Forums | MacLife

Bren · 2009-08-11 5:14 am

I've been told by Comcast employees that I am especially lucky, because most of their customers don't get connections that are quite as fast as mine. I think they kinda said it has something to do with the neighborhood I'm living in, so I guess any other Comcast subscribers living on my street might be getting the same fast service.

I guess maybe it's 'cause the cable lines and switching mechanisms are better than in other areas. This would make sense, 'cause the town I live in (Pacifica, CA) has always been completely dependent on cable TV; the surrounding mountains make it impossible to get ordinary TV reception from an antenna. The other factor might be that there just aren't too many Comcast customers on my street, so the equipment serving my household doesn't have to share my bandwidth with very many other households.

Do these numbers look all that good to you?

A while ago I read an article on some UK Web site that was debunking a lot of the speed-test sites. They said most of them gave inaccurate data, and that you couldn't trust the ones that were run by ISPs who had a vested interest in convincing you that they were the fastest. They also said two of the speed-test services were trustworthy, though I can't for the life of me, remember which ones those were.

I'd be interested in seeing what results other people are getting, though I do understand that a bunch of us comparing speed-test numbers might be a very dorky situation.

TheMouthOfSauron · 2009-08-11 3:45 pm

These are pretty much in line with the stated bandwidth for my service: 1.5 Mbps down 256 kbps up. Yours look pretty impressive by comparison, there's no service that fast available in my area.

gd · 2009-08-11 4:21 pm

Mine seem like crap no matter how fast I feel it is compared to yours you guys must be getting lighting fast speeds. Is that influenced by the use of Time Capsule. I don't know what my parents are paying for in speed though, but I guess it is 1Mb

sturner · 2009-08-11 4:26 pm

1 Mb/s seems to be a good guess. It would seem to be a rather slow cable. Bottom tier of service if it is indeed a multi-tiered service.

Aaron_R · 2009-08-11 4:27 pm

Holy crap Bren. I'd kill for your uplink speeds. That is my #1 thing I hate about cable companies, you get throttled on the upload bandwidth. Or at least with TimeWarner you will. The download speed looks decent but TW is known for speed crawls and outages, only 4:30 here at home, wait until peak times. In Milwaukee btw.

Last edited by Aaron_R (2009-08-11 4:34 pm)

arkayn · 2009-08-11 6:22 pm

Pretty much what I pay for and better than I had for a long time.

Aaron_R · 2009-08-11 6:45 pm

I find it amusing that all of the results posted here so far use different ISP's yet each one failed to get above a 3 star rating.

gd · 2009-08-11 9:52 pm

I tried it with 3G from the iPhone and it got 0.7Mb/s upload and 0.37Mb/s download. 3g is extremely crappy don't want to see results for edge.

Mr. Happypants · 2009-08-11 10:08 pm

Good enough for my needs, but I'd kill a whole bus full of kittens for Bren's numbers. Bastid. tongue

Bren · 2009-08-11 10:11 pm

My Nokia 6620 uses the Edge network. No good for watching MobiTV or whatever, but it's pretty zippy when it comes to just accessing Web pages. The biggest speed improvement I've noticed was when I started using Opera Mini. Despite the fact that it's their free, low-calorie browser, Opera Mini is way faster than Opera Mobile, which I'd paid for.

Regarding Comcast: For a while I was paying extra for some faster type of service they'd offered, though I don't recall it being any faster than what I've got now. I hadn't realized just how lucky I was until I saw everybody else's results. This means I can never switch service providers or move to a different neighborhood.

Last edited by Bren (2009-08-11 10:12 pm)

Aaron_R · 2009-08-11 11:03 pm

Bren wrote:
Regarding Comcast: For a while I was paying extra for some faster type of service they'd offered, though I don't recall it being any faster than what I've got now. I hadn't realized just how lucky I was until I saw everybody else's results. This means I can never switch service providers or move to a different neighborhood.

My download speed is just as fast as yours, only your upload speed kicks my ass. Great for HD YouTube watching and hulu streaming but when I upload videos to YouTube or use MobileMe at that speed it is like I went back in time on dailup. TimeWarner does offers a price tier above the package I've got where I think you might just get 1+Mb/s on the uplink. Yep, can't wait until FiOS gets to Milwaukee, it'll be within a year I assume since they just started laying fiber over in the Kenosha area (I guess Chicago has it's uses)

If anyone has AT&T U-Verse as an ISP I'd love to see their results since I was thinking of switching to them in the mean time.

Last edited by Aaron_R (2009-08-11 11:08 pm)

Bren · 2009-08-11 11:27 pm

It figures that they'd want everybody to have a hard time uploading, but no problem downloading. That way, creative, independent, grass-roots content is difficult to share, while all the advertiser-driven corporate crap can be poured down your throat like beer at a frat party.

gd · 2009-08-12 5:43 pm

These are my results when internet tethering from the iPhone using 3G. Somehow it is better than directly from the phone. The internet tethering is being used via bluetooth not usb.

This is with the recommended server:

Last edited by gd (2009-08-12 5:45 pm)

Bren · 2009-08-12 10:13 pm

I think it's obnoxious that they make you pay extra for tethering. When I got my Nokia 6620, there was no extra charge for that. I really hate how they nickle-and-dime you to death any way they can.

sturner · 2009-08-12 10:16 pm

And this is with my Verizon FIOS connection, lowest tier

sturner · 2009-08-12 10:16 pm

Hmmmm, so imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

Aaron_R · 2009-08-13 9:28 am

You can see already how much faster fiber is than cable based on struners FiOS post, even if he has their lowest tier. 200 miles away and he's getting 10ms of ping where as people with cable going somewhere 4 times closer of 50 miles get around 10-15 ms. and those upload speeds are god send for it being lowest tier package, not to mention they kick the smurf out of my 2nd highest cable plans which is capped at only .5Mb/s I so can't wait until FiOS.

longboy · 2009-08-13 10:12 am

This is work:

I'm sure my home connection (Comcast) isn't anywhere near that good.

ScifiterX · 2009-08-13 1:12 pm

gd · 2009-08-13 2:26 pm

40 Mb/s. Holy smurf you're paying a smurfload of cash for that right? Sturner was the post about imitation directed at me?

longboy · 2009-08-13 2:31 pm

That's my workplace, not my personal connection. I don't want to know what we pay for our connectivity.

sturner · 2009-08-13 2:49 pm

whom else, indeed, gd?

gd · 2009-08-13 2:52 pm

sturner wrote:
whom else, indeed, gd?

I wanted it to seem as I was your heir or replacement. Notice future before everything else.

sturner · 2009-08-13 3:04 pm

lol I noticed.

Bren · 2009-08-13 4:59 pm

If anything happens to Sturner, we'll know who the prime suspect is!

Forums | MacLife

#1 2009-08-11 5:14 am

What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#2 2009-08-11 3:45 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#3 2009-08-11 4:21 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#4 2009-08-11 4:26 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#5 2009-08-11 4:27 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#6 2009-08-11 6:22 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#7 2009-08-11 6:45 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#8 2009-08-11 9:52 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#9 2009-08-11 10:08 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#10 2009-08-11 10:11 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#11 2009-08-11 11:03 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

Bren wrote:

#12 2009-08-11 11:27 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#13 2009-08-12 5:43 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#14 2009-08-12 10:13 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#15 2009-08-12 10:16 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#16 2009-08-12 10:16 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#17 2009-08-13 9:28 am

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#18 2009-08-13 10:12 am

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#19 2009-08-13 1:12 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#20 2009-08-13 2:26 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#21 2009-08-13 2:31 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#22 2009-08-13 2:49 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#23 2009-08-13 2:52 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

sturner wrote:

#24 2009-08-13 3:04 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

#25 2009-08-13 4:59 pm

Re: What kinda connection speeds are you getting?

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