Hi,
Tuesday the 17th at 10:00 am I had an unusable internet connection with the guys I normally get together with in Queens New York.

The speed test I ran on my end were a little slow, around 750 to 800 mb up and down, but not unusual. I never get the gig speed I pay for from AT&T.

Billy

The fine print probably states 'up to 1 GB'

Only 750-800 up and down and you call that slow.

I'm supposed to be at the cutting edge here with FTTP with 105 Mbps down and 20 up.

There are better speeds but they cost a prenium.

I usually get 950 up and down with AT&T fiber here a little south of you Planobilly. I live in a neighborhood that has association fees, part of the fees pay for the internet, tv etc, I upgrade to 1 gig service for just a few bucks more so it was a no brainer for me. That and upgrade to SSD drives and my system is faster than I could ever be!

No, I don't call 750-800 slow, just that my normal speed is around 900.

For me, the gigabit internet speeds are mostly useful for moving video up and down.

We also pay a premium for faster speeds. AT&T gigabit internet is about $70 a month. 100 MBPS cost around $35 dollars per month.

I "assume" increased traffic due to Covid-19 will slow things down. How much I don't know. AT&T says that they are able to deal with it, but you can not trust anything they say.

They advertise 1000 MBPS and deliver 950 MBPS when everything is working well. Considerably less at other times.

Well 950 and 1000 is the same thing, right? From the top of the government to the fisherman down the road....everyone is misrepresenting the truth.

How people react to the price of things is somewhat dependent on what they get use to. Gas cost around $5.50 per US gallon in France. I payed $1.95 yesterday here in Miami. People would go crazy here if gas cost $5.50.

To some extent none of this really matters. It is what it is and it cost what it cost.

Cheers,

Billy

Take your measurement by connecting your computer directly to the modem, not a router. It may then read the advertised speed.

So sad

I'd love to see a screen dump of you getting 950mbps UPstream. If you do, your downstream must be off the test charts because typical up is 10%-ish of your down.

If you are getting 950 mbps up I am moving to where you are.

It is increasingly becoming normal for fiber optic connections to offer upload speeds similar to their download speeds. The 10 to 1 ratio in favor of download is no longer applicable.

ps I’m on an advisory committee in my county studying how to improve broadband coverage, particularly in rural areas.

Not necessarily true but I am not going to argue it. I have tested here with computer on cat5 vs wireless, downloading a file on all 6 computers at the same time, and my speeds were within 2% on both, so that whole thing about a home router being a bottleneck isn't, and has never been, true. Unless you are still using WEP for security, which limits speeds, but everybody on earth is WPA these days. Internet providers teach their techs to tell customers that if you have 100mb down and you use 4 computers through a router that each of them gets 1/4th of that speed, and that is simply not true. Every IP is assigned to a socket that is a peer of the other sockets. That's kind of what peer to peer means.

Between cameras that run 24/7, 6 PCs that stay on 24/7, 2 Roku devices, tables, cell phones, wireless printer, etc... I use 22 IPs in my house. My performance NEVER waivers based on demand. Here's my speed test with all those IPs moving data.

I know they say that devices or tv's on standby don't use much electricity, but surely the bill would be lower if you switched the lot off at night?

Not to mention fire safety.

The only thing that stays on here is the fridge.

This is according to AT&T speed test.



This from Ookla.

Pretty close today.

Impressive Billy, Looks like Eddie is going to be your next door neighbour soon.

LOL...I invited him to come over to eat whenever he wanted too.

I am glad I can get high speed internet at any cost. AT&T is great when it is working correctly.

AT&T is and has always been very difficult to deal with when something is not working correctly. Their standard answer is to say it is Sprints fault or Wiltel or Verizon.

I guess this is pretty common with many of the telcos.

If you are dealing with a consumer issue the people you will be talking to know next to nothing. Nothing is going to happen until a engineer gets involved. Solving communications issues are frequently not simple.

In the commercial world, when I worked at the bank you can not imagine how many hours I have spent on the phone with the engineers from telcos trying to solve long haul problems.

I have ask the engineers a zillion times "what is the signal path end to end"

Network engineering is complex and getting more so every day.

I am not sure what any of this has to do with a network outage in New York City last Tuesday morning which was my original question. I certainly have no issue with discussing networking issues as it is a pretty interesting subject.

Cheers,

Billy

I'm literally in the boonies in WV on top of a mountain.

I pay for 100 Mbps. Here is what I actually get.

216.23 Mbps down, 21.57 Mbps up.

1,000 Mbps is available, but I don't see where I actually need it. Why pay more?

I'm glad you aren't going to argue, because that would be an incorrect approach. Also, in your description, did you mean to say you have Cat5 cable, and not Cat5e or Cat6? Cat 5 has a maximum rated speed of 100Mbps (5e is 1000Mbps). This alone would throw off any results you would get. Testing WiFi speeds is even more problematic.

Cat 5 is no longer used in new installations. If you (or anyone else reading this) are paying for rated speed over 100Mbps, you should switch out all your Ethernet cables for Cat 5e. Of course, you must also have a modem that supports the higher speeds. When I changed from 100 to 400, I had to buy a new modem (or rent the ISP's).

PS to PianoBilly, the OP, I live two hours north of NYC, and my ISP's trunk line is based much closer, in Westchester County. No problems on Tuesday.

For the piddling sum of only $299 a month and if you live in certain areas of Georgia and Tennessee, you can get a 10,000 MBPS internet connection...lol

With 10,000 MBPS and VoIP I guess someone could answer your call before you made it...lol

Ah... The only thing wrong with instant gratification is it is just not quit quick enough.

I'm on an old dual-phoneline DSL about two houses from the neighborhood phone box. I pay AT&T for "up to 100Mb", typically a little under. Hoping to get AT&T fiber here in the next year but I can't complain about the current speed, it works for me.

That is a budgetary nightmare waiting to happen! I was a competitive eater for a few years.

For that kind of speed I would do that in a heartbeat.

Then you would have to answer your phone before it rings Eddie...lol


But then I thought I set the world on fire when I could send and receive Morse Code at five words a minute.

Your fridge is actually more of a fire hazard. Your fridge has a compressor that kicks in to keep the temp constant. That compressor has moving parts in it. Just for sake of supposin', let's say that compressor has a bearing in it that seizes and the motor keeps trying to turn it. The causes friction. Friction causes heat. Heat causes fire.

Inside a computer there are thermal shutdown protection mechanisms that will shut the computer off if it exceeds a specific threshold. I have had computers running 24/7 since the middle 80s. If I haven't had a fire yet I won't likely have one now. Not caused that THAT anyway.

Maybe from my fridge....

There have not been any real fire hazards at my house after Richard Pryor stopped coming around...lol

I know the fridge is a fire hazard, but for obvious reasons I can't turn it off, else I would do it.

I have had experience of a fire in an electric shower, while a member of my family was using it, so you might understand where I am coming from.

But six computers on all night, plus all the attached devices and maybe tv's on standby probably eat up 5-10 dollars a month in electricity I would guess, but then its you who is paying the bill, not me.

Still think its a fire hazard, but as you say, you feel safe so I guess that is ok for you.

Once again... I <sigh>

MY network cable does not alter the speed of my internet connection from the outside of my house to a far end pinging server. It would alter the speed in which my data is transmitted from my Linksys router to my client computers. WHAT gets displayed is not at the mercy of HOW it is displayed.

My in house wired speed is 1gb.



My in house wireless speed is 866.7.



Note that neither of those has anything to do with my internet connection speed.

There is a difference between what goes from end to end and what you see in house. What you see in house is from your router to your clients. What a speed test calculates is your terminus to their terminus. So your (insert ISP name here) hardware to the speed test point. And please do NOT call that box a "cable modem". By definition, a modem converts analog signal to digital. Cable and fiber is digital from end to end. There is no MOdulate/DEModulate process involved.

This is all early level MCSE testing stuff. Like test 2 if not 1. (It has been many years since I took them. 22-23 years maybe.) Your WAN speed has zero to do with your LAN speed. Your inhouse cabling is LAN, not WAN. Your ISP does not provide your LAN speed.

I can't STAND all the advertising and the false claims. "We're fastest!" "Our call clarity is better." Really? So if I am too far from a tower on ATT and the call has echo on it you are telling me that at the same distance from a Verizon tower the call would NOT have that echo on it? This is ALL math and physics. Branding changes nothing.

I remember when I accepted an interview with then Time Warner. I took it mainly to get a free lunch out of them. (Hey. I was unemployed! He DID look at me funny when I ordered a steak!) I asked him to sell me their products as if I was a new customer. "Phil" went on and on about how they were faster than ANY other internet provider in the known universe. As I finished dessert (strawberry shortcake), I said "Can I ask YOU some questions now, Phil?" He said "Sure." "Can you explain to me how if Bob to my left has Time Warner and is provisioned for 12mbps and Joe to my right is also provisioned for 12mbps but with another ISP that Bob's connection is going to be any faster than Joe's?"

He immediately went all deer in the headlights and tried to doubletalk his way around it.

I gave him a "Talk to the hand" gesture and said "Just stop. I don't know how close you read my resume but you are flat out lying to me and asking me to do the same. 12 meg is 12 meg no matter who it comes from. Your claims about faster wireless are also not true. Your in house wireless is subject to things like distance from the router and density of the walls. YOU don't make Linksys routers. YOU have nothing to do with wireless speed inside a house on a home network. And to be honest, I only took this interview to work you for a steak lunch. I am WAY too good for you, Phil. Take it easy." I absolutely HATE how internet providers put out misinformation to a public that will believe anything. They have confused the public to a level where the average guy doesn't understand that wifi is NOT data. Wifi is a wireless connection that connects to a wired connection. What you get on your cell phone away from your home network is data, not wifi. But the public is generally uneducated about this stuff and will believe whatever hype/crap TV ads feed them.

Now that I have the reborn TWC as my provider, I am sure that every monitor in the building has my phone number on it with a note that says "If this guy calls, DON"T answer. He is a PITA!" On the extremely rare occasion that I need to call an ISP I don't need some minimum wage phone answering clerk telling me they are going to schedule a tech visit. I know how to use Sam Spade network diagnostic software better than they do. If I have speed issues I can find the IP of the router where the problem is. And it ISN'T at my house.

Now if AT&T comes through with fiber in my area, I will be their first customer. All they have on my street is 1.5 mbps DSL and it will be a cold day at the Equator before I ever have copper phone wire carrying my internet. I must be 15000 feet from the CO if that's all they can offer me.

I think that's why phone companies are putting these boxes in neighborhoods now so that you don't have to be in range of that old timey downtown phone company. As far as how they route cabling/wires to these boxes, I do not know.

See: Remote Concentrator

Man, I had hopes that I would never see the acronym DSLAM again! For 3 years I worked for maybe THE worst DSL provider in the history of DSL. Granted it was a big company but every day the first thing we were told to do was review the outages so when people called from those areas we knew why they were down. The lists got as long as 10 and 12 pages! The company's business growth model was to buy failing small phone companies and grow the customer base that way. However, they also never put money into upgrading any of the infrastructure, so the reasons they sucked as the old company, the reason they were failing, came right along with the acquisition. And so many customers assumed that being passed along to a new parent company equated to the service getting better. I'll take "Wrong assumptions for 600 Alex." Landline phones should really just go away. They serve no purpose at all.

Part of it was that the customers they were picking up were from these rural areas that weren't even on maps yet! The box where the wire went into the house (called the NID) would fail a lot because of brutal rain and wind.

We had an area outside of Houston and when the hurricane (Ike?) blew through in 2010-ish I got a all from a woman screaming about her internet being down. It went liek this.

Me: Okay. First of all, please calm down and bring your voice down about 30 decibels. Yelling isn't going to get things fixed any faster. Now, you are calling on your cell phone, right?

Her: Yes.

Me: And why is that?

Her: Because the house phone is dead.

Me: Okay. Now knowing that your DSL internet comes in on the same wires as your phone, how can you expect that your phone could be dead but your internet would be working?

Her: Oh. When when do you think it will be fixed?

Me: Well, is there a lot of traffic on the streets right now?

Her: No. The roads are impassible.

Me: Do you know if FEMA is in the area?

Her: Yes. They are staging on the edges of town.

Me: Okay. When FEMA allows our trucks to go in, our people can start replacing all the wiring that was torn down by the rain and 100 mph winds. Until then, there is really nothing we can do since the trucks can't get into the town.

Her: Oh. Well, when you explain it like that....

Me: Ma'am, I am thinking you should be grateful that you are alive and that the cell phone towers made it through the winds or you wouldn't even have call phone service. Maybe you want to call any family that lives elsewhere and tell them you are okay while you have battery power. I can't imagine you have electricity and I'd even guess that your car is under water and won't start so you can't use the car to charge the phone. I am glad to know you are okay and rest assured we want you back up and running as much as you do so we don't have to get a phone call like this from every subscriber in the city.

Her: I can imagine you may get a lot of these.

Me: Yeah, well, it comes with the territory. In a little while there will be an automated message that will reply to all calls from your area. Please stay safe and we'll get this fixed as soon as we can.

WHY do people think that JUST that one aspect of technology is so bulletproof that when everything else is down the internet should work?

3 days later the winds from that hurricane made it to Ohio. We had gusts in the 80s, and we NEVER have that here. The wind blew over a tree, which fell into a power transformer, which set the tree on fire, the flames from which burned every wire it touched. And my luck? That building where it happened was the Time-Warner switch that fed my area. I was down 3 days. And just an aside, for those who complain about TWC now Spectrum... I have had them for 15 years, and counting those 3 days I don't think I have had 10 days total where I was down completely.

There was also a day when any browsing going west would drop my connection and I had to power cycle their box, but I was able to trace it to a hub in Chicago with some diag tools, and I called them, got some guy in Toronto named Patrick, told him the IP of the router that was down, and when he couldn't ping it they sent some routing changes to the hop before it to take it out of the loop while they replaced it.

So, this is what I get from AT&T for $25 a month. AT&T offers fiber in this area for $25 a month with a one year contract and $10 a month equipment fee but ... they bypassed my street.

Our Internet cable was installed about 30 years ago. It is a buried wire so upgrading it is not easy. You guys with fast times are very lucky. Here is what I get.

Funny story, Eddie.

Jim, that's dreadful. The federal minimum standard for broadband is a meager 25 Mbps download, 3 upload. You are far below that.

Mario, unfortunately your ISP can claim you are adequately served (ridiculous, but true). However, I have to say, your Ping speed is either wrong or tremendously fast. Anything below 20 ms is considered really fast.

Matt, what is on the horizon for better internet access in rural and underserved areas and who will pay for it?

I read 40% of school kids are getting school over the internet. I don't have much of a feel for the current number of people working from home. The number must be pretty high.

Kids will most likely all go back to brick and mortar schools at some point. Cost to home school and babysitting is very high. They will still need access to the internet.

A certain percentage of people working from home will never go back to an office after Covid-19 even if the pandemic is well controlled by vaccine. The recent vaccine news is pretty positive which gives some hope for the future. No matter what happens, we are a long away from controlling the pandemic.

Money is not necessarily the controlling issue for access to internet to at least middle class neighborhoods. It took five years after the subdivision I live in was built before I had access to cable internet and seven years before AT&T fiber. This is a middle class neighborhood in a major city.

I also own a house in a high end neighborhood with no cable or fiber. That property could be considered semi rural I guess. I have internet there but it is Satellite Internet plus the cell phone connection, both of which are pretty unreliable.

This is what the satellite people say "HughesNet Gen5 is fast with 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps Upload speeds, and is available to anyone, anywhere, coast-to-coast. It’s also available in Alaska and Puerto Rico." I guess it is better than nothing...

If we are going to send kids to school over the internet we need to provide that connection no matter what the cost or who has to pay for it. It is my belief that education will be the greatest factor to continued prosperity in the United States.

Billy

Yes, it looks as though Ping was pinging localhost, not the remote address.

I would agree that a Ping < 1ms is not really an accurate representation. Ping is not really a good measure of service. Ping has a number of dependencies including the number of steps to the pinged device. How links handle ping. The packet size of the ping. For example pinging from a Cisco Router can deliver a different result than ping from a PC which can be different than pinging from a Unix based system. Why, I here you ask, each has different packet size.

The best way to measure performance is by performing a package download from a known server on a known path. I see a number of people here use OOKLA this is most likely a pretty fair measurement but it is probably best to ensure it is measuring via the correct server (usually this is ok but not always).

That was my experience and teachings but I am getting old and have been retired for over 7 years.

Incidentally: using Ookla to one server I get a ping of 12ms download 53Mbs Up 18Mbs (not bad for a 50Mbs link). Go to another server a ping of 13ms and speeds between 51 - 52Mbs Down but Up however is 8.8Mbs. These figures pretty much explain what I’m getting at.

My two bobs worth

Tony

20 mps down / 2 up. No hopes for more. Welcome to rural America.

Bud

How times have changed though, at least no one or not many have dialup now.

I remember getting my first computer in 2000 and logging into AOL remember them? You found their cd software everywhere.

An exciting time it was too, hearing the hum of the modem as it dialled in, and the aol desktop software appearing on screen, wasn't that bad either.

At least it was all for a fixed monthly fee, previous to that you had to pay the ISP a monthly fee over here, and in addition to that you had to pay the telephone company for time spent online.

Used to love a little bit of software called Bit Magic that delivered cartoon type material every day.

We came a very very very long way in a very very very short time...

Not to say that performance couldn't be improved, but generally it is lightning fast now compared to just a few short years ago.

I pay $68.50 a month for 120mbps down and 12mbps up. Of course I would like better, but by comparison, I am fortunate. The tradeoff is a small house (1100 sq ft) on a small lot (60x135) and neighbors 8 feet to either side of me.....

Google Fiber?

Fiber, yes. Fiber is needed to connect 5G towers, too.

Starlink et. al. for rural satellite reception. Trials in the northwest up to 170 Mbps download. -1 for astronomers, with 30,000 low orbit highly reflective satellites whizzing around.

Paying for it? First, establish the need. I think we are there. Second, get politicians onboard. Many are. Third, get them to do something. We are not there yet. Public/private collaboration might help.

While working for the DSL company we had a group of people in Toccoa Ga who lived in a gated golf course community. The homes started at 1.2 million. Because of the infrastructure, they could only get 3mbps DSL that costs $12.99 a month. 5 miles west of them literally on the wrong side of the tracks, they had upgraded infrastructure and could get 12mbps that costs $49.95 a month. However, the people over there were so poor they couldn't afford that speed and most subscribed at 1.5mbps for $9.99 a month. 87 houses n the golf course all signed a petition pledging that they would remain customers for a minimum of 2 years if the could get the 12mbps service. I know all of this to be true because I orchestrated the whole thing. One of the guys was really savvy and intelligent and together we wrote the petition. He went door to door to every house in the complex and every single one of them signed. He then scanned every one and emailed them to me. I printed out all 87 of them and went into my bosses office explaining that this would not only mean these 87 households would sign on for 12mbps at $49.95 a month but likely many others fed by that DSLAM.

Here is how bad that company was.

My boss told me to go back to my desk and do MY job and not be playing planning engineer, that they had people for that.

So, 87 houses pledged to sign for faster service at an increase of $37 a month for a minimum of 2 years. That meant I potentially generated $77,256 in new revenue for the company over 2 years, if ONLY those 87 houses signed on!

3 weeks later that upgrade plan started. And they fired me for doing another department's work.