Coming soon: 5 Mbps down?!

[Jeff]

Just got an email from my cable co, (Bright House Networks):

Our high speed Internet services just keep getting faster (press release). Starting January 31st, 2005, you'll be able to fly through the Internet at speeds of up to 5 Mbps.

The price is staying the same, too. Rock on!

Hopefully this will be a national trend for all of you on cable/dsl.

[deadzone]

Jeff 5 down rocks hard my friend.  Cox just upgraded us here in Lafayette to that and it's a really noticeable change from our puny 1.5 down we used to have.  They went to 512 up as well which is a lot better than the lowly 128 down we used to get.    

(Ironically this happened right around the time when Lafayette decided to try it's hand at a Muni-Fiber rollout funded through taxes and casino revenues...)   heheh

[Aliasbuck]

Me too Jeff - I was wondering how they'd stack up against Time Warner, who surprisingly enough was pretty good in central florida before Brighthouse bought it.  Bump up from 3 to 5 at the end of January - woohoo!

[Daehawk]

We just jumped to 3 this year..hope ours goes up too. I want my up to go up too ..ours is 256 but only goes about 190

[stiffler]

I just want to know how many gigs they would let me download before they cut me off.  The temptation would be incredible!

I'm on Comcast so naturally I'm a little paranoid...

[Balshazaar]

I'm on Comcast, and I hate it.  Boo.

[Daehawk]

Charter here.

[Spiff]

Cox here also.

I went to 5 quite a while ago (with no price increase either) and it's awesome. I keep getting calls from SBC asking me to sign up for their DSL. When I ask if they'll give me the same speed, they say sure. Then I ask how much? The first time I laughed so hard I thought the guy was gonna dial 911. Now, I tell 'em my speed and price, and say "Thanks, but your phone service is bad enough. I don't talk a helluva lot on the phone, but I damn sure use my internet service."

[gameoverman]

I have Verizon DSL but compared to you guys I might as well be using my old 14.4 modem.  :cry:

[Rhinohelix]

When they get Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) rolled out, it will be a brave new world.  FTTP means 30MB down, along with all kinds of other goodies.  With the new FCC rules, all the Baby Bells are transitioning to become data companies who also, additionally, by the way, Oh I almost forgot, do voice. 2006 is looking good, at least for major urban center users.

Rhino

[vagabond]

When they get Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) rolled out, it will be a brave new world.  FTTP means 30MB down, along with all kinds of other goodies.  With the new FCC rules, all the Baby Bells are transitioning to become data companies who also, additionally, by the way, Oh I almost forgot, do voice. 2006 is looking good, at least for major urban center users.

Rhino

Last job I had was doing tech support for SBC DSL, so I know something about this. Anything over about 2 MB down isn't going to do very much. Because you can only download something as fast as it is sent. Unless you are tying into a universities T1 line or something you aren't going to recieve anywhere near that speed. It's pure bragging rights, it's not going to do much for performance, but hey if you are getting it for no extra change can't lose. Certainly wouldn't pay any extra for it tho.

[Hamsterball_Z]

I've had 6M/608 DSL for a while now and I only pay $45 a month for it.  640Kps downloads are nice.    

[Thin_J]

I've had 6M/608 DSL for a while now and I only pay $45 a month for it.  640Kps downloads are nice.    

You shutup. You just shut up right this minute.

Some of us are still getting by on 80Kps downloads, despite our supposed speed ratings being 3M/768k.

Lame! Unfortunately it's either this or truly terrible cable internet service, and I'll choose a slightly slower at times but extremely consistent connection over the garbage cable providers here anyday.

[jpinard]

I have Comcast too.  Royal scumbags.  They raised out price to $62.00 per month, stupid assholes.

[vagabond]

I went to 5 quite a while ago (with no price increase either) and it's awesome. I keep getting calls from SBC asking me to sign up for their DSL. <<<<<

As I said until recently I was doing tech support for them. They will charge you extra to get premium service and supposedly give you a higher speed. They don't actually do anything, just take the extra money. There is DSL that can go through the powerlines. It's a few months to a year from being in existance but if they can give any kind of speed with that, at a low price, it will put SBC DSL out of business rather quickly. Which is one reason I don't work for them anymore.

[unbreakable]

Last job I had was doing tech support for SBC DSL, so I know something about this. Anything over about 2 MB down isn't going to do very much. Because you can only download something as fast as it is sent. Unless you are tying into a universities T1 line or something you aren't going to recieve anywhere near that speed. It's pure bragging rights, it's not going to do much for performance, but hey if you are getting it for no extra change can't lose. Certainly wouldn't pay any extra for it tho.

Concurrent connections, buddy    So I can download pr0n, music, and listen to a streaming webcast, all at the same time.

[vagabond]

Last job I had was doing tech support for SBC DSL, so I know something about this. Anything over about 2 MB down isn't going to do very much. Because you can only download something as fast as it is sent. Unless you are tying into a universities T1 line or something you aren't going to recieve anywhere near that speed. It's pure bragging rights, it's not going to do much for performance, but hey if you are getting it for no extra change can't lose. Certainly wouldn't pay any extra for it tho.

Concurrent connections, buddy    So I can download pr0n, music, and listen to a streaming webcast, all at the same time.

If you actually have 3 connections just so you can do that, I would say you are more than a bit overly obsessed with the internet. Might wanna open one of those "door" things and go through.

[Hamsterball_Z]

You shutup. You just shut up right this minute.

 :twisted:  

[Zekester]

I recently signed up for Verizon's DSL.

Since I didn't see, at first, what speeds they were offering, I just assumed it would be the standard 768/384.

I was absolutely shocked when a speed test revealed 1.5m down  :shock:

For $35/month I'm quite happy, thankyouverymuch  

[unbreakable]

If you actually have 3 connections just so you can do that, I would say you are more than a bit overly obsessed with the internet. Might wanna open one of those "door" things and go through.

I meant connections in the TCP/IP sense, not actually having 3 cable modems.  I hope you guys realize it is possible to download from more than one source at a time  

[vagabond]

If you actually have 3 connections just so you can do that, I would say you are more than a bit overly obsessed with the internet. Might wanna open one of those "door" things and go through.

I meant connections in the TCP/IP sense, not actually having 3 cable modems.  I hope you guys realize it is possible to download from more than one source at a time  

Hmmmm, if you don't have 3 completely separate connections you will still have significant slowdown regardless of what your maximum download speed is. If you really want to download quickly, or have smooth streaming video, you should only do one at a time. Having a higher speed might help a little but I don't know this for sure, but I doubt it. I thought about his a little more. Think of the connection like a water pipe. It doesn't bring the first stuff in then pile the next thing on top and clear of the first using your supposed extra download speed. Both things are going through the same place at once. They are taking turns going down the same place. Be better if I could draw you a picture, I can't think of a better way to explain tho. Since you will have more coming in in total the bigger pipe will help some because there is overflow room but you are still doing 3 things on top of each other. Not separately.

[unbreakable]

Thanks, but I do this for a living.  If you have 5mbps download, you shouldnt have any trouble getting streaming video while downloading, or at least not more than you would have in any other situation.  Since you are maxing out whatever the upload rates of the servers are, very little you do is going to have an effect on that, granted your hardware isnt bottlenecking, of course.

[Rhinohelix]

It doesn't bring the first stuff in then pile the next thing on top and clear of the first using your supposed extra download speed. Both things are going through the same place at once. They are taking turns going down the same place.

 

I don't know if you know as much about that as you think.  If you are running the limit of senders maxing out their pipe, while you have leftover bandwidth, downloading from more than one source doesn't hurt you at all.  All the packets do indeed come down the same pipe but your PC is alwys sorting those things out between packets and applications with minimal effort.

With some tweaks, though, IE has a default limit of two connections.  Allow the MS/firefox/opera ranting to begin!

Rhino

[tiny ogre]

Cox upgraded to 5Mbps a while ago here.  A few times I've even gotten up to 7Mbps.  Not sure how that happened