Headlines - Google to help identify bandwidth-throttling ISPs

[HEXUS]

Not sure exactly how much bandwidth your ISP is allowing? Google hopes to provide the answers.

Read more.

[jimbouk]

Awesome, who wants some money back from their ISP then

[The Jambo]

I'm supposed to be getting over 2Mb/s, but for the last week or so, my max has been 300kb/s, if it connects at all.

I dont need google to tell me whats going on there really. Damn Sky internet.

[Nickg]

Provides "Upto" 2mb/s - I suspect that will become the norm in ISP Advertising...

still who will regulate them? The ISP's are running around unchecked currently, mis selling broadband left right and center!

Unfortunately the current "regulator" seems to be mis-interpreting the term; "Unlimited", which implies - No Limits, to be without limits etc.

How can you advertise a product as having; No download limits , and then impose download limits?!

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/webs...duct.do?id=227

[xenos]

300KB/s is actually not even possible on a 2Mbit connection.


You need to be aware that your connection speed is measured in Mb, and thats not the same as MB.

The ISP will be giving you a figure such as 2Mb, 8Mb or 24Mb..


There are two arguements here:

The first is not being able to connect at the advertised speed eg. 8Mb. This can be caused by a bad line primarily. You might be able to shorten the cable length in your home to improve this.

The second being able to connect at the advertised speed but with download speeds not matching that. This is called throttling and its done by your ISP (and its the main moan people have).


Now the fastest speed you can download at is your ACTUAL connection speed maybe 7Mbit a second if you live a distance from your exchange, thereby giving the ACTUAL download speed (ONE EIGTH - you are converting from bits to Bytes) of that 7Mbit a second, 7168 / 8 = 896KB/sec.

Of course you still have to be connected to a server that can supply you at that 896KB/sec, or its not going to look like your getting all you are paying for.


In the majority of cases, the problem with cheap internet is more to do with contention ratios (the number of people sharing your connection) being too high, or being connected to cheap or old ISP server equipment, wrecking your ping time, making the Internet hang before a page loads and making games jerky.


With regard to download limits, at the moment the ISP's can say 'no limits' but in practice you need to see if there is a 'Fair Usage Policy' which would have the actual limits. Its a sly tactic, and 'fair usage' doesnt always seem to mean fair, as you could be given a 1GB download limit in an extreme case, which you could potentially use in just an hour on some fast connections! Something like 40GB plus is in reality 'fair'.

Just remember you get what you pay for!

Hope this helps.

[duodecim]

Most websites can't sustain a 4Mbit or 8Mbit connection, nor is it even relevant for such relatively small items like webpages and some in-page graphics. The only time I get to saturate my 8Mbit connection, is when I upgrade Debian from a near mirror.

A much bigger issue is ping time and hop count. If you need 8 hops to make it out of your ISP's network, that's going to influence the web and gaming experiences much more. Plus, 8 hops is 8 points of failure, and while internet routing can heal itself good enough, the lack of redundancy at the typical ISP means you will be cut off in case anything goes wrong with any of those local hops.

It's probably a lot better to most to have a consistent 4Mbit or even 2Mbit with low hop count than to get impressive but only sporadic bursts and inconsistent performance and reliability.

Nevertheless, it's always interesting to see what Google comes up with next.

[elrao]

Originally Posted by xenos

300KB/s is actually not even possible on a 2Mbit connection.

They did say 300kb/s which if it was meant as kilo bits then that is perfectly possible on a 2Mb line, 2Mb/s = 2048kb/s

[moogle]

Originally Posted by duodecim

Most websites can't sustain a 4Mbit or 8Mbit connection, nor is it even relevant for such relatively small items like webpages and some in-page graphics.

It's because of the multiple connections to the site requesting many files, starting many transfers. It's always a slow startup speed when requesting each file.

Originally Posted by jimbouk

Awesome, who wants some money back from their ISP then

They'll hit you with that "up to" stuff if you try and get back money, unless you strike a deal with them