I need a faster internet connection!!!!!

CarlWohlforth · December 9, 2007 11:59AM

I do have a DSL connection, but my distance from the phone company equipment limits me to a lower end DSL connection or so I've been told. Well I'm sitting here grooving to some Internet radio and I open Shylock's thread expecting to see some neat cameo proof coins. Well the music can't keep up because the images are taking up bandwith! No, I won't take a radio feed with lower bit rate, I ENJOY my music and I can't stand the poor quality of low bit rate feeds. I enjoy my cameo proofs and the excellent photographs often posted here! I want it all and I want it now!

I'm jealous of my Dad. He has a fiber optic conection direct to his home network.

So, is there anybody who opens the picture post threads and *boom* all photos appear instantly? Is anybody still in the dark ages and using a dial up connection?

ricko · December 9, 2007 12:01PM

Not here Carl... I have been broadband for many years... I just do not have the time for anything less. Cheers, RickO

coinkid855 · December 9, 2007 12:02PM

I have cable and I couldn't live without it.

greymars · December 9, 2007 12:07PM

I have Verizon DSL and just barely am in the radius of the Central Office.

I am currently running 1792 x 448 kbps

About 5 months ago, I was running 848 or so, till I received an upgrade upon my Verizon contract renewal for the above speeds.

Also pending on your area, they are coming out with Fiber Optics very soon.

Gary

bigtime36 · December 9, 2007 12:20PM

Im running Cable as well and love it!

mrearlygold · December 9, 2007 12:22PM

It's one of several reasons why we didn't buy a house in western north carolina. It would be like going back in time there.

Have a pretty fast comcast cable connection here in Fla.

Stayed at a hotel in S Korea though that had a connection that really whipped.

stev32k · December 9, 2007 12:23PM

I just upgraded to a 15 Mb cable connection and the pictures snap up when I click them. When downloading a file I get transfer rates of 1.2 Mb/sec - love it.

CarlWohlforth · December 9, 2007 12:23PM

<>

I have Verizon DSL also. I'm just barely in the radius of the nearest office, I doubt it is very central.

I asked the cable company to come and route their wires where they wouldn't be seen and have them end up in a place that is convenient for me to connect to my home network. They (Comcast) laughed and said they would not bother sending anyone out unless I give them carte blanch to put the wires anywhere they durn please. I declined that. Anyway my neighbors who do have cable are no better off...

coinkid855 · December 9, 2007 12:24PM

<< It's one of several reasons why we didn't buy a house in western north carolina. It would be like going back in time there. >>

Have to use the old telegraphs and dixie cups and string there, huh?

<< Stayed at a hotel in S Korea though that had a connection that really whipped. >>

When you look at average internet speeds, the USA is SLOOOOOWWWW compared to MANY other countries....

greymars · December 9, 2007 12:28PM

Actually if you have a neighbor that is broadcasting a wireless signal you may have another option considering you have a wireless laptop and/or wireless home network...

Gary

Edited to add: Have you considered a satellite type for your Internet? Dish Network has an option for internet via satellite

BBN · December 9, 2007 12:30PM

With the combo of the bidding box next to the current price on ebay auctions, a quick refresh button and DSL has helped me master the art of sniping without using auctionsniper.com. I can coinsistently hit it with 1-2 seconds left now. Used to on dialup the best I could do was 7-8 seconds.

cullenbryant · December 9, 2007 12:34PM

dial up still. dsl or cable not available. the prices on att wireless are getting dangerously close to me jumping though.

notwilight · December 9, 2007 12:34PM

I have a sirius sattelite subscription and can get sirius radio thru my sattelite TV or my internet connection. You might try getting your music thru the TV and piping it into a sound system. --jerry

UtahCoin · December 9, 2007 12:36PM

I run Verizon FiOS (fiber optic) at 15 meg. Instant downloads

mrearlygold · December 9, 2007 12:36PM

Speakeasy speed test

SPEED TEST

11635 Download speed

2341 Upload speed

DieClash · December 9, 2007 12:36PM

Cable all the way!. Although I am connecting from a resort in Maui today, I don't know if its DSL or cable but definitely broadband. And NO, the images do not populate instantaneously when you open up one of these threads. But, they don't drag either; rather they populate fairly quickly. And this is my experience at home with cable too!

The downside of cable is that the more users on the cable network, then the slower the performance because all those users suck up bandwidth. This is not a problem with DSL. However, with DSL the maximum download rates are not nearly as great as with Cable. It just so happens that cable is still the better choice for me in my neighborhood. But in some areas, cable may not be the best solution due to too many users hogging up the bandwidth. Bottomline is you need to know if the cable connection bandwidth has been compromised due to too many users. There are websites that can test the performance of your IP connection. I use pcpitstop. If you can find a commercial place in your area where you can log on using both a DSL connection and a Cable connection you might be able to run the diagnostics and see which is best for you. You should also be aware that performance varies over time. During the heaviest usage times of the day, cable may not perform as well as DSL because of bandwidth limitations. But overall performance should determine which broadband provider that you choose. For me its still cable!

Good Luck!

ilikebuffaloes · December 9, 2007 12:36PM

<< Actually if you have a neighbor that is broadcasting a wireless signal you may have another option considering you have a wireless laptop and/or wireless home network...

Gary >>

In some states, you can be arrested for doing that (stealing internet access). This is why all of my wireless access points are encrypted!

Chances are the neighbor has a similar service.

coinkid855 · December 9, 2007 12:42PM

I just did my speed test:

10793 kbps Download

1870 kbps Upload

Not too shabby.

-Paul

greymars · December 9, 2007 12:42PM

<< In some states, you can be arrested for doing that (stealing internet access). This is why all of my wireless access points are encrypted! >>

Thank you for pointing that out. I turned off the broadcast option of my wireless signal, and I keep it encrypted as well.

Gary

2ndCharter · December 9, 2007 12:42PM

When my wife and I built our house here in SC a few years ago, I had sense enough to have cable lines run throughout the house with an outlet in every room (just in case). Boy, I'm so glad I did that! I could never go back to dialup.

CarlWohlforth · December 9, 2007 12:55PM

Speakeasy test:

326
322

I'm way on the edge of DSL!

FIOS it not here yet.

I have DirecTv with many radio channels. Some are good. Just not the variety that Internet radio provides! And besides the Internet is free once I have the connection I need...

Bochiman · December 9, 2007 1:10PM

<< <>

I have Verizon DSL also. I'm just barely in the radius of the nearest office, I doubt it is very central.

I asked the cable company to come and route their wires where they wouldn't be seen and have them end up in a place that is convenient for me to connect to my home network. They (Comcast) laughed and said they would not bother sending anyone out unless I give them carte blanch to put the wires anywhere they durn please. I declined that. Anyway my neighbors who do have cable are no better off... >>

I wouldn't have a cable company do the cabling since they do it the way they want it.
I had extra coax run from the point to the house, all throughout the house, when I had my house wired for cat5 networking. Worked out great.

Wireless is fine but I like being able to be wired from any room as well. Now, I have clean, new, coax to each room as well so it is all good. Since I couldn't physically do it, due to knee problems, it was worth paying a contractor to do it.

mrearlygold · December 9, 2007 1:22PM

Just tested again on speakeasy.net and......

11432 Down
2484 Up

We have the slowest package offered by comcast by the way.

DieClash · December 9, 2007 1:26PM

<< Just tested again on speakeasy.net and......

11432 Down
2484 Up

We have the slowest package offered by comcast by the way.

>>

Two years ago there was a survey about the best and worst cable service providers. Adelphia finished dead last. I used to be an Adelphia subscriber by the way. After the great Adelphia scandal the company was sold and purchased by Comcast. Guess who finished second to last in that survey?

richbeat · December 9, 2007 1:38PM

I have Comcast cable also. My computer is the only one that is connected through a wireless router, and I've been told that my reception and speed won't be as good because of that. Lately it's been erratic, and I've also been told that it's because of an upgrade being done. Pretty soon, if it doesn't improve, I'm going to call, whether that will do any good or not. I did the speed test also:

2597 Down
1031 Up

I guess for cable, that's a snail's pace.

DieClash · December 9, 2007 1:45PM

I'm not at home, but the speed from Maui via San Francisco servier is:

2075 Down
531 Up

Not too bad. I have no problem with big images on this forum from this connection.

<< I have Comcast cable also. My computer is the only one that is connected through a wireless router, and I've been told that my reception and speed won't be as good because of that. Lately it's been erratic, and I've also been told that it's because of an upgrade being done. Pretty soon, if it doesn't improve, I'm going to call, whether that will do any good or not. I did the speed test also:

2597 Down
1031 Up

I guess for cable, that's a snail's pace.

>>

OPA · December 9, 2007 1:53PM

least expensive Verizon FIOS option

Down....5199
Up.........1791

BlindedByEgo · December 9, 2007 2:54PM

Just switched to top-end fiber here - 6 Mbits guaranteed down or your money back.

lordmarcovan · December 9, 2007 4:39PM

I feel your pain, Carl. When we moved out to the country a few years ago, we moved beyond DSL. I was faced with having to go from DSL back to dialup, and even slower dialup than we'd had back in '99. It was horrifyingly awful. I could get up and make a sandwich, eat most of it, and play a hand or two of solitaire while waiting for the average page with pictures to load. A lot of times I'd go through the wait, only to have the computer give up and say "screw this, operation timed out", or something like that.

I was pulling my hair out.

Finally, dear ol' Dad footed the bill for us to get satellite DSL. It still isn't as good as the "regular" DSL we once enjoyed, but it's actually usable. That dialup was so frustrating it was functionally useless.

Here at work there is a T-1 connection, so yes, most of the time here, I have that *boom* "all pages load instantly" result. Except on the huge threads like my own "Coin UNO" thread monstrosity. On those, it takes even T-1 a second or so.

One irony is that here at work, our server now blocks Photobucket and some other image hosting sites, so even though I enjoy high speed here, I get a lot of red-X pics I just can't view from work.

I can remember the 16K dialup horror months all too well- I can remember trying to browse the forums and cursing folks who had animated gifs in their siglines, or even in the avatar pics. It got so I couldn't even view threads that certain members had posted to, because any thread with their animated sig image always caused my puter to just freeze and lock up. Wow, that sucked major bigtime.

thisnamztaken · December 9, 2007 4:53PM

I'm in Calif. and have DSL and the test (using NY as a city) says my D/L speed is 1292 KBPS (161.5 kb/sec transfer rate) and
my U/L speed is 289 KBPS (36.1 kb/sec transfer rate).

I'm not very computer-savvy. Is that fast, slow, or average?

2bits · December 9, 2007 4:55PM

I just got off from dial up ,,

the speed test gave me 635 down and 631 up .

Im at the lowest basic service plan ,,right now this seems fast to me after being on dial up,, but Im sure that it won't take me long to upgrade to the next level .

drwstr123 · December 9, 2007 7:20PM

Cable:
14612 DOWN
1784 UP

morgansforever · December 9, 2007 7:46PM

Nothing beats a 14kbps connection, it's so slow you don't even bother to jump on the net.

I love it.

LeeG · December 9, 2007 8:05PM

2845/697

Cocoinut · December 9, 2007 8:28PM

Southeast Florida, DSL:

Download: 3129
Upload: 382

I'm glad I don't have to upload many files!

Jim

tahoe98 · December 10, 2007 4:20AM

<< dial up still. dsl or cable not available. the prices on att wireless are getting dangerously close to me jumping though. >>

i feel for you! still with dial up....................

mgoodm3 · December 10, 2007 4:31AM

Cable.

about 5000 down/500 up.

I need a faster internet connection!!!!!

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