Internet Speed

Hi Melanie Jordan: Yes unfortunately, Cable internet is a shared type service. Just the nature of the beast I'm afraid. What speed does your cable service say you have? What measured speeds do you get? Does the speed typically go down in the eveningd when more people are surfing?

Happy Surfing?
Stedman

As stedman says, it is impossible to know what can be done to speed things up without knowing what speeds your ISP is providing and what you are actually getting.

Post back those details and we can see about making some suggestions.

As an ADSL user (and with friends who have cable) what I can say is:

- Cable is directly affected by the number of users. DSL is not. If you're in an area with limited cable use, you should have speed.

- DSL is affected by your distance from the main phone switch so speed will vary depending on that. My DSL account will allow for up to 3 megabit access although where I live limits me to approximately 2.3 - still not bad but only made possible since Bell starting upgrading its lines and installing repeaters. When I lived about 1 km closer to the switch, my speed was slightly better.

Where my mother lives, farther from the switch, her DSL access drops to less than 1 megabit.

Essentially, both types of connections can have speed issues - just originating from different sources.

I've never used cable so I can't speak of its consistency but DSL have worked well for me and my mother. The biggest issue with it (again) is distance. Before switching, try to find out more about the quality in your area from those who use it.

I know this is probably a silly question, but is
there anything I can do to increase my internet
speed? I currently have a cable connection, which is
supposed to be fast, but it is so slow. I've been
told that when there are too many users sharing a
cable line that the speed decreases. So sometimes
you're better off with a DSL connection, which is
more consistent. Is this true?

Hi Melanie Jordan!

Try out this broadband speedtest: http://speakeasy.net/speedtest/ - it's free and you'll be able to tell approximately what speeds your connecting with. You probably have cable service that says something like "up to" 5MBs, it will interesting to see what you're acrually getting. Test it during dinner hour and some late night times and compare...

You have to keep in mind that download speeds are only as good as your upload speed. I have DSL and my upload speed is @ +700KBs, I have friends that use Cable and their upload speeds sometimes do not reach 600KBs

Rick

iMac G5 iSight 20" - 30G iPOD & Hot Pink Nano 4G - WD 500G FW - Mac OS X (10.4.8) - HP Pav 15" WS and Toshiba Sat 17" WS LP's - Canon 20D & A620 Kodak P880

Download Speed: 2480 kbps (310 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 433 kbps (54.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

OK, this is the result of my speed test. I have DSL.

My problem is my browser seems to load pages so slowly.
I have a brand new iMac and I'm sing safari.

Any ideas or tips????

Hi CMoe!

I don't think the clocked speeds are all that terrible. The upload speed is on the slower side <imho>.

Try another broswer, I like Opera: http://www.opera.com/ - it's pretty darn nice browser, fast caching, and not so bad tabbed browsing...

Rick

iMac G5 iSight 20" - 30G iPOD & Hot Pink Nano 4G - WD 500G FW - Mac OS X (10.4.8) - HP Pav 15" WS and Toshiba Sat 17" WS LP's - Canon 20D & A620 Kodak P880

Unfortunately the transmission method of cable modem Internet leaves it very susceptible to temperature changes. If the weather gets cold or hot the Internet service suffers.

Only in the perfect world is cable modem service speeds high and reliable.

Just wondering if you can tell me. I am trying to use IChat and the screen breaks up and is fuzzy. I could not connect a few times and it was because of the MBPS? Says it needs at least 100. Have DSL currently thru phone company. How do I know if its my connection or the other connection. They have wireless sprint connector that they plug into their macbook laptop. Any hints would be great!

How does this rate?

Download Speed: 8809 kbps (1101.1KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1378 kbps (172.3 KB/sec transfer rate)