Internet Connection Speeds (Was: Articles Worth Reading)

I'm not complaining about my regular fiber... 100 Mbit/s / 100 Mbit/s.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Good luck finding that kind of bandwidth in a lot of the U.S. also. And if you do, good luck being able to afford it a lot of the time on a median income... Parts of Europe are starting to look very promising in regard to living as compared to the U.S. this last decade or so for this and other reasons.
 
Yes, here in the US, bribing politicians is legal (though it's called lobbying). The ISPs usually manage to block any competition, so there will be bandwidth limits and relatively slow Internet speeds. The best representation of what goes on in the US can be found here in this theoretically satirical video (with strong language). I didn't want to post the media, just a link to the YouTube page. However, on the new forums it seems to create a media link, and I'm not sure if that is allowed.

Blah, adding URL tags didn't work either. For the moment I'll just say do a search for 'honest cable ad'.
 
Last edited:
nestux said:
I'm from the third world Dutch, here that kind of connections is a myth.
Click to expand...
It's also pretty hard to come by here, and I am sitting in Germany. You would think that it would be somehow a political priority to do something about that. But I see the problem - I mentioned politics and thinking in the same sentence. My bad. This is also a third world country when it comes to the Internet.
 
We get 100 Mb/s down and 4 Mb/s up for $55/month at home and business. That's fine but I was doing well when it was only 30 Mb/s. I don't know why a home user needs that much speed. Sometimes they download big files, yes, but that's rare.
 
Would you be able to resist 100 Mbit/s up/down for 40 euros per month though? With a static IP?
 
100 Mbit/s for 40 euros, and static IP? That's very cheap. I have had 100 Mbit/s up/down included in my rent, but the IP is dynamic. Soon when I'm moving the connection would be 21 Mbit/s down, 4 Mbit/s up, dynamic IP. And the cost would be 21 euros per month.
 
American companies were recently lobbying to have 5 Mbps considered "broadband". It makes the numbers of who has "broadband" less embarrassing.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
We get 100Mb down and 4Mb up for $55/month at home and business. That's fine but I was doing good when it was only 30Mb. I don't know why a home user needs that much speed. Sometimes they download big files, yes, but that's rare.
Click to expand...

Must be nice. Where I'm living similar is only available through one ISP, only as business class, and costs $160/€126. Also when you have a family all watching cats on YouTube for half the damn day bandwidth can matter...

phoenix said:
You can't get much more third-world than the US of A when it comes to Internet access. :D
Click to expand...

Ain't that the truth. :(
 
Last edited:
I'm going to go with that Europe and Asia have better/faster bandwidth per currency than here in the States. They all claim "up to x Mbps" and you'd be lucky if you get 1/4 of that. My connection is 20 Mb/s down and the highest I've gotten was 7.214 Mb/s, that's $60/month.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
# speedtest --server 4358
Code: 
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Testing from Fiber Nederland B.V. (x.x.x.x)...
Hosted by KPN (Amsterdam) [14.43 km]: 10.649 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 87.28 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 82.61 Mbit/s

This is while the wife is watching Netflix HD to the tune of 7 Mbit/s, so these numbers are slightly lower than they should be.

3853527005.png


When my (American) wife moved to the Netherlands she was concern-trolled by some of her American acquaintances:
"Do they have Internet there?"
"Why yes, they do."
 
phoenix said:
You're American? ;) You can't get much more third-world than the US of A when it comes to Internet access. :D
Click to expand...
It needs to be mentioned that the US is 10x larger and more than most of the countries who brag about their Internet access. Plus, it's often mentioned that there are areas that can only get dialup but those areas are rural countrysides and not cities.

EDIT: I used to own property in a small town with a population of 4600 people in the middle of nowhere. I just looked and they can get 30 Mb/s Internet for US$50/month.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
It needs to be mentioned that the US is 10x larger and more than most of the countries who brag about their internet access. Plus, it's often mentioned that there are areas that can only get dial up but those areas are rural countrysides and not cities.

EDIT: I used to own property in a small town with a population of 4600 people in the middle of nowhere. I just looked and they can get 30Mb internet for US$50/month.
Click to expand...

I can agree with that, however I think a large part of the problem in the States is lack of competition in large areas controlled by only a few large ISPs. I really think last-mile pipes should be laid and controlled by each local municipality leaving ISPs to deal only with the service creating better competition, prices, and service throughout. Internet access has now become a necessity, not an option any more and should be built out and regulated accordingly as such.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
It needs to be mentioned that the US is 10x larger and more than most of the countries who brag about their internet access. Plus, it's often mentioned that there are areas that can only get dial up but those areas are rural countrysides and not cities.
Click to expand...

It should also be added that there has been government funding and a "universal access charge" paid to phone companies that was supposed to fund broadband access to their subscribers. In rural areas around here, they did not do that. They could not be bothered to put in a couple of DSLAMs to provide for rural dialup users even a few miles from a fiber optic line. Lately, they have discontinued dialup service, so the rural people are stuck with only bad options, satellite or cell service.
 
DutchDaemon said:
Note that almost all of the Dutch fiber network are initiated by towns and built by specialist contracting firms (like Reggefiber, Fype, and Glashart), not ISPs, though these firms may offer triple-play services, like mine does. Telcos are slowly catching on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_broadband
Click to expand...

The lack of a "Dislike" button on the forums is mildly bothersome after reading that DutchDaemon ;), but that is exactly how it should work IMO. Unfortunately, here the ISPs own most of the pipes and I don't see them giving up or selling them at any point or for any reason.
 
wblock@ said:
It should also be added that there has been government funding and a "universal access charge" paid to phone companies that was supposed to fund broadband access to their subscribers. In rural areas around here, they did not do that. They could not be bothered to put in a couple of DSLAMs to provide for rural dialup users even a few miles from a fiber optic line. Lately, they have discontinued dialup service, so the rural people are stuck with only bad options, satellite or cell service.
Click to expand...
What's really sad is it wasn't just a few million dollars funded through federal taxes for this. So far it's been billions with little to no results to speak of that I can see.
 
protocelt said:
I really think last mile pipes should be laid and controlled by each local municipality leaving ISPs to deal only with the service creating better competition, prices, and service throughout.
Click to expand...
Then you'd be relying on the government to become experts in all that, servicing it, and also being directly involved in private enterprise which is not allowed here except for monopolies like utilities. Even then, the utilities run their own lines in and service them but are regulated.

However, if Internet access became a utility, I can see what you said happening, but it would be handled just like water, power, gas and sewer is now, which is pretty good, but I don't think we'd ever see advancements as we do now.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
[...]
However, if internet access became a utility, I can see what you said happening, but it would be handled just like water, power, gas and sewer is now, which is pretty good, but I don't think we'd ever see advancements as we do now.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that would be the case though. ISPs would still be free to continue to do business as they have been. The only change would be the fiber to the home (dumb pipes) would be controlled by local municipalities instead of the ISPs (similar to what DutchDaemon posted earlier). That would create room for smaller ISPs creating competition and further advancements as a result of that competition.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top