Author Topic: Question for cable modem users (Read 490 times)

Kronos · « **on:** May 13, 2002, 11:18:20 AM »

What should the average d/l speed in kb/s be for a 1.5mg cable modem connection speed? Reason I ask is TKS is supposed to have upgraded my connection, and I am only getting max of 30k/s d/l. at 128k speed I was getting 12.5k/s so I am pretty sure that is not right.

Swoop · « **Reply #1 on:** May 13, 2002, 11:29:10 AM »

Cable connections (in Europe anyway) work like a local LAN connection to the internet. What I mean is, you and your neighbours (however many have the cable internet connection) are all on the same LAN and use the same connection to the internet. When you, and only you, are online then you've got the whole uplink bandwidth to yourself and should see 150kps download speeds with your setup. When others are also online you share the total bandwidth (not the 150kps, the total bandwidth for the local LAN uplink).

Not that your LANs connection speed will be 1.5Mbs, prolly much higher, but if you're getting 30kps when *your* connection is supposed to be 150kps then the local cable LAN doesnt have enough bandwidth to support all the users....er.....using it. Coming to think about it, I dont know anyone else with a cable modem of that speed, got a mate with a 512k connection that gives him 50kps pretty constantly except on friday evenings when it tends to drop to around 20kps (all the damn Counterstrikers).

Try a download at some ridiculous time in the morning (early sunday morning probably the best time) and see if you get the full 150kps. Also keep in mind you're limited to the upload bandwidth of whatever server you're downloading from, again sunday mornings (CET) are best time to test since all these damn yanks are still asleep and the internet has low traffic.

Swoop

Wlfgng · « **Reply #2 on:** May 13, 2002, 01:17:23 PM »

I have cable and average 130kps or so...

Lephturn · « **Reply #3 on:** May 13, 2002, 01:27:09 PM »

KBps or Kbps? It makes a difference.

128 Kbps or Kilobits per second is how you would measure speed if you asked your modem provider. That's theoretical, but just as an illustration lets work with that. Download speeds are normally counted in KBps, KiloBytes per second... and each Byte has 8 bits... so 128 Kbps would allow you to theoretically download at 16 KiloBytes per second. A 512 Kbps downstream speed would theoretically allow you to download at 64 KBps.

That said... that's all theoretical. You can only download as fast as the other end can upload to you... or will allow you to download. It's very tough to judge where the "bottleneck" is with something like this. You very well may have much more download bandwidth on your end... but the server you are downloading from may not be giving out the information any faster than 30 KBps.

A good test is to try downloading something from a server within your ISP's own network via FTP. That will often give you an indication of how fast your connection is to your ISP at least.

Beefcake · « **Reply #4 on:** May 13, 2002, 01:29:38 PM »

We also have the fat phone line here. At peak times we get 60-70kb a sec, however, at times when usage is low (like 3am

) we get upwards of 140. it does go up and down, and the speed can vary depending on where and what you're downloading. I will say this though, I don't care if my cable only got 20kb a sec, it's still alot faster than what I had. (my 56k model maxed about 4kb a sec, so 100 kb is a godsent)

Kronos · « **Reply #5 on:** May 13, 2002, 01:51:13 PM »

Well, i ran a test. There are websites out there that test your bandwidth. I went to one of them and it says that my average is 270kbp/s. (pcpitstop.com)

doesnt make sense to me... think I'll call them tomorrow and have a word or two.

SKurj · « **Reply #6 on:** May 13, 2002, 01:53:03 PM »

hmmm yes...

I get downloads at up to 300kb per sec (the windows download calculator thingy)

I think that rates up somewhere like 1.5mbps or better

SKurj

SOB · « **Reply #7 on:** May 13, 2002, 01:56:36 PM »

Kronos,

You're going from bits to bytes, so divide your connection speed by 8. They'll always sell you your connection speed by what kilobits or megabits it is, but when downloading IE displays it in kilobytes. Your connection should allow you to download at about 187kilobytes per second, depending on the site you're downloading from. If you know of a nice fast site in Germany with a big fat pipe, try downloading from them. This is a nice site for testing your bandwidth, but I doubt it would be optimal for anywhere outside of the US (maybe Canada): http://computingcentral.msn.com/internet/speedtest.asp

Try typing "bandwidth speed test" into a search engine, and maybe you'll find one geographically closer to you, or at least on the same continent

.

Good luck!

SOB

ZeroPing · « **Reply #8 on:** May 13, 2002, 05:20:44 PM »

I get about 400 with DAP (KB a sec) dap is wonder full

JB73 · « **Reply #9 on:** May 13, 2002, 06:37:13 PM »

NO lie this is the results of my test from SOB's link...
(cable modem in suburb of milwaukee wi)

JB73 · « **Reply #10 on:** May 13, 2002, 06:40:00 PM »

just tried again and...

SOB · « **Reply #11 on:** May 13, 2002, 06:54:31 PM »

Yeah, that's what I'm getting (about 1.7mb) out of my AT&T cable modem service. Before AT&T put a cap on d/l speed, when they were going through @home, I could regularly see downloads of 400+K/s (about 3.2mb) at off-peak times!

SOB

ra · « **Reply #12 on:** May 13, 2002, 09:03:53 PM »

Here's another good speed test site:
http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

Gman · « **Reply #13 on:** May 13, 2002, 09:58:30 PM »

Cable varies from city to city I've found.

Here in Calgary, the birthplace of modern cable internet, shaw is fairly fast for download speeds/upload speeds, but fairly unstable for gaming. IE your ping will fluctuate up to 200%, and never less than 50%. Pinging a server in pingtool tells the tale.

I'll see upwards of a megaBYTE per second download at early AM hours, and about 250 kiloBYTES per second upload at same.

I still much prefer DSL, as it is stable like a rock, I'll get 20 pages of 14 ms results from pinging a local server, where as I'll get everything from 200ms down to 7ms with cable.

It is a good deal for about 22$ USD, the cable internet here in town, if you are mainly interested in surfing and large file downloads. I usually have both dsl and cable for this specific reason, however dsl isn't available yet in my new area.

Kronos · « **Reply #14 on:** May 13, 2002, 11:31:51 PM »

Bandwidth calculation is measured against that of CNET's Internet Services. Bandwidth may be higher or lower depending on Internet congestion.

Connection Type Connection Speed Faster Providers In Your Area

28.8 Kbps Dial-up 28.8k

33.6 Kbps Dial-up 33.6k

53.3 Kbps Dial-up 56k

64 Kbps ISDN 64k

128 Kbps ISDN 128k

172.7 Kbps 172.7 kbps

384 Kbps DSL 384k Microsoft

768 Kbps DSL 768k Other Providers

1500 Kbps DSL 1.5MB Other Providers

That's what I got from that source. Since im in germany, I had to use an old Virginia area code I knew, which might be why it shows slower than pcpitstop. (which shows me steady around 270kbps) I'll have to call TKS today.