I am far from being an expert on broadband stuff, but I'm told that DSL speeds are dependent on distance from what they call a central station or a "stinger" that may boost the signal in your neighborhood.
I just ran another speed test on my wireless system and my download measured 3150 kbps and my upload showed 1586.
I would not be willing to trade my upload speed away to get a faster download speed - and from what I hear from neighbors with either cable or DSL, that is what would happen if I were to switch.
My wireless provider has had very little downtime. The few problems I've had have generally been attributable to my having Windows ME on a previous computer (What a junker that was!) and a problem with a bad router once upon a time and one time a lightning strike took out my ethernet cards on two different computers.
Looks like I'm out of service for a while...
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DewDude420
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- Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:15 pm
- Location: Washington DC Metro Area
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Generally the distance you are from the central office determines the overall speed of your DSL...however, that's assuming you've got all copper loops between you and the CO..i'm about 25,000 ft which is pushing the upper limit of what used to be considered the limit...however, the technology for pushing data through good twisted pair phone line has gotten pretty good...and i'm on a pretty decent loop..in fact...i'm not even connected to the CO directly but to a fiber line somewhere (sadly, this same fiber can't be used to backbone FiOS)...although the last mile of my line is copper.
A few years ago when i had some massive connectivity problems and finally caught the attention of the right tech..he and I were trying to hammer out my problems (my DSL would completely lose connectivity after half an hour...light's on...but a 169 autoconfig IP address from lack of DHCP). One of the first things he did was run an internal speed test (how fast my DSL loop could actually communicate) and he said it was able to max out with few errors.
As it turns out, while 13 verizon techs blamed my computer it turns out it was a problem at Genuity...and that while my DSL modem had connected to the DSL loop at the CO...Genuity was refusing my modem service because they had apparently knowlingly assigned me to a known defective backbone.....
my problems with speed now just seem to be related to the general ineptness of verizon sales/tech/real-tech staffs....sales make promies to people that tech later refuses becuase they don't know thier butt from thier mouth....
I have no problem with the service..for me it's better than being on dialup..they've never complained about how long i've been connected or how much BW i've pulled...i just wish i could get even an increase to 3mbps. I do remember when i first got the service DHCP would assign any device on my modem an IP...so literally all i did was plug up a network switch and everything on the network went nuts...they they restricted me to one IP at a time, which was fine..but now they've got my IP locked at the DHCP level to the MAC of a router i had back in 2004! No amount of leaving things disconnected has fixed this...and posting on verizon's unoffical geek usenet forums has just yielded a whole bunch of "that's interesting" and "that doesn't sound right" responses.
A few years ago when i had some massive connectivity problems and finally caught the attention of the right tech..he and I were trying to hammer out my problems (my DSL would completely lose connectivity after half an hour...light's on...but a 169 autoconfig IP address from lack of DHCP). One of the first things he did was run an internal speed test (how fast my DSL loop could actually communicate) and he said it was able to max out with few errors.
As it turns out, while 13 verizon techs blamed my computer it turns out it was a problem at Genuity...and that while my DSL modem had connected to the DSL loop at the CO...Genuity was refusing my modem service because they had apparently knowlingly assigned me to a known defective backbone.....
my problems with speed now just seem to be related to the general ineptness of verizon sales/tech/real-tech staffs....sales make promies to people that tech later refuses becuase they don't know thier butt from thier mouth....
I have no problem with the service..for me it's better than being on dialup..they've never complained about how long i've been connected or how much BW i've pulled...i just wish i could get even an increase to 3mbps. I do remember when i first got the service DHCP would assign any device on my modem an IP...so literally all i did was plug up a network switch and everything on the network went nuts...they they restricted me to one IP at a time, which was fine..but now they've got my IP locked at the DHCP level to the MAC of a router i had back in 2004! No amount of leaving things disconnected has fixed this...and posting on verizon's unoffical geek usenet forums has just yielded a whole bunch of "that's interesting" and "that doesn't sound right" responses.
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donrandall
- Posts: 550
- Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:06 pm
- Location: Denver, Colorado
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DewDude420
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- Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:15 pm
- Location: Washington DC Metro Area
- Contact:
Uhm....seeing as I physically live in the woods...lower than everything around me....even IF there was a wireless provider...I couldn't be able to see the tower, unless i put a REALLY freakishly tall tower up (we're talkin at least 125 ft, 50 of that just so the antenna can see over the trees)...which...if i had the money I could do...then i'd get to fight the state over it being more than 75ft...however I think a call to the FCC to get it registered would take care of it....it's too much expense for me.
they were supposed to have Fios rolled out here late 2006..then it got moved to summer of 07, now they're saying early 09 for my area.......
they were supposed to have Fios rolled out here late 2006..then it got moved to summer of 07, now they're saying early 09 for my area.......
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donrandall
- Posts: 550
- Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:06 pm
- Location: Denver, Colorado
It sure do sound like you are kinda limited in what is available to you. I doubt that satellite internet would be any improvement. The advertising portrays it as being really fast, but I have relatives in the mountains that can only get online if they use the satellite - dial up is almost as fast as a ruptured carrier pigeon where they live. Even the satellite "broadband" is rather unimpressive, but since it is best thing available to them they went with it.
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DewDude420
- Posts: 1171
- Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:15 pm
- Location: Washington DC Metro Area
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the biggest problem with satellite internet is latency...normal latency is a few ms over a wired network..including going out to the internet and back...
satellite has the potential bandwidth...more so downlinking than uplinking..but here's the issue..and this is something people don't take into account...speed of light is 186K miles/sec...everyone knows this... geosync orbit for most satellites is around 22,500K...a round trip from earth, up, and down is 45,000 miles....when you take in to account that the info has to go up, down, across the internet, back, up, down...you're adding close to 91K miles in your trip that you CANNOT get rid of (I've had some people SWEAR they get low latency over satellite, but it's just technically not possible to send signals faster than speed of light).
all this latency equates to a half-second or more of latency just merely waiting for the signal to travel through space. this is part of the reason satelite has a lot of mixed reviews..on one hand, sure, it'll pump some speed...but with the way TCP/IP works and overhead and ACK packets and whatnot...that additional delay is what really slows stuff down...not to mention it's EXPENSIVE as hell.
even though my DSL sucks...i only have a 24ms delay to the internet (my ISP's gateway rather) than a 675ms delay. last time i used a satellite connection it seemed more like a dialup connection using some really good speedboost on crack...you had the same resonsiveness it's just stuff loaded faster...ok for email and websurfing..impossible for anything else.
satellite has the potential bandwidth...more so downlinking than uplinking..but here's the issue..and this is something people don't take into account...speed of light is 186K miles/sec...everyone knows this... geosync orbit for most satellites is around 22,500K...a round trip from earth, up, and down is 45,000 miles....when you take in to account that the info has to go up, down, across the internet, back, up, down...you're adding close to 91K miles in your trip that you CANNOT get rid of (I've had some people SWEAR they get low latency over satellite, but it's just technically not possible to send signals faster than speed of light).
all this latency equates to a half-second or more of latency just merely waiting for the signal to travel through space. this is part of the reason satelite has a lot of mixed reviews..on one hand, sure, it'll pump some speed...but with the way TCP/IP works and overhead and ACK packets and whatnot...that additional delay is what really slows stuff down...not to mention it's EXPENSIVE as hell.
even though my DSL sucks...i only have a 24ms delay to the internet (my ISP's gateway rather) than a 675ms delay. last time i used a satellite connection it seemed more like a dialup connection using some really good speedboost on crack...you had the same resonsiveness it's just stuff loaded faster...ok for email and websurfing..impossible for anything else.