So, as a Groovy Reader, you are in for a treat because today I’m going to talk about: So, let’s jump right into it!
How to convert Marketing Internet Speed/Bandwidth Lingo into Real English
Be an informed consumer. It’s even more important to be a GROOVY informed consumer! So let’s take a look at a Verizon FIOS Internet Advertisement and dissect it.
Note: Mbps above is supposed to be written as mbps. Verizon marketing guys should fix that. WOW! 10 mbps Download and 2 mbps Upload! That’s amazing!! Right? At those speeds, I should be able to download an entire DVD in…
1 DVD = 4 Gigabytes4 Gigabytes is 4000 MegabytesSo at 10 Mbps the math would be 4000/10 = 400 seconds! WOW!! An entire DVD in 6.6 Minutes!
Actually no. You see, here’s the problem. Mbps does not = MegaBytes per second. Mbps = MegaBits per second. Let’s quickly get familiar with the Math of the Verizon FIOS Ad above using 10 mbps: Reference: Numion.com has a GREAT Data Unit converter I highly recommend! So the actual math for a DVD download at 10 mbps would be:
1 DVD = 4 Gigabytes/GB4 Gigabyte = 4000 Megabytes/MB4000 Megabytes = 32000 Megabits32000 Megabits/10 mbps = 3200 seconds or 53 Minutes
Here are a few more examples of downloading at 10 mbps/Verizon FIOS Ad Above: Note: These are BEST CASE scenarios. Normally if you get 50% your speed, you’re doing good! Clear as mud? Just remember: 8 Megabit (mbps) = 1 Megabyte (MBps) How-To Test your Internet Connection Bandwidth Speeds There are a couple of places that I frequent for this purpose, and both are dead simple:
http://speakeasy.net/speedtest/http://speedtest.net/
Usually, I use Speakeasy.net. It doesn’t have all the eye candy of Speedtest.net, but I like simple and clean.
- Just Open your Browser and Type http://speakeasy.net/speedtest/ in the address bar. 2) Once the page loads Click the closest Server Location to begin.
The SpeakEasy site will test out your Download and Upload speed. When the test finishes, your Upload, and Download speeds are displayed using kbps or Kilobits per second.
In my example, my test came in at 14,740kbps Download and 11435 kbps Upload
14,740 kbps = 14.7 mbps which = 1.84 MBps or Megabytes Per Second11,435 kbps = 11.4 mbps which = 1.42 MBps or Megabytes Per Second
Not bad EXCEPT, I’m currently paying Verizon for the 20 mbps Download and 20 mbps Upload FIOS plan. It looks like Verizon Owes me some bandwidth! :) Personally, I’m not going to call Verizon and demand my money back. Why? Well, the problem (that we’re ALL going to start facing) is that the bottleneck with Internet access is no longer you and me. The bottleneck is slowly shifting to Websites and Internet Services. Websites like Youtube, Netflix or even Speakeasy only have so much bandwidth, so all their customers have to share what they have. Just think what happens to Speakeasy if 100 FIOS customers all hit the server at the same time to test their internet connection. Now granted, HUGE companies like Google and Microsoft have super groovy Internet Pipes, but smaller sites don’t. And when people like me connect and try to consume a full 20 mbps, the Website/Service might not have enough Bandwidth to give me all 20 mbps. So be patient. As consumers get faster Internet pipes, so do Websites and other Online Service providers. This article was fun to write. I would LOVE to hear about your Speed Test results! Do YOUR results match what your ISP sold you? In your comments below, please include the following so we can compare and get some perspective:
City and Service Providermbps plan (Up/Down)Speed Test Results
One thing to note, on Windows machines, I recommend running the tests using Internet Explorer. Running the tests with Firefox I consistently get slower upload speeds (4000-5000 kbps slower upload). Some say it’s because the FLASH plugin for IE is faster than Firefox but I have no idea. Check on your own and post your comments below. Anyway – here are my stats: Seattle WA with Comcast No idea what I pay for…. 12832 mbps up / 5393 mpbs down Not bad for free WIFI I guess ;) 24922 kbps Download / 35029 kbps Upload Upload faster than Download… I can only assume this because we have huge pipes for our website…. Firefox – 31877 kbps Download and 36327 kbps Upload IE7 – 31464 kbps Download and 36902 kbps Upload Also, you used a ratio of 1000 when going from KB to MB, MB to GB, etc (like 4 GB = 4000 MB in your DVD example), but this is slightly off. A kilobyte actually has 2^10=1024 bytes, which is approximately 1000. A megabyte has 2^10=1024 kilobytes, or 2^20=1,048,576 bytes, etc (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/bytes3.htm). Hope to see you around! ‘Speedboost’ technologies, rolled out by Comcast as well as some others like Time Warner cable (Powerboost). These basically prioritize the first 10MB of a download or upload which can cause speed testing results to be much higher than actual averaged speeds. Though its not listed in ‘megabytes’ in the customer facing documents, it simply says the first 10-15 seconds of file download(or upload) is boosted. This of course relies on bandwidth availability. Mind you, some companies also use ‘on network’ speed tests rather than ‘off network’ so that their internal pipeline rather than external services are the bottleneck. This provides better information in some cases, unless your area is very geographically distant from the on-network server doing the speed test. Another thing to remember on speed test results is peak usage, especially on shared pipe (cable) systems as compared to fiber or DSL. I deal with speed-related complaints for a major cable ISP and between 6pm and midnight, kiss full bandwidth availability goodbye as everyone logs into Xbox live to stream Netflix, hits those viral videos they couldn’t watch at work, goes to MySpace and hits twenty pages in a row loading audio streams…etc…etc. Not to mention P2P applications. With DSL or Verizon, your speed test results will be less impacted by on-network clogging (bandwidth shared on the ISP networks) than it will be by off-network issues (server, webserver, and hosting bandwidth capacity). A final note: Speedtest.net has more providers for their speed-tests, and it definitely makes a difference. From work at the ISP, I can find speeds anywhere from 5megabits per second to 35 megabits per second depending on whose server I am testing to and how the backbone routing, peering agreements, and intermediary providers are set up. Some of the crazier issues are problems with the TCP/IP stack itself which require either a TCP optimizer (also known as an invitation for your friend BSoD to visit and beat up your Windows PC for awhile), or a reset of the TCP/IP stack. Parents often call with speed issues that turn out to be uTorrent or BitTorrent run by another user on the computer, eating all the bandwidth because nobody throttled the torrent program from using all available bandwidth. Other program-related problems can be antivirus programs, or dueling software firewall programs. Generally, when you call an ISP to run speed-tests when you aren’t getting a speed near to what you are purchasing, make sure you’re prepared. 1. Go direct. Modem->PC. Do not be wireless. If you can, use ethernet rather than USB connection. Routers and wireless connections can all impact your speed, especially with unsecure wireless connections where someone is leeching – or your 2.4ghz cordless phone, microwave, or another radio frequency contamination is breaking up your signal. Additionally, make sure to restart the modem, then reboot the PC. Some modems have batteries – make sure the modem fully powers down and re-connects. 2. Turn off your software firewall programs. Most firewall programs such as Norton or McAffee can be turned off for a specific period, in case you forget to reactivate them after the speed testing. 3. Turn off any P2P/torrent programs. They’re just bandwidth hogs if you don’t know how to manage them. 4. Make sure your antivirus program is not currently running a scan, which can eat RAM/CPU processing cycles so that your pages load slowly. 5. Clear cache on your web browser. If you can, test with two – there are some subtle types of corruption that Internet Explorer can experience, especially related to add-ons, that may be eating your bandwidth. 6. If you don’t have firewall, Antivirus, and anti-spyware – download and run antivirus and anti-spyware. Many major ISPs provide free antivirus and internet security suites with your service. Clean computers are happy computers! There are some other thoughts, but really, this covers 75% of the speed issues we get calls on. Another 20% is related to radio frequency problems – generally issues with cabling, ethernet cords, modem problems. The final 5% is network congestion which is difficult to resolve. But yeah, I mean broadband modems. Dialup modems are their own special nightmare, or services like Wild Blue or other satellite-based stuff. My old dialup 2400baud is someplace in my mom’s basement. Glad to put some info out there on this – one of these days I will have to write up a whole intermediate level document on this issue with more detailed information since most users wouldn’t know what switches to use with netstat, how to reset TCP/IP on Windows XP or Vista, how to reset Winsock, etc. But I hope it helps your readers. Later! It’s Friday and I’m outta here. Gonna cruise the Forum first of course. ;) My suggestion would be to test it during different times of day to rule out server load however still, it’s a long way to go and i’m guessing mileage will vary. :) Test different servers from around the US and pull an average. For your T1, at least your not sharing the link BUT, your carrier will probably only give you an SLA on your speed based on a complicated algorithm to their POP and not to a website 6000 miles away :) Good news is, perhaps your a bit more educated now due to this groovy article and you know how to ask the question to get accurate data. :) ??? Download Speed: 79184 kbps (9898 KB/sec transfer rate) Upload Speed: 10341 kbps (1292.6 KB/sec transfer rate) I’m in Chicago and I work for an ISP :) Now seriously, that is smoking fast! More notes – to optimize results, all tests run over Windows 7 OS on Intel i3 CPU/2.13GHz processor/4 Gigs RAM w/ direct connection to DOCSIS 3.0 modem (disabled my wireless connection for this), reset my TCP/IP stack from command line (netsh int ip reset c: esetlog.txt), flushed my DNS cache, reset IE settings. pay for 30 mbps down and 5mbps up get 30mpbs down and 4.28mbps up on Speakeasy.net I’m happy. Comment Name * Email *
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