amig0
Server Admin
Posts: 768
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Post by amig0 on Sept 15, 2011 9:21:37 GMT -5
Hello guys, yesterday i changed ISP provider and now supposly I got a 20bmps through fiber optic service... For the first month I am getting "50mbps dl speed". I did some tests like playing videos,etc..The videos are being loaded so fast that I can't complain(yet ), so I tested something diferent like downloading a big file. I tried SQL Denali ISO file (which is something around 3.8gb) and I noticed that the transfer rate was at 1.4mbps (through cable, not wireless). Which should be a normal speed? according to my contract? I experienced the same crap with DSL..i had 2mbps download contract and I always downloaded around 110kbps-210kbps eventhough its a different ISP provider. I also took a quick look last night at qaw's server and Im pinging almost the same (80-110ping, again through cable). The wireless connection is even slower but that's normal i guess? How about you? which contract do you guys have and at what speed do you dl stuff?/ping?
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Post by Zohar{QAW} on Sept 15, 2011 10:24:06 GMT -5
Are you clear on the difference between megaBITs (mb) and megaBYTES (MB)?
ISPs rate and sell lines based on kilo/mega bits. Most client software shows transfer rates in kilo/mega bytes. A 20mb (megabit) line will have a theoretical maximum transfer rate of 2.5MB (megabyte) per second. Given IP overhead and congestion in the cloud, I'd say 1.5MB to 1.8MB is the max you can expect.
Your DSL was 2mb (megabits) so the theoretical max was 250KB/sec. Again, I would expect more like 150-200KB/sec in actual performance.
Ping has nothing to do with bandwidth, because ping measures time, and more bandwidth is NOT more speed.
It can be confusing since everyone refers to the "speed" of their internet connection, but what we all should say is "bandwidth".
Think of it like a highway with a speed limit of 50 miles per hour. It takes a car 10 minutes to get from point A to point B at 50 MPH. If you add a lane to the highway, more people will get from A to B in the same amount of time, but none of them moved any faster. Adding more lanes will further increase the number of people who get from A to B, and still - none of them move faster than 50MPH.
The people in this analogy are your packets. With higher bandwidth, you can move more packets to and from the server at one time, but your packets do not get there any faster than they did before. ET uses very little bandwidth to begin with, so the ability to send more packets at once has zero affect on the game.
Ping is mostly related to physical distance from the server. Assuming all local ISP options are running fairly well, they will all get you about the same ping regardless of type or bandwidth (above about 128KB/s anyway)
Edit: A note on "fiber"
OK so you have FIOS or some other "fiber" service. This should be faster since it is using light rather than electricity, right?
Well it probably is, by a very small amount. The fact is, your traffic is hitting copper somewhere, likely in many places, during its travels through the cloud. Fiber is fast, as backbone and leased lines it is the fastest thing you can get. And I mean actual physical speed, aka ping. If you had a pure fiber connection between you and the server, your ping would go down considerably, even at the same distance.
Your traffic is treated just like any other public internet traffic however - it is routed over many networks, most of them wired with copper, before it gets to the ISP. It is probably still on copper for a good portion of its travels inside the ISPs network too.
In a practical sense, your traffic to/from our server is on fiber only between you and the ISP, and then again at the point where our data center accesses the backbone. In the middle, it is travelling the same copper based networks as it always has, and thus pings just about the same.
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Post by <AL>{QAW} on Sept 15, 2011 17:24:09 GMT -5
hmmmmmmmmm i always thought light and electrons through a conductor traveled at same speed...........as well as radio waves....
traceroute if windows still has it will trace all the stops your packets make on the way to a given ip number and will show where packets are getting slowed sometimes your isp can improve service given this information.
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amig0
Server Admin
Posts: 768
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Post by amig0 on Sept 15, 2011 20:17:27 GMT -5
Ohhh thanks for the feedback Zohar. I guess the fiber optic is more like propaganda..at least after reading what you said. still I was downloading at 1.4megabytes...i should be downloading at 5.. or is there another factor that I am missing?
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Post by I3lessed on Sept 18, 2011 14:13:43 GMT -5
all depends on the feed too. You can only download as fast as it can be supplied to you
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Post by Porridge{QAW} on Sept 22, 2011 22:50:04 GMT -5
Gotta love Zobot's explanation of bandwidth versus latency. He's explained the differences before ... but this one has got to be the best. ;D
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