Abu
join:2001-05-17
Miami, FL
| Cable is running really crappy... why?
I don't know a whole lot about networking or broadband in general so I would like some advice. I did a couple of speed tests and have the results:
2003-04-19 22:34:24 Speed test (wc) 1056/220 kbps
2003-04-19 22:29:30 Speed test (wc) 832/219 kbps
2003-04-19 22:18:52 Speed test (wc) 1332/152 kbps
2003-04-19 16:12:29 Speed test (wc) 895/66 kbps
I was talking to one of my buddies who lives in Denmark, and he was getting numbers around 400/400. I would think that living so far away would hurt his results a bit, and he had several downloads and uploads going on at the same time. Now my connection, in the united states, does a lot worse! 895/66? I'm not sure if we have 512 or 256 cable (or if those are the ones that are available or what, I'm clueless), but these tests were taken without downloads/uploads going and are really bad looking.
I have a home network with 4 computers on it, but at the time of the tests only 2 of them were on. Also, is it possible to obtain these results with a program such as Kazaa downloading and uploading when taking the tests? My step sister has a bad habit of leaving Kazaa on and allowing everyone to download off her while she's downloading as well. I have comcast cable, not sure which speed, but the internet has never been so laggy. I've been disconnected from several online games after lagging out. This didn't happen with 56k modem! Any ideas?
--
"Usually I saw you on dslr and you had a para and you rushed killed and left." - Glenn |
|
2kmaro
Think
Premium,ExMod 1 BC
join:2000-07-11
ColossalCave
clubs:  
| Your profile page says you have Sprint? Do they have cable, or do you need to update your profile?
If you do have cable, let us know which provider and we can move this question into their support forum where you can compare notes with others in your area. Trying to think of who provides cable in Naples ... Comcast does, don't they?
In the meantime, run a few speed tests from this site:
»lax.speakeasy.net/
That's SpeakEasy in Los Angeles - will give you an equal distance test, but their servers aren't as busy as ours, so it should be easier to run there. Expect some "jiggle" in speed results due to traffic and internet conditions; one low report does not make a bad connection. Look how much variance you had between 22:18:52 and 22:34:24 from the same site.
--
Man - the animal voted least likely to leave well enough alone. |
|
jack b
Gone Fishing
Premium,MVM
join:2000-09-08
Cape Cod
clubs:
 ·Comcast
| reply to Abu
First things first: have you run a Tweaks test and optimized your settings?
Your over-seas friend's service is probably symmetrical: same speed down as up. Most U.S. residential accounts are asymmetrical, higher speeds down than up.
The cable company will tell you what your speed caps are, and then you can determine if there is in fact a problem.
Additionally, another computer up/downloading at the same time as you're running a test can skew your test results. The line can only handle "X" amount of total traffic.
--
~Help find a cure for cancer~Proud Member Team Discovery |
|
Abu
join:2001-05-17
Miami, FL
| reply to Abu
Okay. Yes my profile hasn't been updated for quite a while. I mentioned I had Comcast Cable but it was at the bottom of my rather long post so I can see how it was missed. The reason I ruled out downloads/uploads from doing the kind of lag I'm experiencing is because we've been running this network for 2 years and nothing has changed except we've had LESS computers running and downloading/uploading. It's been the past couple of weeks, that's it.
--
"Usually I saw you on dslr and you had a para and you rushed killed and left." - Glenn |
|
2kmaro
Think
Premium,ExMod 1 BC
join:2000-07-11
ColossalCave
clubs:
| Ok, this is in Comcast's forum now. Yep, I missed your reference to comcast in the original post, sorry.
Ok, so after 2 years suddenly you start taking a speed hit with essentially no changes on your equipment (other than taking a couple of computers out of service). My initial thoughts are that there are two possible reasons for this:
#1) In those 2 years Comcast has been signing up more and more cable internet users in your area and you've reached a saturation point on your node. Meaning they finally added enough people in your local area to show a visible impact to you. This will be hard to deal with because you're just going to have to battle Comcast to "do something" about it.
#2) All the equipment in this is now 2 yrs older than it was 2 yrs ago (boy, talk about an astute observation!  ). But equipment and lines can suffer degradation over time. In this case the problem could be on either side of the cable modem. I personally have had instances of problems on both sides:
--- speeds went down and stayed down, after some checking the provider (Cox HSI) found that the RG-59 running to my apartment was causing a 9 dB signal loss. They ran a couple of hundred feet of RG-6 and I was back in the fast lane.
--- once again speeds dove into the dirt. Had 3 service calls, only after using their laptop in place of my system were they able to convince me that it was my system. I replaced my NIC and like magic the speed was up again - so my NIC was going south, but not failing completely.
To figure out these hardware issues you need to start with some internal testing. If you've still got multiple computers hooked up, run speed tests from several and compare the results, if one is consistently lower than the other(s) then it may be something (cat-5, NIC, or just a port on the router) on your side of the fence. If all are reasonably consistent, but still low, then problem may lay in Comcast's yard - get a service call to check out signal strength, etc.
--
Man - the animal voted least likely to leave well enough alone. |
|
Abu
join:2001-05-17
Miami, FL
| Great, thanks a lot. My brother probably knows a lot more about the hardware in the network than I do, and he's coming into town, so I'll make sure to ask him about it. Thanks again for your help.
--
"Usually I saw you on dslr and you had a para and you rushed killed and left." - Glenn |
|
