# Rate your ISP/Internet Connection



## Carenath (Mar 27, 2009)

Fantastic speeds... or as slow as tar.
Value for money... or overpriced and useless like Canadian cellphone services.
Fiber.. Comcrap.. DSL or Dialup.

*ISP: *UPC*
Cost:* â‚¬42/month.
*Upload:* 1.5Mbit/sec
*Download:* 20Mbit/sec
*Cap:* Unlimited (with no AUP)
*Throttling:* None
*Type:* Cable
*Speedtest:*






I used a server in Amsterdam for this, because it UPC's connections to Amsterdam have the highest throughput for some reason.

Comments... well getting it installed was a pain in the tail:
Day 1: Engineer came out with the modem... couldnt get it working, turns out a tap had to be replaced with a proper one that supported return-paths.
Day 7: Engineer replaces the tap.
Day 13: Engineer realises the amplifier needs to be reconfigured to enable the return path.. leaves the modem behind an says he will be out tomorrow to set it up.
Day 14: Engineer comes out unbeknownst to myself, and does the line work... when I find out they had been out, I connect the modem which works, and provision it myself using the data on the engineers worksheet (which I still have).

Asside from those hiccups.. its been rock-solid, and their customer support has (since UPC took over the old crowd) been pretty good compared to what it used to be like...


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## GoodEats (Mar 27, 2009)

Well... Seeing as my internet is wireless and free... And my computer is like... 2001 junk... I say my connection is pretty good >.>


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## CaptainCool (Mar 27, 2009)

dsl connection



im happy with our ISP. some people here hate the telekom but our connection is extremely stable! in all those 8 years we only had one problem with them it that was fixed very quickly.
the price is ok as well, about 35â‚¬ per month for a phone flatrate and internet flatrate.
its suppused to me a 16mbit connection but im living in a very small town, thats all i can get here^^ upload is supposed to be 1.2 mbit


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## ToeClaws (Mar 27, 2009)

At the university:






Grah... that's terrible - even at 8:24am, the students are already managing to destroy most of our bandwidth.  The main pipe is 120Mbps up and down when empty.

At home I have Rogers cable access, which is okayish, but has terrible upload speed.  I used to have a business class DSL connection, but the phone line became too unstable for it (house is 100+ years old) and since it wasn't through Bell, Bell refused to fix the phone line since voice worked fine.


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## net-cat (Mar 27, 2009)

At home:




Will test school when I go in today.

As for the install, I bought my own modem, hooked it up, called Comcast, they turned it on and it worked. Not much else to say about it.

It's still Comcast, but far more reliable than the DSL around here could ever hope to be, what with the "40 year old phone lines" and the "16,000 line feet" things they've got going on.


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## Aurali (Mar 27, 2009)

Cox is my friend in the digital age :3 24 USD

and this is the "Middle tier" bandwidth they give.

Should do this at school to.


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## LotsOfNothing (Mar 27, 2009)

I have shitty city-provided internet that runs through the electric lines.  You should see the speed when someone else is using a computer in the house.


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## net-cat (Mar 27, 2009)

And... from school.


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## Carenath (Mar 27, 2009)

net-cat said:


> As for the install, I bought my own modem, hooked it up, called Comcast, they turned it on and it worked. Not much else to say about it.
> 
> It's still Comcast, but far more reliable than the DSL around here could ever hope to be, what with the "40 year old phone lines" and the "16,000 line feet" things they've got going on.


At least you could buy your own modem.. here you have to take what the ISP gives you, you cant use your own equipment. That said, the Scientific Atlanta E2203 works pretty well.



Eli said:


> Cox is my friend in the digital age :3 24 USD
> and this is the "Middle tier" bandwidth they give.
> Should do this at school to.


Could you (and net-cat) post the details of the package you are on as I did... i.e. price, speed limits and such.. the service I am on is supposadly being upgraded to 50Mbit in the summer.. UPC's parent company in the Netherlands already provides a 120Mbit/10Mbit connection there, and it will likely make its way over here in the next year or two.

At the college... we have a symmetric 1Gb/sec fibre connection.


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## Aurali (Mar 27, 2009)

Cox Digital Cable: Middle Tier
12Megabits up.
 2.5 megabits down
 24 USD a month. 
Cap: 12000 megs (though not enforced).
throttling: yes. 
Type: Shared Cable.
Location: Phoenix Arizona.

Service is amazing. Same week scheduling, free. They'll replace and or upgrade needed components required for service for free, and when they do have to come out.. they will fix your problem and then check to see if any other problems have arisen. (they found a leaking cable wire in one of the walls and would replace it if I could get land lords permission)


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## Shino (Mar 27, 2009)

I used to have 5M symetric fiber, but I moved and now I'm stuck with DSL. Meh.
Still, it's a hell of a lot better than Fairpoint or Comcrap.


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## net-cat (Mar 27, 2009)

Carenath said:


> At least you could buy your own modem.. here you have to take what the ISP gives you, you cant use your own equipment. That said, the Scientific Atlanta E2203 works pretty well.


They do that because they aren't allowed to require a rental. And they have to make the rental separate to even begin to compete with DSL.

I've actually got two modems. Motorola Surfboard SB5101 and SB5100. The former because it was cheap and it works. The latter because I can take it apart and fiddle with its guts.




Carenath said:


> Could you (and net-cat) post the details of the package you are on as I did... i.e. price, speed limits and such.. the service I am on is supposadly being upgraded to 50Mbit in the summer.. UPC's parent company in the Netherlands already provides a 120Mbit/10Mbit connection there, and it will likely make its way over here in the next year or two.


6 Mbit/s down, 1.5 Mbit/s up. (It registers as 12 Mbit/s because of that "power boost" thing. I/E: First few MB are at a higher speed.) 250 GB monthly cap. $33/month. (Eventually doubling, at which point I do... something.)


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## SnowFox (Mar 27, 2009)

I love that ping time.


Cable broadband
It's supposedly 10meg
No limits that I know about and I can't remember how much it is a month.
The last time we needed customer support it was absolutely useless and we ended up in a worse mess than before they "helped"

It normally takes about 30+ seconds for a page of 25 posts to finish loading, but some of that slowness is probably due to my shitty computer.


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## Irreverent (Mar 27, 2009)

Carenath said:


> or overpriced and useless like Canadian cellphone services.



Hey now.....what our CDMA EVDO network will do and what we're allowed to sell by the technocrats at the CRTC are two very different things.   The new HSPA network will blow Rogers out of the water too, if we're allowed to turn it up to "11."





Probably not a fair test, as I'm at home, off a wireless LT and a couple of my servers and mate's LT are VPN'd in to work.  Still, the price is right (free) and at the end of the day.....its my network.

If I still have access to FDR2, I'll try to run the test again from work. :evil:  Last time I tried speedtest, the java applet faulted when hit with anything faster than an OC3.  Would love to try this off one of the new 10gigE optical segments.


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## ToeClaws (Mar 27, 2009)

Okay... I should have used a different server this morning.  Testing to Hamilton, even during heavy use in the afternoon, this is a much better result.


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## Kangamutt (Mar 27, 2009)

God I have a horrible connection. XD


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## WolvesSoulZ (Mar 27, 2009)

41$CAD per month i think.
(That at my dad home, il get a test at my mom home too)


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## Carenath (Mar 27, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Hey now.....what our CDMA EVDO network will do and what we're allowed to sell by the technocrats at the CRTC are two very different things.   The new HSPA network will blow Rogers out of the water too, if we're allowed to turn it up to "11."


What company do you work for, pray tell?

I never actually used wireless data on any of the Canadian mobile phone networks, I was referring to the phone service and prices in general... I ended up writing a blog entry for it here.

Oh... and CDMA sucks.


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## Irreverent (Mar 27, 2009)

Carenath said:


> What company do you work for, pray tell?



The profitable one.



> I never actually used wireless data on any of the Canadian mobile phone networks, I was referring to the phone service and prices in general... I ended up writing a blog entry for it here.



That blog is fairly representative of the scene, circa '05.  Been quite a lot of deregulation since, and still quite a lot to go.  The amount of needless regulation foisted on the CDN telco's by the CRTC [like having to lose 25% market share in a segment before you can lower prices and compete...hard to do when you have 90% of the market could take decades] makes the US FCC look like a stamp collecting club.  Mind you, trying to provision a nation  larger than the US with half the population of the greater LA or greater New York area has a few challenges too.  There are economies of scale not being realized here.



> Oh... and CDMA sucks.



Which is why the GSM road map merges with CDMA 1x it to form HSPA at version 4.


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## Runefox (Mar 27, 2009)

> It wasn't the DSL, it was the POS single antenna "wireless 802.11b" (well just barely) router they deployed. Worse than Netgear or Dlink. Ug.


Siemens Speedstream. Worst POS ever.

Anyway...





It's shit. High Speed Extreme: 10mbps/1mbps. $59.99/mo.

EDIT:

Oh, here's my speed to my server:






Hi, localhost.


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## Gavrill (Mar 27, 2009)

*shrug* No idea. Seems fast.


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## Adelio Altomar (Mar 27, 2009)

Reckon I should start paying for my own ISP?

I tried this five times now. :-\


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## ArielMT (Mar 28, 2009)

My crappy DSL in the village I live in.  It's sad, but I can't even use the ISP I work for at my home.






Welcome to New Mexico, the state that the United States gave to the Third World.


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## ToeClaws (Mar 28, 2009)

The home network:






That's about right - it's supposed to be 6Mbps down, 512Kbps up.


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## Azbulldog (Mar 28, 2009)




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## Shino (Mar 28, 2009)

ArielMT said:


> Welcome to New Mexico, the state that the United States gave to the Third World.


 
Lol'ed.

Anywho, because it says Qwest, I take it you're stuck with Sattelite i-net via DirecTV?
Back when I used to work at Best Buy *shudder* often times, the only thing that would come up on the ISP search was HugesNet or Qwest. I'd look at that, then tell people to go home and call PeoplePC dial-up.


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## jayhusky (Mar 28, 2009)

See The Attachment For My Speeds
(ISP Removed)(Crappy Anyway)


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## ArielMT (Mar 28, 2009)

Shino said:


> Lol'ed.
> 
> Anywho, because it says Qwest, I take it you're stuck with Sattelite i-net via DirecTV?
> Back when I used to work at Best Buy *shudder* often times, the only thing that would come up on the ISP search was HugesNet or Qwest. I'd look at that, then tell people to go home and call PeoplePC dial-up.



Except that PeoplePC don't have any dial-up numbers outside the cities.  Not that I'd ever disgrace any of my computers by installing crappy, branded third-party networking software from the likes of AOL, MSN, NetZero, and PeoplePC.

Qwest is the telco and networking monopoly out here.  Comcast is the only terrestrial networking company here whose connection to the backbone doesn't transit Qwest's network at all, but even then, they don't provide 'Net service outside the cities, not even to the markets they provide cable TV to.  Edit: I don't know about New Mexico Tech.  They get a lot of funding for advanced research and blowing things up, and I know they have a fast connection, but I don't know how much of that connection is their own fiber.

Everyone else in the state, including independent ISPs, has to build a satellite infrastructure, build a line-of-sight wireless infrastructure, or buy bandwidth from Qwest in order to reach the backbone.  Even independent bandwidth providers themselves have to use Qwest's infrastructure.

What makes that stat interesting is that my telephone company isn't Qwest.  It's a small telco established before the Bell Telephone monopoly could reach this part of the state: Western New Mexico Telephone, based out of Silver City.  My home's ISP is their DSL subsidiary, Western Interactive.

It's sad, but I can't even use the ISP I work for at my home because it crosses telco boundaries and is hidden from wireless by a mountain range.  I can't even dial up to the ISP I work for because it's a long-distance toll call.

Yeah, outside of Albuquerque/Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces, it's really that bad out here, 'Net-wise.


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## Pi (Mar 28, 2009)

ArielMT said:


> Everyone else in the state, including independent ISPs, has to build a satellite infrastructure, build a line-of-sight wireless infrastructure, or buy bandwidth from Qwest in order to reach the backbone.  Even independent bandwidth providers themselves have to use Qwest's infrastructure.



Actually, my box in Santa Fe is hanging off of an ISP that's got Sprint backbone, no Qwest involved at all!

```
# lft -SANETD eth0 kernel.org

TTL  LFT trace to pub2.kernel.org (204.152.191.37):80/tcp
 1   [AS27937] [SPRINTLINK] 208-3-80-1.cnsp.net (208.3.80.1) 0.4/0.6ms
 2   [ASN?] [SPRINT-INNET] 144.223.172.81 175.0/25.0ms
 3   [ASN?] [SPRINT-INNET9] sl-bb21-ana-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.247) 24.9/24.9ms
 4   [ASN?] [SPRINT-INNET9] sl-crs2-ana-0-0-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.61) 25.9/37.1ms
 5   [ASN?] [SPRINT-INNET9] sl-st31-la-0-4-3-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.24.45) 31.8/30.7ms
 6   [ASN?] [SPRINT-INNET9] 144.232.24.222 25.8/44.5ms
 7   [AS174] [PSINET-B2-54] te8-2.mpd02.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.3.141) 37.5/36.1ms
 8   [AS174]   [AS174] [PSINET-B2-54] te9-3.mpd01.sjc01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.25.190) 37.5/37.4ms
 9   [AS174] [PSINET-B2-54] te4-4.mpd01.sjc06.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.146) 40.4/37.5ms
10   [AS174] [PSINET-B2-54] isc.sjc06.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.13.218) 48.6/41.1ms
**   [firewall] the next gateway may statefully inspect packets
11   [AS1280] [ISC-NET3] int-0-2-0.r1.pao1.isc.org (149.20.65.18) 38.3/38.2ms
12   [AS1280] [ISC-NET2] [target] pub2.kernel.org (204.152.191.37):80 42.4/38.1/*/*/*ms
```
Amazing but true. :O


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## ArielMT (Mar 28, 2009)

I stand rather shockingly and a little pleasantly corrected, at least about the cities.  Now if only it could be true for the more rural areas.


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## Coug (Apr 6, 2009)




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## Runefox (Apr 6, 2009)

Wow, they're really big on the downstream in South Korea, aren't they?


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## Carenath (Apr 6, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Would love to try this off one of the new 10gigE optical segments.


Would love to have a 10GigE pipe to the internet *wants*.


Irreverent said:


> That blog is fairly representative of the scene, circa '05.  Been quite a lot of deregulation since, and still quite a lot to go.  The amount of needless regulation foisted on the CDN telco's by the CRTC [like having to lose 25% market share in a segment before you can lower prices and compete...hard to do when you have 90% of the market could take decades] makes the US FCC look like a stamp collecting club.  Mind you, trying to provision a nation  larger than the US with half the population of the greater LA or greater New York area has a few challenges too.  There are economies of scale not being realized here.


Regulation doesnt explain why Telus and Bell decided to charge for incoming text message.
Regulation doesnt explain why (at least Bell) charge for calling toll-free numbers... a fact that annoyed the hell out of me... because it made my pre-paid calling card useless unless I used the landline.
Bell was actually the cheapest of the prepaid providers there at the time... I needed a phone... I couldnt unlock my iPhone3G... and I wasnt paying hyper-extortionate roaming charges curtasy of Rogers.

There is nothing wrong with stopping a company from lowering its prices if you want competition to enter the market... but you have to bring in other measures to ensure competition CAN enter the market and drive consumers over to them.... Telling Rogers for example that it cannot lower its prices to try and lower its market-share relative to Bell and Telus would work better... if they ALSO told Rogers and Fido to split into seperate companies.. and then required both companies to allow MVNO networks and make it easier for other GSM operators to enter the market.

I still feel (though this is largely personal opinion) that Bell and Telus were idiots for using CDMA when using GSM would have allowed them to compete better with Rogers... and most CDMA networks are in my experience, terrible.

If anyone wants a free Canadian Bell MobiltÃ© CDMA handset, I'll mail you mine.



Which is why the GSM road map merges with CDMA 1x it to form HSPA at version 4.  [/quote]



Runefox said:


> Wow, they're really big on the downstream in South Korea, aren't they?


From what I heard, its not uncommon for South Korean's to have 1Gbps residential connections.


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## RyanWulf (Apr 6, 2009)

stupid comcrap D<


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## Adelio Altomar (Apr 6, 2009)

This is with my sister's AT&T connection. Much faster and stable than the old one I used to have that is now dead at this point. =D


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## Adelio Altomar (Apr 6, 2009)

Carenath said:


> From what I heard, its not uncommon for South Korean's to have 1Gbps residential connections.



What!?!? Damn! I could download a OS .iso file within a few seconds with that! :O

What _makes_ a connection fast, anyway?


Edit:

I've been trying as far east as possible. This was the best I got so far! Much farther yet better than Houston one I got:


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## Irreverent (Apr 6, 2009)

Carenath said:


> Would love to have a 10GigE pipe to the internet *wants*.



Its quick.  But ports on line cards are hard to come by now that i don't mange that group and all the diagnostic span ports were in use.  If I get a chance, I 'll run the test.




> Regulation doesnt explain why Telus and Bell decided to charge for incoming text message.



From  memory, there was a CRTC order to make the SMS mesaging interoprate between the carriers (cause it didn't) and the wireless ILEC's said "Fine, but we're charging for it."  And then marketing came up with some pathetic bundles that are really only used by business and they don't sms, they email.  Marketing.....*spits*



> There is nothing wrong with stopping a company from lowering its prices if you want competition to enter the market... but you have to bring in other measures to ensure competition CAN enter the market and drive consumers over to them.... Telling Rogers for example that it cannot lower its prices to try and lower its market-share relative to Bell and Telus would work better... if they ALSO told Rogers and Fido to split into seperate companies.. and then required both companies to allow MVNO networks and make it easier for other GSM operators to enter the market.



So the CRTC and Industry Canada (our gov't Ministry in charge) tried this.  They created a spectrum auction to auction off bandwidth, capping and reserving some for new entrants.  It raised a lot of tax money, but left the new players too broke to actually become MVNO's.  *shakes head*



> I still feel (though this is largely personal opinion) that Bell and Telus were idiots for using CDMA when using GSM would have allowed them to compete better with Rogers... and most CDMA networks are in my experience, terrible.



Its not as idiotic as you think.  CDMA requires fewer towers for more coverage and higher bandwidth....important consideration when you've got 33Million people spread out over a country the size of the USA.  That's why Rogers only does well in cities, they can't afford a sea to sea network at GSM deployment prices.  

And CDMA in Canada is probably the BEST in the world.  We own that space.  And by leveraging each other Telus and Bell do compete very well with Rogers.  And when the HSPA net comes on line we're going to take more of their market share and a big chunk of the VanOC 2010 Olympics-roaming too.  

[ontopic]


> From what I heard, its not uncommon for South Korean's to have 1Gbps residential connections.



Most Koreans live in MDU's, so that would be easier at the access layer.  Backhaul aggregation must be a bitch.

Has anyone run the speedtest from a IP enabled cell phone?  Betcha Eternal Flare has one.  He's in Hong Kong.


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## Irreverent (Apr 6, 2009)

Adelio Altomar said:


> What _makes_ a connection fast, anyway?



In layman's terms, throughput.  The ability to move a set amount of data in a specific period.  The more data per period, the faster the connection.  Glossing over latency, overhead, error rates and a host of other concerns, all things being equal, the higher the throughput, the faster the connection.

Its also a function of the ability to send data (the server has to be able to handle the requests) and receive data (the end device has to be able to accept it).  Most personal computers can handle data at a rate up to 100mb/s so that's usually not the bottleneck, although droping a 100mb/s nic into a slow PC doesn't guarantee you'll get that data rate.  Bus, memory and disk speed can all add to the equation, particularly on the server side of the equation.

This gets tl:dr really quick.  Try here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throughput


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## ToeClaws (Apr 7, 2009)

Decided to try testing early morning before the students wake up and ruin the bandwidth for everyone:







Not much better than before.  I ran it against a number of other systems in the US and Canada, and couldn't do better than this.  That's only about half the bandwidth we actually got, so seems I might be limited more by the other end. :?


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## Carenath (Apr 7, 2009)

Well I've never been able to get Speedtest to show more than 2Mbps up/down when I tried it in college a few years ago.. All the colleges here are connected to HEAnet (Higher Education Authority Network), which is a national backbone, they provide the college I went to with a 1Gbps fiber line.
HEAnet is peered with JANET in the UK and with academic networks in North America too. I assume the University of Ontario is connected to a national backbone/academic network provided by the Canadian (or Ontario) equivilent of HEAnet, which probably peers with HEAnet.

HEAnet also provides a national mirror server: ftp.heanet.ie which has 10GigE connectivity (and I so want that for myself >> ). The best way we have to test our download speeds, is to download a large ISO from that mirror server, since its peered with all the local ISPs via INEX, and it provides us at least, with a more accurate download speed. On a good day, if I download from that server... I get 2.2MBytes/sec which is fairly accurate for my 20Mbit connection.

Now, a large number of local mirror servers seem to be provided by Universities, or the Networks that connect them to the internet... e.g. the UK's national mirror is provided by the University of Kent. I would suggest trying ftp.ca.debian.org or http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/centos/ and downloading an ISO from there... you might get closer to your top speed.


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## Zero_Point (Apr 7, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> That blog is fairly representative of the scene, circa '05.  Been quite a lot of deregulation since, and still quite a lot to go.  The amount of needless regulation foisted on the CDN telco's by the CRTC [like having to lose 25% market share in a segment before you can lower prices and compete...hard to do when you have 90% of the market could take decades] makes the US FCC look like a stamp collecting club.  Mind you, trying to provision a nation  larger than the US with half the population of the greater LA or greater New York area has a few challenges too.  There are economies of scale not being realized here.



...So, wait, Canada being as large and relatively barren as it is has 10Mb internet available to so many people, and yet it'd cost me $60 a month for 256Kb DSL?! *rage goes here*



ArielMT said:


> My crappy DSL in the village I live in.  It's sad, but I can't even use the ISP I work for at my home.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I hear ya. We're on a rural co-op here, and the best internet we can get is 1Mb wireless for $100 a month, plus a $200+ installation fee. :/

As for me, right now I'm on dial-up, which is costing us $24 a month.


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## Carenath (Apr 7, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> From  memory, there was a CRTC order to make the SMS mesaging interoprate between the carriers (cause it didn't) and the wireless ILEC's said "Fine, but we're charging for it."  And then marketing came up with some pathetic bundles that are really only used by business and they don't sms, they email.  Marketing.....*spits*


It didnt interoperate because GSM uses one standard and CDMA uses something else. The US has the same problem. That's still no excuse to charge for receiving text messages, especially since you cannot refuse to receive a text message, its all-or-nothing, besides, Rogers dont charge for it, so Bell and Telus doing this, is shear profiteering, nothing more.



> Its not as idiotic as you think.  CDMA requires fewer towers for more coverage and higher bandwidth....important consideration when you've got 33Million people spread out over a country the size of the USA.  That's why Rogers only does well in cities, they can't afford a sea to sea network at GSM deployment prices.


Yes but there is a difference between the CDMA air interface, and the CDMA network standards. It is the latter that I think was idiotic because its a pseudo-propretary standard, one of the main reasons I dont like Verizon, Sprint, Bell or Telus. Unless things have changed... none of those networks are interoperable save for roaming agreements. And if you have one of their phones, dont bother bringing it with you if you want to travel to Europe.

GSM is a global standard, and somehow other countries dont seem to have much difficulty in providing near total coverage, even up in the mountains where you'd be lucky to get a TV signal .



> And CDMA *on my network* in Canada is probably the BEST in the world.  We own that space.  And by leveraging each other Telus and Bell do compete very well with Rogers.  And when the HSPA net comes on line we're going to take more of their market share and a big chunk of the VanOC 2010 Olympics-roaming too.


Fixed.

Seriously though, you still forget the fact, that if I want to use my own phone, Im stuck with the network that supports it, which will most likely mean Rogers because the VAST majority of handsets are made for GSM networks, CDMAone/CDMA2000 models are far and few, because the global demand for them isnt very high. On top of that.. if I choose to move networks, I dont want to be forced to buy a new phone, at least here, all I have to do is change SIM cards and Im good to go... can you honestly say you could do the same on a CDMAOne/CDMA2000 network?
And correct me if Im mistaken... but HSPA is unrelated to EVDO or CDMAOne/CDMA2000... its UMTS... and part of the GSM family 



> Most Koreans live in MDU's, so that would be easier at the access layer.  Backhaul aggregation must be a bitch.


That's also why DSL worked so well there... most of those MDU's have their own exchanges operated by the complex owner, so the DSLAM equipment was installed locally.



> Has anyone run the speedtest from a IP enabled cell phone?  Betcha Eternal Flare has one.  He's in Hong Kong.


I would run it for you, and show you just what kind of speed you could get off O2's UMTS network, but I dont have a cellphone that supports Java applets, or Flash. Suffice to say however that the maximum speed available is 7.6Mb/sec and in practise you'll get between 1.5 and 4Mb/sec depending on your distance from the mast. Upgrades are being pushed out slowly to expand the coverage of the 3G network moreso than upgrades to speed. Most people here living in the cities have DSL or cable broadband, and not many people give a crap about the speeds they can get when downloading off their mobile phone's data connection... the main reason being that mobile broadband is overpriced... the standard charge here is still 1c/KB unless you pay for a data plan. The majority of people who do use mobile broadband here, are those who cannot get a conventional service like cable or DSL.. or those who just dont use the internet much to justify geting a conventional service.

Keeping on topic... when I get my paws on a HSPA modem, I'll let you know what kind of speed i can get at the edge of O2's 3G network, since I have next to no 3G signal where I am.. but if I head into the city center I get full bars. Regarding phones and phone services... mobile data tends to be a non-issue for me unless Im going someplace I cant get access to proper internet.


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## Irreverent (Apr 7, 2009)

Carenath said:


> I assume the University of Ontario is connected to a national backbone/academic network provided by the Canadian (or Ontario) equivilent of HEAnet, which probably peers with HEAnet.



ORION, the Ontario Research and Inovation Optical network.  Its a stub off of CA*net or CANARIE ; which is a Bell OC192 based core and transport.



Carenath said:


> It didnt interoperate because GSM uses one standard and CDMA uses something else.



It works now.....has for years.  I can sms any Canadian vendor.



> Rogers dont charge for it, so Bell and Telus doing this, is shear profiteering, nothing more.



As explained in the other thread, these are semi-regulated services here, with the disadvantage against the largest incumbents to try and foster competition.  If it were a true free market, we'd just give the service away, until everyone else was bankrupt.  Then you'd see some profiteering!   Same goes for the ISP division.



> And if you have one of their phones, dont bother bringing it with you if you want to travel to Europe.



Both Telus and Bell have world phones for the last three years.  Dual mode gsm/cdma devices from LG and I swear by my 8830 Rim.



> GSM is a global standard, and somehow other countries dont seem to have much difficulty in providing near total coverage, even up in the mountains where you'd be lucky to get a TV signal .



With more than 300 carriers world wide, CDMA is at standard too.  Remember, Europe is not that much bigger than the Ontario-Quebec corridor.



> Fixed.



Funny. 



> And correct me if Im mistaken... but HSPA is unrelated to EVDO or CDMAOne/CDMA2000... its UMTS... and part of the GSM family



It is confusing.  The CDMA/GSM "specs"  merge at what I'll call 3.75 to form an HPSA stepping stone to LTE.




> Keeping on topic... when I get my paws on a HSPA modem, I'll let you know what kind of speed i can get at the edge of O2's 3G network,



Yeah, I'd be curious.


----------



## ToeClaws (Apr 7, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> ORION, the Ontario Research and Inovation Optical network.  Its a stub off of CA*net or CANARIE ; which is a Bell OC192 based core and transport.



Aye - that's a separate transport from the Internet though.  Other major universities in the province are connected by the ORION link, which is 1Gbps.  I can't run the test using that path, but if I could, Carenath's suggestion of using a nearby university would show some insane speeds.


----------



## Carenath (Apr 7, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Aye - that's a separate transport from the Internet though.  Other major universities in the province are connected by the ORION link, which is 1Gbps.  I can't run the test using that path, but if I could, Carenath's suggestion of using a nearby university would show some insane speeds.


No doubt.. but that's also why I suggested downloading an ISO from a mirror server located in Canada.


----------



## Irreverent (Apr 7, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Aye - that's a separate transport from the Internet though.  Other major universities in the province are connected by the ORION link, which is 1Gbps.  I can't run the test using that path, but if I could, Carenath's suggestion of using a nearby university would show some insane speeds.



Damn.  Everyone that built that network took early retirement, and i have no comprising photos of anyone that's left....that could run a speed test from CA*net.

Are you guys plugged into the Quebec/Ontario Terrabit optical research network?  I thought that was off of ORION/CA*net too.


----------



## ToeClaws (Apr 7, 2009)

Carenath said:


> No doubt.. but that's also why I suggested downloading an ISO from a mirror server located in Canada.



Aye - and I usually do if I'm getting an ISO that has a mirror within one of the schools on ORION.  Wicked to see a CD-sized ISO go zipping down in a few seconds. 



Irreverent said:


> Are you guys plugged into the Quebec/Ontario Terrabit optical research network?  I thought that was off of ORION/CA*net too.



Not on that one.  Sounds pretty slick though.


----------



## DragonKid (Apr 7, 2009)

Here's mine:



This might not be as fast as some of you on here, but for me, it's worth it. Especially since it's not costing me a cent. That's a nice benefit when you work for the ISP, especially a small rural one. The highest speed we offer is 6 Mbps, so I get the "Employees Only" speed.

The name of my ISP is HartelCo. The cost for the 6 Mbps service is $89.95.... Yeah, I know. That's too expensive, but that's what happens when there are no competitors.


----------



## Ty Vulpine (Apr 7, 2009)

Not bad.


----------



## jagdwolf (Apr 9, 2009)

Using a satellite modem.  weather is over cast so it sucks.  no shooters for me, just mmo's


----------



## Carenath (Apr 9, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> It works now.....has for years.  I can sms any Canadian vendor.


Not so good if you want to text international numbers.. O2 and the other 3 networks peer with a Virginia based company called Infonomatch which does on-the-fly conversion from GSM to CDMA, and its allowed users here, to (finally) text their friends and such in the US and Canada. Now I found that before, they always got my messages, but I couldnt receive theirs. I blamed it on the US/Canadian networks being awkward at first.
My friend told me that when he tried texting me from his Bell phone in canada, he got a reply from Bell stating that the number was invalid and a link to a website with instructions for international texts, he was replying to my message, the number on his screen being 011353xxyyyyyyy (x being the area code and y being the number).

Bell were completely unhelpful... because there is NO customer support for prepaid users at all.. no number he can ring for it, nothing. The issue was with Bell, and I solved it by changing my number to one issued by my operator, and not my previous operator when I got back home.



> As explained in the other thread, these are semi-regulated services here, with the disadvantage against the largest incumbents to try and foster competition.  If it were a true free market, we'd just give the service away, until everyone else was bankrupt.  Then you'd see some profiteering!   Same goes for the ISP division.


That's probably true.. but I still think its pathetic to charge for incoming text messages.. its bad enough charging for calls received.
And nothing personal... but I wouldnt touch your ISP with a 50-ft pole.. nor any other ISP that throttles... not the least of which because anyone reselling ADSL... is also throttled. Besides... Cable is faster.



> Both Telus and Bell have world phones for the last three years.  Dual mode gsm/cdma devices from LG and I swear by my 8830 Rim.


The selection of GSM-only devices is IMO far superior, like Nokia's N-series.



> With more than 300 carriers world wide, CDMA is at standard too.  Remember, Europe is not that much bigger than the Ontario-Quebec corridor.


GSM is used everywhere, CDMAone/CDMA2000 is not. While there are a good couple of CDMA operators in North and South America, there are none in Europe, just one in China and some of the surrounding areas... I believe the only CDMA network in Australia has closed down and moved to GSM and/or UMTS.



> It is confusing.  The CDMA/GSM "specs"  merge at what I'll call 3.75 to form an HPSA stepping stone to LTE.


I simply wasnt aware that the specs converged.. As I understand it, and feel free to correct me if Im wrong, UMTS evolved from GSM, where as CDMA-based networks went a different route with EVDO/CDMA2000.
UMTS networks gained HSDPA and HSUPA which bring the downlink speeds up to 14Mbit/sec. HSPA is HSDPA + HSUPA... There is also HSPA+.. which sees the downlink speed approaching 42Mbit/sec. HSDPA networks are still UMTS networks... Im curious to know how/where they merge..
LTE on the other paw, is something I am looking forward to seeing.



> Yeah, I'd be curious.


I'd have to get my paws on one first... I can get one for a competitor network but no idea if I can make it work with my O2 SIM card... worth a shot though.

** on topic **


DragonKid said:


> Here's mine:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's actually pretty fast, I wouldnt complain about it, especially since you dont have to pay for it.
And I know all about lack of competition -> Slow service -> High price... that is still the norm here for a number of people.. Im enjoying the benifit of telling said incumbent telco to suck a lemon by dropping them and moving to a faster and cheaper alternative.. yay for unlimited unthrottled cable!


Ty Vulpine said:


> Not bad.


30Mbit or 50Mbit?


----------



## lilEmber (Apr 9, 2009)

Wireless:


----------



## Irreverent (Apr 9, 2009)

A tonne of telco bashing that is marketing driven, not technology based snipped.....(and I agree with most of it, what marketing does with my network.....)



Carenath said:


> Im curious to know how/where they merge..



Its sort of one of those "SONET is a transport", "No, SONET is a protocol" discussions.

WCDMA becomes the air interface for HPSA (and variants) in the spec leading up to LTE.  Most NA/SA GSM vendors are deploying HSPAx over WCDMA or WiMax.  Again, WCDMA offers better spectrum use and fewer towers, thus being cheaper to operate of the long term.

Appears that all of my weblinks are suffering link rot, and since my Tazer (c) is discharged and I'm fresh out of raw meat, I dare not head down to Engineering and ask.

Maybe start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WCDMA



> And nothing personal... but I wouldnt touch your ISP with a 50-ft pole.. nor any other ISP that throttles... not the least of which because anyone reselling ADSL... is also throttled. Besides... Cable is faster.



Meh.  Cable is only faster on uncongested head ends.  Once you're over about 30% subscription on a head end, cable starts to degrade.....ungracefully.   Its a shared, not switched media.

And all Canadian ISP's will be throttling by the end of 2009.  Its just a change to the billing model and rate plan. "Unthrottled" will just cost more; (but will still be throttled).  




NewfDraggie said:


> Wireless:



Inukshuk, Nomad (fixed base ethernet) or actual gsm/cdma wireless?


----------



## Carenath (Apr 9, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Inukshuk, Nomad (fixed base ethernet) or actual gsm/cdma wireless?


Its pretty good either way.. if a wireless techonology could economically provide those kinds of speeds to the rural areas here, it would be worth investing in. People here living in the countrside are limited to dial-up (often no faster than 12k thanks to pairgains) or "mobile broadband" which is the 3G service provided by any of the 4 operators that have coverage in that area.. chances are because of the distance you wont be able to get HSDPA coverage and would be stuck to using EDGE or GPRS as a fallback,


----------



## lilEmber (Apr 9, 2009)

No...just wireless router, I get faster connections wired because the thing blows, we need a new router.


----------



## Irreverent (Apr 9, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> No...just wireless router, I get faster connections wired because the thing blows, we need a new router.



Ah.  So its a wired DSL via a wireless router from Stentor.  Interesting.  I wonder if its a config error in their database, Stentor is not an ISP per se.  I would have thought Aliant or Bell.


----------



## lilEmber (Apr 9, 2009)

It's Aliant.


----------



## Carenath (Apr 9, 2009)

@Irreverent: Reply sent by PM... I'm dragging my own thread off-topic.
@Newfdraggie: In either case, that doesnt seem that bad.


----------



## Ty Vulpine (Apr 9, 2009)

Carenath said:


> 30Mbit or 50Mbit?



Honestly not sure.


----------



## lilEmber (Apr 9, 2009)

Carenath said:


> @Newfdraggie: In either case, that doesnt seem that bad.


Did you notice my ping? That was the closest server to my location.
And it's unstable, one moment it will be that, another moment it will be twice the ping, half the download/upload rate, and another moment it will be nothing at all. When gaming on TF2 every 30 or so seconds everybody shifts about ten feet because it locked up for a split second, and I get 120 FPS so it's not graphical.


----------



## Runefox (Apr 9, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Ah.  So its a wired DSL via a wireless router from Stentor.



Actually, 'round these parts, Aliant/Bell customers are given Siemens Speedstream 6520's. I'm not sure exactly what brings up the Stentor bit, but Aliant/Bell and Rogers are the only broadband providers in his/our area. Our backbone to the mainland comes in the form of several underwater fibre cables - As far as I know, once past the consumer equipment (DSL/PPPoE or DOCSIS), no step involves wireless.

A note about the 6520: It's shit. Wireless performance is sketchy - There are areas within its range with high signal strength (~75%) where no data can/will be transmitted (move an inch in a particular direction and you get it back; verified across several devices), its processor hasn't got enough speed to handle high numbers of connections (thus providing a throttle for torrents since the entire connection slows down, including the internal connection to the router's setup page), the 802.11 implementation doesn't support ASCII passphrases (it converts them to 128-bit hex), and it's just... Shit.


----------



## lilEmber (Apr 10, 2009)

That's what I was thinking, I want to get a nice brand new wireless router, something wireless N; any suggestions Runefox? :3

Maybe with a better router it will be a lot better.


----------



## ArielMT (Apr 10, 2009)

You kids and your multi-megabit connections...  Why, back in my day, I had to use a 14.4 PC card modem that overheated so badly that I had to keep it in the refrigerator, and it was that or nothing.

True story, BTW.  I had a Megahertz modem that I bought as part of a refurbished Toshiba T4600C lappy with Windows 95 on floppies.  Greatest 'Net-ready slow-as-molasses computer I ever had.  But the modem card did have a tendency to overheat.

Anyway, I took it with me to DG in '97, where I amazingly became hooked on the 'Net.  My ISP was Cable & Heartless Wireless Diego Garcia.  They had dial-up service that was a crap-shoot between 56K and 28.8K modems answering.  The pricing was rather steep, though.  A hundred dollars to set up, $20 a month to have the account, and five cents per connect-minute for service.  Once addicted, my bill was huge.

Also, for currency conversion, DG may be a British territory, but the official currency is the US dollar.


----------



## Irreverent (Apr 10, 2009)

Runefox said:


> I'm not sure exactly what brings up the Stentor bit,



Stentor shows up in the speed test result that Newf posted.  I just thought it was odd.  Must be an old DNS or location lookup for the IP segment he's on.



> Our backbone to the mainland comes in the form of several underwater fibre cables



I wasn't on the boat that laid that cable....but I signed some of the cheques.   And there's still a massive single point of failure; we had a CO fire (2 years ago now?) that found it.  The Rock doesn't have nearly enough path diversity.



> - As far as I know, once past the consumer equipment (DSL/PPPoE or DOCSIS), no step involves wireless.



Aliant is supposedly rolling out Nomad/Inukshuk but i don't know how far along they are.  Haven't managed that space in a long time.



> A note about the 6520: It's shit.



Yep.  Its got all kinds of multipath radio issues with its antenna.  CPE like that is petty much a "throw away" for the ISP.


----------



## Irreverent (Apr 10, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> That's what I was thinking, I want to get a nice brand new wireless router, something wireless N; any suggestions Runefox? :3



I'm just not feeling the love Newf......  

Ok, so I'm a Linksys bigot.  Get a Linksys 610N with integrated usb for external shared disk arrays.  Or any of these, really  http://www.linksysbycisco.com/CA/en/products/Routers


----------



## lilEmber (Apr 10, 2009)

I was thinking this (D-link DGL-4500 xtreme N gaming router), but I'm kinda sketchy about D-Link for some reason, and this simply seems too good to be true.


----------



## Runefox (Apr 10, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> I was thinking this (D-link DGL-4500 xtreme N gaming router), but I'm kinda sketchy about D-Link for some reason, and this simply seems too good to be true.



D-Link is pretty good nowadays, and one of their gaming routers would probably do you pretty well. All it is is QoS, but from what I hear, it does a good job of it. Only thing is, though, in order to make use of the draft-802.11n features (which you'd want), you'd need a draft-802.11n adapter, which you don't have. You'd probably want to get their Xtreme N series PCI adapter if you want to get as close as possible to wired speeds. Well, really, any dual-band draft-802.11n adapter would work to minimize latency the same. One band sends, one band receives, unlike single-band 802.11n or any previous 802.11 standards (which spend some time sending and some time receiving). It's cheating (the technology isn't the one doing it, it's the extra radios), but it works.

As for Linksys...



> Ok, so I'm a Linksys bigot. Get a Linksys 610N with integrated usb for external shared disk arrays. Or any of these, really http://www.linksysbycisco.com/CA/en/products/Routers



Internal antennas is a no go with me. It's too bad the only non-alarm clock routers they have that are any decent (WRT54GL) are only 802.11g, but that's the way it goes, I guess. Convenience and form in the face of function. Thanks, Cisco. No, really.


----------



## lilEmber (Apr 10, 2009)

Yeah, I know I'd need a new card, but that seems like a great one to go along with that D-link router, thanks! :3


----------



## ArielMT (Apr 10, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Stentor shows up in the speed test result that Newf posted.  I just thought it was odd.  Must be an old DNS or location lookup for the IP segment he's on.



ASN lookups from a local cache, perhaps?  That would also explain why my home's smaller ISP shows up as the name of a larger interstate provider...


----------



## X (Apr 13, 2009)

fios, it isnt bad, but i do have a wireless connection in my room away from the router. ill test with a direct connect and at school later.

home (wireless) :


----------



## Tycho (Apr 13, 2009)




----------



## Shark_the_raptor (Apr 13, 2009)

Tested in Internet Explorer-





Tested in Firefox-


----------



## QwertyQwert (Apr 13, 2009)

Alaska internet sucks...


----------



## Werevixen (Apr 14, 2009)

ISP: UPC
Cost: â‚¬65/month.
Upload: 1Mbit/sec
Download: 20Mbit/sec
Cap: 60GB
Throttling: None
Type: Cable
Speedtest:


----------



## Silverstreak (Apr 14, 2009)

meh.


----------



## alaskawolf (Apr 14, 2009)

QwertyQwert said:


> Alaska internet sucks...






acs dsl  about $90 a month


----------



## Irreverent (Apr 14, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Internal antennas is a no go with me.



Why?  Based on experience or just gut feel?  Most enterprise grade units use internals, and I've not found a residential situation that has issues.  Mind you, a wood and brick dwelling will have different impacts than a concrete slab appartment or townhomes.


----------



## MIDI-Kitty (Apr 14, 2009)

T1/cable
SBC Global






meh, only good ISP out here


----------



## MIDI-Kitty (Apr 14, 2009)

alaskawolf said:


> acs dsl  about $90 a month




holy crap, 90 a month for that?


----------



## ArielMT (Apr 14, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Mind you, a wood and brick dwelling will have different impacts than a concrete slab appartment or townhomes.



Or adobe walls half a meter thick.

Edit: For me, an internal antenna is just as much a dealbreaker as an external integrated, simply because the antenna can't be swapped out for one more directional or higher gain.


----------



## Zero_Point (Apr 14, 2009)

Herbalizedmind said:


> holy crap, 90 a month for that?



I think we've already discussed that not everyone gets awesome interwebz for cheap like you "normal" people 'n yer dad-gum color TVs 'n cellular phones 'n vidjima games...


----------



## Runefox (Apr 15, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Why?  Based on experience or just gut feel?  Most enterprise grade units use internals, and I've not found a residential situation that has issues.  Mind you, a wood and brick dwelling will have different impacts than a concrete slab appartment or townhomes.



Both. Internal antennas piss me off primarily because they aren't modular, and then you have the issue of having lower-gain antennas built-in to the router, with no way to swap them out. There's no reason to have an internal antenna on a router; Portable devices, sure, but in the interests of range and connection stability, and out of principle, I simply cannot bring myself to use a router with an internal antenna, even if draft-n supposedly gets twice the range (marketing blather at its finest; 802.11n in my experience has modest range advantages, if any in certain situations, over 802.11g. They use the same radio power, 802.11n simply makes use of advanced spatial coding. At best, you'll likely get more signal integrity at the edge of the signal radius).

The other issue is precisely townhouses and places with thick insulation, like many buildings around here. High-gain antennas were a fairly fast-selling commodity at our shop when I used to work there - Lots of heavily-insulated buildings, especially business buildings with heavy brick and mortar, where the standard consumer WiFi antenna just doesn't have enough power to get through. It also rules out the use of directional antennas.

I'm similarly at odds with USB stick adapters, but to a lesser extent.


----------



## Irreverent (Apr 15, 2009)

ArielMT said:


> Or adobe walls half a meter thick.



Not typically a problem in Canada, but I see your point.


----------



## Ty Vulpine (Apr 18, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> Not bad.



Ugh, lot worse this morning:


----------



## Carenath (Apr 18, 2009)

Runefox said:


> ...They use the same radio power, 802.11n simply makes use of advanced spatial coding. At best, you'll likely get more signal integrity at the edge of the signal radius)..


The nice little wireless router I use at home.. transmits at about 70mW.. But since I dont run standard firmware.. its not that hard for me to increase the power level to 250mW.. which might well be useful if I want to convert the device's board to work on point-to-point links.. since the actual WiFi chip itself is a PCMCIA card connected to an internal adaptor.. the internal antennas are connected to that card.. so its possible to replace them with external ones if I choose to.

Im convinced that the best gear you can get, is the one you assemble yourself.. because companies suck horribly at providing any usable gear to anyone but enterprise customers... and then enterprise-grade gear is overpriced and not always any better (see Cisco).


----------



## Ty Vulpine (Apr 18, 2009)

Ty Vulpine said:


> Ugh, lot worse this morning:







Much better :3


----------



## Shino (Apr 18, 2009)

Ok, here's a question / lead-in to an epic battle.

Both Comcast and Verizon have said they're going to roll out their DOCSIS 3.0 and FiOS networks up here eventually. Which one should I keep my eye on? Or should I just stick with the local subsidised 12M Fiber Optic?


----------



## ZentratheFox (Apr 19, 2009)

Hate that the closest server has such "bleh" Rx rates. Makes my upload speed look slow...
FiOS 20Mbps concurrent.


----------



## Ty Vulpine (Apr 19, 2009)

Shino said:


> Ok, here's a question / lead-in to an epic battle.
> 
> Both Comcast and Verizon have said they're going to roll out their DOCSIS 3.0 and FiOS networks up here eventually. Which one should I keep my eye on? Or should I just stick with the local subsidised 12M Fiber Optic?




Best just to stick with what you got right now. When Comcast and Verizon say they're going to do something, DON'T BELIEVE THEM! I tried to get Verizon, the tech came out to try to hook up a "dedicated data line", discovered that he couldn't do it himself, so claimed he'd put in a work order for someone to come out and hook up the second phone line to the house so it'd work. I waited almost a month, called 1-2 times a week about why nobody showed, kept getting the run-around (despite the fact that I had paid $125 in installation fees and equipment fees), and finally cancelled the service and sent the stuff back and requested a refund. Never got it. Assholes.


----------



## Shino (Apr 19, 2009)

I wasn't putting much stock in it anyways. I was more curious as to who would win the not-so-epic battle, DOCSIS 3 or FiOS? Then again, I feel like I'm comparing apples to pineapples.


----------



## ZentratheFox (Apr 20, 2009)

I'd put my bet on FiOS, but only because of Verizon's superior customer service and their unwillingness to cave to things such as metered bandwidth and the RIAA's push for 3-strikes policies.


----------



## Ruko (Apr 20, 2009)

Mine is ok.


----------



## Carenath (Apr 20, 2009)

ZentratheFox said:


> I'd put my bet on FiOS, but only because of Verizon's superior customer service and their unwillingness to cave to things such as metered bandwidth and the RIAA's push for 3-strikes policies.


I didnt think 3-strike policies had made it that far out of France... here the French are trying despiratly hard to make that a legal requirement for all EU ISPs... and the French are responsible for the bastardised IPRED bullshit that we will probably have to impliment... for the wise.. IPRED is the reason two of the guys behind The Pirate Bay were jailed after a show-trial. France just seems to love fucking things up for the rest of us >.>

As for metered bandwidth versus unmetered bandwidth.. the classic argument here is that those who want unmetered bandwidth are those that are downloading mostly illegal movies, games and such from torrents and sites like Rapidshare.. the argument often holds valid because quite a lot of people who pay out for faster internet connections do so, because they want to download more... and I dont buy the "were only downloading linux ISOs" argument from most of those people... because to be blunt.. most of the people I see posting on other sites about it.. couldnt tell Debian from CentOS.

However... I dont stereotype, or subscribe to that classic argument.. I pay out more, so I can get an unmetered 20Mbit cable connection, presently the fastest internet connection in the country.. and that should be increased automatically to 50Mbit in a few months.. maybe a little faster in a year's time when we see the introduction of EuroDOCSIS3 and 120Mbit speeds currently available in the Netherlands for 80Eur/month... also with unlimited bandwidth :3


----------



## Zero_Point (Apr 21, 2009)

Carenath said:


> As for metered bandwidth versus unmetered bandwidth.. the classic argument here is that those who want unmetered bandwidth are those that are downloading mostly illegal movies, games and such from torrents and sites like Rapidshare.. the argument often holds valid because quite a lot of people who pay out for faster internet connections do so, because they want to download more... and I dont buy the "were only downloading linux ISOs" argument from most of those people... because to be blunt.. most of the people I see posting on other sites about it.. couldnt tell Debian from CentOS.



I just want faster t00bz so my Steam games update quicker. :<


----------



## ZentratheFox (Apr 21, 2009)

Zero_Point said:


> I just want faster t00bz so my Steam games update quicker. :<



Even at 2.5MB/sec, Steam does not update quickly.


----------



## ZentratheFox (Apr 21, 2009)

Carenath said:


> I pay out more, so I can get an unmetered 20Mbit cable connection, presently the fastest internet connection in the country.. and that should be increased automatically to 50Mbit in a few months.. maybe a little faster in a year's time when we see the introduction of EuroDOCSIS3 and 120Mbit speeds currently available in the Netherlands for 80Eur/month... also with unlimited bandwidth :3



That's incredibly cheap for 120Mbit.... o.o The question is... is that concurrent?! 

Yeah, thats the thing I love about getting the top speed packages on major ISP's. FiOS is planning on upping the 20/20 subscribers (read: me!) to 50Mbit concurrent. And the top tier 50/20 is moving to 100/50. Oh, what a glorious day that will be.


----------



## Carenath (Apr 21, 2009)

ZentratheFox said:


> That's incredibly cheap for 120Mbit.... o.o The question is... is that concurrent?!
> 
> Yeah, thats the thing I love about getting the top speed packages on major ISP's. FiOS is planning on upping the 20/20 subscribers (read: me!) to 50Mbit concurrent. And the top tier 50/20 is moving to 100/50. Oh, what a glorious day that will be.


No.. 120MBit down, 10Mbit up... I dont see the obsession with having fast upload speeds unless you are hosting servers... which on Verizon is pointless since they block port 80 and others... UPC doesnt block ports.. and they dont mind you running servers, they just accept no responsibility for your content, or you getting hacked.


----------



## Nalo (Apr 21, 2009)




----------



## ZentratheFox (Apr 21, 2009)

Carenath said:


> No.. 120MBit down, 10Mbit up... I dont see the obsession with having fast upload speeds unless you are hosting servers... which on Verizon is pointless since they block port 80 and others... UPC doesnt block ports.. and they dont mind you running servers, they just accept no responsibility for your content, or you getting hacked.



I host servers. 

And they don't block anything on the business accounts.


----------



## Emperorpenguin (Apr 25, 2009)

ISP: Telecom Italia
Download: 7 Mbit
Upload: 512 kbit
Data limit: none
Cost: 20 â‚¬ per month

No restrictions of any kind (like bittorrent et similia)
Vote: 9/10

There is also a 20 Mbit contract but costs 30â‚¬ per month and I don't need it


----------



## Shino (Apr 27, 2009)

ZentratheFox said:


> That's incredibly cheap for 120Mbit.... o.o The question is... is that concurrent?!
> 
> Yeah, thats the thing I love about getting the top speed packages on major ISP's. FiOS is planning on upping the 20/20 subscribers (read: me!) to 50Mbit concurrent. And the top tier 50/20 is moving to 100/50. Oh, what a glorious day that will be.


 
Oh, I can't wait. I'm getting sick of the fact that other first world countries trump our bandwith by factors of 10+.

Hell, CANADA ranks higher than we-

Oh, hell. *puts hand over muzzle*

I'll just shut up now...


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## Irreverent (Apr 27, 2009)

Not my usual connection speed, but good to know that it works in an emergency. 

No, I don't want to talk about it......


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