I have a question for all you smart computer geeks out there. I have my service through Comcast and pay $42.95 a month for the fast speed. A friend just told me that she was paying that with Comcast but now has gone down to the slower speed and is paying $24 a month and she can't even tell the difference. She said you only need the faster speed if you are downloading movies or music. Any opinions on that out there?
Monday, January 21, 2008
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5 comments:
Hi Chris,
The terms speed or the somewhat more descriptive term Bandwidth, is all about how fast you can move Data across the WWW. There are a number of factors that affect the speed of execution that you experience on your Computer, not the least of which is the clock rate of your CPU. As you note, if you download Videos/Movies or Hi-Fi Audio, the higher speed is almost mandatory; or you will wait quite literally for hours. Higher data rates are also good for opening Web
Sites faster. Also if you like to send and receive Photographs, higher rates are very useful. However; if all you do is simple Email, High Speed INTERNET is a flat waste of money.
But, think ahead; You may one day discover the joys of INTERNET Telephony, such a SKYPE, in which case you will require High Speed. There is a saying in Geek circles; "Bits is Bits", the only real question, is How fast do you need to move them around.
Hi All,
If you would like to test what sort of data rates you are actually getting; here is a neat site where you may test both Upload and download speeds. Try a few of the Servers, as distance can make a difference, due to the number of switches your signal must pass through.
Try it, it's fun to find out if you are getting what you are paying for:
http://speakeasy.net/speedtest/
Dave
What are the AVERAGE speeds for the various functions (ie: download movies, etc.) ? Thank You (ps: I am using a Verizon, USB 720)
Hi Capt. john,
Any data set will download at the maximum speed of the service you have subscribed to; so, if you have Dial Up, your theoretical maximum is 56Kbit per second. So, I think the real question you want to ask is How long on average does it take to download a movie, given a certain rate? The following little table will put you in the picture:
To download a 2 hour movie, the following are the time lines to expect:
Connection speed
56Kbps
128Kbps
256Kbps
512Kbps
1Mbps
2Mbps
10Mbps
Transfer speed
7 KB/s
16 KB/s
32 KB/s
64 KB/s
128 KB/s
256 KB/s
1.25 MB/s
Transfer time
28 hours, 27 mins
12 hours, 27 mins
6 hours, 13 mins
3 hours, 7 mins
1 hours, 33 mins
47 mins
12 mins
So, to download the movie on a Dial-Up connection
would take 28 hours and 27 minutes.
To do the same on COMCAST High Speed INTERNET's fastest speed, would take about 15 minutes.
I hope that helps.
Dave
Thanks for the information Dave. Very interesting. I went on that website you mentioned and tried several locations. For example, from Washington it gave me 11934 kbps for the download and 1368 kbps for the upload. From NY it was 9865 kbps for download and 1274for upload. Like you said, it varied with each location.
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