Effect of Blizzard on internet
 

I ordinarily get 35 Mbps down and 6 up.

Guess everyone is watching Netflix.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/6048071256.png

No problems in Brunswick :D

http://www.speedtest.net/result/6050007043.png

Here in SoCal, the only Blizzard we know is the video game maker and the dessert at Dairy Queen. :D

But seriously I don't think it is because of the people watching Netflix.. probably some nodes are out of power and you have to be re-route half way across the country and back. :p

Latency was still 55ms, which is about normal. After about 10pm I got 32Mbps.

My money's on it being an overloaded neighborhood node.

The backbone of the internet usually lives at datacenters with redundant power/generators/etc. Even the little ISP that services my office has ~24-48 hours' worth of backup battery power on-site and generators.

Now, what DOES affect my network speeds is rain fade due to the microwave (and higher) links used by my ISP. At one of our remote locations you can see the signal strength actually vary with the tide.

I bet some snow got into the Intertubes. Probably a bunch of data all backed up in there... Anyone have a shovel?

You must be Dilbert's boss! What an honor to see you on FT.

2.5 years ago when I moved back to Brooklyn I had horrible service from TWC that took 11 visits to resolve. Turned out the cable leading to my building that had a large crack in it but was in a difficult to access location, atop a police precinct, that TWC refused to try to access for years. My neighbors told me to give up and just deal with speeds of 5-7 down and 1 up on a 50mbps down package. I'm not good at just accepting sh!tty service so I kept on them and eventually got them to get access and fix the bad cable. My neighbors noticed it immediately. TWC even had to come back out to tone down the signal from the street as they had just been increasing it and increasing it to try to push signal to our building.

Each time I see a FIOS truck I get excited and then letdown :(

Do ISPs in the US usually offer such low upload speeds?
I mean, 6 up and 120 down seems a bit...well, unfair.


Here in Pakistan, I recently got FTTH in my area, and this what I usually get:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/6063350537.png

Not uncommon to have wide up to down ratios. My experience is that the ISP is usually not misleading, and will be up front about what to expect. It's then up to the buyer to determine what other options they may have for service.

I'm on Time Warner/Spectrum, and subscribe to 100 down, 10 up. Actually get 118 down and 12 up.

They should be engineering the wireless links to account for rain fade. Do you experience a drop in service as well?

Usually, yes, but it really depends on the provider. Charter/Spectrum is notorious for very low upload speeds, but I don't really have much of a choice here.

Only 26 Mbps with FTTH?

Limiting upload speed so you can't function well as a server of any kind of commercial website or database. It is kind of strange because my phone's upload speed is like 30+Mbps while my broadband at home is 5.

US has always had lower download, think a few offer different today

US has a lot more subscribers, and didnt have postwar rebuilding etc

I'm on a 30 Mbps monthly plan, it's supposed to give me 30 down and 10 up, which it usually does.

I would've gone for a higher plan, but they're so ridiculously expensive here, that 30 Mbps/month is for about 85 USD a month.

And the highest plan my ISP offers for FTTH is 100 Mbps, which costs in excess of 200 dollars a month, excluding taxes.

The only advantage I have on FTTH over DSL is the fact that it's rock solid in terms of reliability, whereas the DSL would disconnect about 3 times a day because of the crap infrastructure in my area.

Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to host a server on your phone :P

Postwar rebuilding? ISPs didn't exist until the 1990s.

Many parts of the US can get 100+ Mbps download as a non-expensive option, especially in Comcast areas and Time Warner areas where they have already built out Maxx. DOCSIS 3.1 should be generally rolled out by next year some time, which will allow for 1 Gbps.

While historically it may be true that the US has lagged, it doesn't necessarily follow that that's the case in perpetuity.

I'm pretty sure there are countries that haven't been quite as domestically conflict-free as the US ... especially since the '90s ;)

The speed and cost is partially technology and partially who's competing in your neighborhood.

Prior to Google's arrival, we had AT&T and Time Warner as choices...both super-expensive and low speed. 6-10 Mb/s would cost you $50-80/mo. We get better than that off of the local cell tower.

Then Google started digging in our 'hood, and suddenly AT&T started offering 200 Mb/s for $70/mo. Time Warner went low-cost: $24.99 for 30 Mb/s. (We added TW at this point.) This was almost a year ago.

TW and AT&T did no visible work in our neighborhood: the new speeds and plans were delivered over their existing wires. (Whether they upgraded hardware nearby, I have no idea.)

Finally, in January, Google finished wiring to our house, and we dumped TW. In part because the service required a modem reboot every day and in part because what we were really getting on wireless devices in the house was much lower. Now we're at $70/mo. and we get right at a gig to the wired connection and around 400 Mb/s to wireless devices.

For now, and probably for a few years to come, we will consider that "fast" and not *too* expensive.

It might not be expensive for the US but it's still very expensive relative to other countries. And I don't see that changing any time soon, either, as it's nearly impossible to compete in that space. (Just ask Google how that's going.)

One possibility in the medium to longer term is LTE and 5G becoming dense enough to be a viable option vs. wired internet. Some wireless carrier in Australia recently tested gigabit LTE, for instance.

I think we were lucky to get Google Fiber when we did: they've definitely slowed their rollout.

During substantially long (in terms of time) power outages in my USA neighborhood, the local companies set out gasoline-powered generators to power the local-larger what-seem-to-be controller boxes in my neighborhood.

About 5-8 years ago, parents were having internet connectivity problems in their home (one via Ethernet to modem, other via WiFi) their in-home wired ISP. Telephone call from parents (via a 7 hour time difference) ... "The Internet is broken." Mom! Dad! The Internet cannot "break." The whole point is that it wasn't designed to "break." Is the wire snapped by a tree branch from pole to house? No. Good. Is the power on in the house? Yes! Good. Try turning modem/router off then back on. Wait a minute... The Internet works again! Great Mom & Dad, I'm going back to sleep! Strangely, when I woke up, there didn't seem to be any worldwide newsflashes that "The Internet" had been broken. Phew!

I can usually get faster when not using wireless...

http://www.speedtest.net/result/6081576981.png

I'm so envious of people with FTTH. Though I have never heard anyone say anything nice about CenturyLink.

They've been rock solid actually. I've had a few minor outages, always late-night/early morning and never more than 30 minutes to an hour. Activities that I would attribute to maintenance. I move a lot of large content around and regularly get +500Mbps (60MB/s) file transfers. I pay < $150/month.

I haven't had any issues and things "just work". If I had to call them or something, I'm sure there is a huge chance that it could become painful. For now, I'm pretty happy. I think Comcast +1Gbps is available in the area too, but there really hasn't been incentive/need to switch.

Here is an updated one from closer to my 802.11AC access point. The equipment you're using can play a big role in achieving Internet performance (especially at higher speeds).

http://www.speedtest.net/result/6083347415.png