad - I am in the very next room!

And if I turn on my work-VPN on my laptop, the speeds drop to 1080 DL, 1470 UL!

[LCHIEN]

I have comcast cable modem, and I am getting funny results : 4901 DL, 6576 upload! Ever heard of upload more than download? (this is on laptop, wireless, and repeat tests are similar).

I checked on the other machine (desktop, wired) : 15780 DL, 9800 UL. While that makes more sense (DL is more), I wonder why my wireless is so bad - I am in the very next room!

And if I turn on my work-VPN on my laptop, the speeds drop to 1080 DL, 1470 UL!

when you turn on VPN, its like being connected to the network at the office. So if you request a site first the request is routed (over the internet) to your office net and checked to see if its on the internal network and if not then its routed to the internet, so all traffic is double routed thru the internet. Replies likewise come thru the internet to your office network then it identifies the requesting site as being your computer and routes it outbound to the net again to your ISP and then to you. Of course there will be many users sharing the office network so its bandwidth is divided and if they have site blocking and content monitoring it will be slowed by that. too. All the traffic moves take time and the slowest link sets the maximum speed. The data is probably encoded and decoded going to and from your VPN as well.

network speeds can vary depending upon what else is running. again bottlenecks set the speed - maybe your wireless adapter is having to share bandwidth with the phone or another interfering wireless in the neighborhood.

Unless you have ADSL (used in neighborhood twisted pair networking by ATT, mostly) most networking connections are equally fast in both directions and will easily have a 10, 20% or more variation. remember that speed rating sites assume your si the only traffic and the network link to your house is the slowest element. Other network traffic in your house, on your ISPs network, on the internet trunks (although this is ususally kept high), at the speed rating site, can all or any affect the overall speed measured over a small sample interval.