djdanska
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Glen Ellyn, IL
clubs:
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·T-Mobile US
 ·A + Net
 ·Mediacom
·RCN CABLE
| reply to LinuxJunkie
Re: [News] PowerBoost
said by LinuxJunkie  :Okay buggs, explain to me why my NetPerSec screenshots show a CONSISTENT 10.7 Mbps for the first ten or fifteen seconds of my download and then an IMMEDIATE decrease after that period of time to my PRECISE cap of 6.6 Mbps -- which also remains consistent. I haven't had "bursting" here in CT since about two or three years ago when they enabled "traffic shaping" or QoS or whatever you want to refer to it as at the CMTS. It sounds to me like your area simply still doesn't have QoS enabled which is ridiculous considering it should have been enabled nationally well over a year ago. Your lucky! I lost traffic shaping a long time ago! I just got it back this last weekend. (Yay!) I had huge bursting instead. Im now getting much higher and longer bursting. |
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Eatmeingreek
Gentard
join:2001-06-29
San Francisco, CA
| reply to bitbuckettoken
said by bitbuckettoken :
However, if there is an idle or relatively slow period, the bucket capacity builds up...
Won't this add latency to low-bandwidth transfers? If so, how does this affect games? |
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buggs1a
join:2000-12-24
Seattle, WA
| reply to buggs1a
Hey guys, forgive me please if I ever sounded harsh or like a know it all. Forgive me please if I ever sounded like I was getting down on you. I know it probably seems like it from a couple messages of mine and I just want to sincerely apologize to you. LinuxJunkie and the other guy, I forget his nick name.
I just know what the guy told me and that it sounds right. For myself, I don't get bursting hardly. It does at the beginning maybe sometimes. Durring transfers sometimes it goes to 1000kB/sec, but most of the time I'm right around my 6mb. the only way to do that is many connections though to the same file or many files. Using a speed test or one connection gives crappy speed. Even web pages seem to load way slower then they should. |
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LinuxJunkie
join:2005-01-19
Cyberspace
| reply to buggs1a
Ok, let me quote something from the very article that announced this thing:
The Philadelphia-based company launched the service without fanfare in its New England region markets last month after a trial period. A company spokeswoman said it expects to roll out the service nationally by the end of the year.
I live in CT which is a New England market and Comcast has been quoted as saying it has already been released in the New England markets. Please share the source of your information that indicates that Powerboost isn't available yet and will only be available at the end of the year and that it will only affect the end of a download. |
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Obliteration
Premium
join:2005-09-18
Somewhere
| reply to buggs1a
said by buggs1a :You are so incredibly wrong LinuxJunkie, I'm not one to like I told you so or point out to just be mean when someone is wrong, but when they are so incredibly wrong I will mention it and it's upsetting when they are wrong and don't even know. umm, powerboost is not designed to burst for only a few seconds right at the beginning of a file. What it is is this and it's no other way. You start to download something, then after a certain amount of mb downloaded it sees you're getting a bigger file so it speeds up the download. this is not a burst for a few seconds, but it speeds up the download to around 10mb or whatever it'll be when it is released. They are doing this to get people off the bandwidth faster. so instead of downloading at 6mb the whole file and taking longer, you get so much at 6mb then it is increased untill it's done or very close to it. this way you get done using the BW faster. Comcast said it's better for them and us as it frees up the BW sooner then if someone was only going 6mb the whole file. it is being *tested* on the east coast and will be released *by the end of the year*. It is free and will just start happening. This is what will be happening and it is not anything else. I live in the central region in Illinois. I have it already or else magically it just decided to jump from 8 to 30Mbps.
On a side note the boost is quite big. I can download 60MB or so at 30Mbps. |
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Gnet
join:2005-10-26
Arlington, TX
1 edit | reply to CMCSAnews
I am curious how can you get a download greeter than what Network Card max is 10meg or so I thought. I don't seen how you can go faster than NIC. Please someone geekier than I explain so I can understand how this powerBoost is done?
What am I missing? |
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Scree
In the pipe 5 by 5
join:2001-04-24
Mount Laurel, NJ
1 edit | Well obviously it all doesn't matter unless connected at 100 or more Mbps. Therefore usb not-2 modem users would be out too. |
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Xyc
@207.195.x.x
| reply to CMCSAnews
People really need to look at the post from bitbuckettoken on the first page. It describes the basic concept used by just about all network gear to allow bursting traffic.
Basically, think of the network as having a turnstile inside it, and that for a given packet to go through the turnstile and get transmitted, it needs a token, which it gets from a bucket next to the turnstile. Tokens get dropped into the bucket at a rate to allow you your configured speed of traffic through the turnstile.
If there aren't any packets waiting for tokens (you aren't going full-out), then the tokens accumulate in the bucket. When you do have a burst of packets that need to go out after a time of less than full out use, the bucket already has a bunch of tokens in it, so they can all zip through quickly, until the bucket is empty, at which point you're back to waiting for a token to drop in the bucket to transmit it.
The bucket is only a certain size, so it can only hold so many tokens, and tokens that overflow once the bucket is full are lost.
Burst is going to mean more for people who are occasional downloaders and less for people who use filesharing and thus are full out much of the time. Just surfing should get a great boost from this, since a page and images could fit into the max burst, and while reading the page, the bucket refills (probably very quickly, depending on the bucket size used).
For Eatmeingreek: No, it shouldn't add latency. You can think of the way things work today without burst as a stream of tokens without a bucket. If there isn't a packet there waiting, the token drops on the floor and isn't usable. Tokens drop very very quickly, so without something else using them all (like a file download), you won't have a problem. It should actually improve gaming, since most games aren't going to be running your connection at it's configured max speed, so if a burst hits (like downloading a map or the like), it'll take advantage of the stored up tokens to pull it down quicker.
Obviously, these are all analogies, there are no actual tokens or buckets per se, but these are the analogies that they use when defining how bursting works. |
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buggs1a
join:2000-12-24
Seattle, WA
| Actually the boost is only after a file gets to a certain mb is what I was told. So web pages wouldn't benefit unless it had bigger then that so many mb or whatever file size such as a large graphic or flash or something.
Linux, my source is just a Comcast guy that called me last week to talk about my wanting 2 connections to go faster. He is a supervisor or head engineer guy type for my local area. He said this is in testing on the east coast and will be available offically later this year and he said what I've mentioned so far.
Now remember I'm only saying fact is that it's not offically available to all yet plus no one knows what it will actually do for sure. Untill it is offically anounced as being available by comcast I'd be skeptacle of anyone that has a big boost. Meaning not that they have it, but that it is from this new thing. If they are in an area Comcast is testing on the East Coast then I'd believe it. If not, I'd believe it, just not as much, in that I'd just wonder what's going on.
Also please remember I'm really sorry if I've sounded holier then thou type. I'm not meaning to. |
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LinuxJunkie
join:2005-01-19
Cyberspace
2 edits | No, I didn't feel like you were "holier" than me. ;P I was just pointing out that this "initial burst up to 10+ Mbps for ten to fifteen seconds" is a relatively new phenomenon in my area -- it only appeared a few weeks ago. As I said, I live in CT and according to the article it's been released/is in the process of being released in all the New England markets so I *should* have it. Before this phenomen started, I would experience no bursting on my downloads and would have a consistent 6.6 Mbps from the beginning of the download all the way to the end of it -- which is what I was saying before about not having any "bursting" in my area for the last two or three years. Just based on my NetPerSec shots, you can tell that this isn't normal "bursting" as there are no "peaks and valleys" on the graph that are typically associated with non-QoS (read, non-traffic shaping) systems. If I still had the screenshots, I could show you the difference I noticed when they finally enabled QoS in my area -- before it would spike to around 8 Mbps or and then drop down to 3 Mbps constantly... which would give you an average download speed CLOSE to what your cap is. After they turned on QoS, my NetPerSec graph was perfectly smooth at my cap -- and remains so to this day.
We'll see what Comcast says about it later on but I'm pretty sure this is what Powerboost is -- a burst at the beginning of a download for a predetermined amount of time (10.8 Mbps or so for my connection) and then it automatically throttles you back to whatever your cap is (6.6 Mbps on mine).
It makes more sense to me, from a networking capacity standpoint, to enable a sustained burst at the BEGINNING of a download than at the end of the download for the following reasons:
1) It makes more sense to burst at the beginning for a short period of time because most "casual" users are typically web browsing, receiving e-mail or downloading relatively small files (e.g., MP3's, photos, etc.). Bursting at the beginning of the download would get these people off the network faster. If it bursted at the end, these people would never notice a difference.
2) What would happen if it bursted at the end and suddenly there's a bunch of people on the same node downloading 600+ MB CD image files for example? If it had the sustained higher speeds at the end of the download, the lines would be saturated for a longer (and probably unknown) period of time resulting in line saturation which, in turn, would result in higher latency (ping times) and less bandwidth being available for everybody else on the node. |
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WLiley
Woodman
Premium
join:2000-12-01
Grand Blanc, MI
clubs: 
| reply to KlanXX
Detroit *ought* to be there.
here's a test taken just now from the same server SKORPIO used.
I've seen even better at other times.
Bursting? Probably. Powerboost? Maybe.
Whatever *it* is, you should be getting it too.
:::.. Download Stats ..:::
Connection is:: 11165 Kbps about 11.17 Mbps (tested with 5983 kB)
Download Speed is:: 1363 kB/s
Tested From:: »www.testmy.net/ (Server 1)Test Time:: 2006/06/06 - 1:54pm
Bottom Line:: 195X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 0.75 sec
Tested from a 5983 kB file and took 4.39 seconds to complete
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 2.0.50215; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.2)
Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 119.27 % faster than the average for host (comcast.net)
Validation Link:: »www.testmy.net/stats/id-SZ9UNF0DT
--
Team Z Member
"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." HST
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buggs1a
join:2000-12-24
Seattle, WA
| reply to CMCSAnews
The guy I talked to said it's only for large files and would start after so many mb. For me I just call at the beginning bursting. I get it, but not often and not a huge jump. It's only for like 1 or 2 seconds though.
My speed is never consistant whatso ever. It changes up and down all the time. AVG is my 6mb cap though. The things you say linux is making me think my area doesn't do QOS at all. I've no idea how that would affect me and how I would notice it.
I took my modem to pc directly and got a burst with speakeasy seattle up to 11mb. Going through my sonicwall router it is more like 2mb or so and no burst. upload is for pc direct or router the same, 330k or so. I did a few speakeasy tests and some were around 8-10mb and others normal 6-7mb maybe. Going through my router when doing this it's like 2-3mb at most. However when downloading multiple files at the same time my speed is maxed out. I wonder if this is bad for my router or what. |
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fonzbear2000
Premium
join:2005-08-09
Saint Paul, MN | reply to CMCSAnews
what QOS stand for? i see mentioned it on here a lot and was just wondering, thanks
--
comcast high speed subscribers: »[Newsgroups] use up ur monthly 2gb limit? try this! |
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sortofageek
Premium,Mod
join:2001-08-19
Valhalla Dr
clubs:
·Comcast
Host:
Team Helix
Distributed Comput..
Linksys
Comcast HSI
Comcast Cable TV
1 edit | QOS = Quality of Service
More acronyms here: »silmaril.ie/cgi-bin/uncgi/acronyms |
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LinuxJunkie
join:2005-01-19
Cyberspace
| reply to buggs1a
buggs1a, do a search for "NetPerSec" and download/install it. I found it on a site like download.com I believe. That will allow you to determine, with a fair amount of accuracy, if your area has QoS enabled or not. If you see "peaks and valleys" like I was describing earlier where the download speed is constantly spiking up and down instead of the smooth and consistent bars like in my above posted NetPerSec screenshots, then that is true "bursting" that is witnessed in areas where QoS is not enabled. I'm pretty sure Comcast was supposed to have enabled this nationally about a year or so ago. |
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buggs1a
join:2000-12-24
Seattle, WA
| I've got DU Meter and it varies. spikes and normal no spikes are both common. It just depends I guess where I'm at online. So from that, it doesn't mean anything to me as I don't know still and not even sure if it matters. I know what QOS is and does actually. My Sonicwall Appliance does it well, but I've not used it ever. I know a little about it, but not sure what it does etc in the scope of my area. |
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buggs1a
join:2000-12-24
Seattle, WA
| reply to LinuxJunkie
Ok guys, update. LinuxJunkie. What is Comcasts MTU? 1500? In my Sonicwall it's set 1500 which is default. Speed tests like the speakeasy would give me 2200 or so. With modem dirctly on pc it would go 8400k to 14000k or so as a burst. Well I just called Sonicwall and they said to turn on the -Fragment non-VPN outbound packets larger than this Interface's MTU-
Now the speakeasy test is 8200k or so. So more normal.
I'm hopefully for the new thing from Comcast that my router will not have to be messed with again to get the new Comcast thing fully. |
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comon
@comcast.net
| reply to CMCSAnews
this power boost looks good on paper but in reality it doest last what 30 seconds what good is it for big files.and how often can you really download big files unless its from big download sites like msn or private torrent sites i have yet to see my max download when downloading big files.i would rather see more upload. |
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BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Everett, MA
clubs:
·Comcast
| reply to CMCSAnews
seems to be a good thing here. even my xbox live downloads are kicking. I finally feel like i get what I pay for. Now If they could give it to me for longer then 45 or so seconds Id be way happier, plus a little more upload would be nice.
--
"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" |
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NoOneButMe
join:2001-08-24
TX | reply to comon
allso whats to say thay aint goin to drop tier speeds when thay pass that new law thay can do what thay want |
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