What factors can affect a internet connection?

[Dire_Wolf]

I am wondering what factors (all of them) can affect a internet connection? As in make it worse. Wired and Wireless.

 

Thanks

[Racheya]

Generally it can depend on your ISP and there are some types of factors that effect any connection that you can't really do much about like the type of wiring used by the ISP or your distance from their exchange.

 

With wired I don't really think there's much since generally all the wires you'd use are just ethernet cables. Wired internet is a lot more stable than wireless - it doesn't suddenly drop out randomly.

 

Wireless internet there are a lot more. Distance from the router is generally a big one, different kinds of routers can broadcast up to different distances. The closer you are a better signal you'll get. Also if there are any walls and the like in the way of the signal that can make it worse.

[Dire_Wolf]

Generally it can depend on your ISP and there are some types of factors that effect any connection that you can't really do much about like the type of wiring used by the ISP or your distance from their exchange.

 

With wired I don't really think there's much since generally all the wires you'd use are just ethernet cables. Wired internet is a lot more stable than wireless - it doesn't suddenly drop out randomly.

 

Wireless internet there are a lot more. Distance from the router is generally a big one, different kinds of routers can broadcast up to different distances. The closer you are a better signal you'll get. Also if there are any walls and the like in the way of the signal that can make it worse.

kk things that i know already, but still nice contribution to the thread. :grin: Nice new signature by the way.

[Distracted]

Generally it can depend on your ISP and there are some types of factors that effect any connection that you can't really do much about like the type of wiring used by the ISP or your distance from their exchange.

 

With wired I don't really think there's much since generally all the wires you'd use are just ethernet cables. Wired internet is a lot more stable than wireless - it doesn't suddenly drop out randomly.

 

Wireless internet there are a lot more. Distance from the router is generally a big one, different kinds of routers can broadcast up to different distances. The closer you are a better signal you'll get. Also if there are any walls and the like in the way of the signal that can make it worse.

kk things that i know already, but still nice contribution to the thread. :grin: Nice new signature by the way.

 

Well, I know from personal experience that the internet doesn't start at your own modem, if you're having internet problems, and changing modems or going wired doesn't help, it might be a problem with the cables that are underground. We had this, and they had to dig in front of our house, but the internet is working great now.

[Hawks]

With wireless internet, the way you get the wi-fi can change your speed; like if you have a cellular modem, which uses cellphone towers so you can essentially get internet anywhere, the speed/clarity of the connection varies as your cellphone signal would (in the middle of nowhere it's going to be slower to nonexistent). If you have an antenna on your house (we do, it gets the wi-fi broadcasted from the ISP) then that can be interfered with like (due to weather and building interference) satellite TV (although it drops out much less than the TV does).

 

Like Laura said, distance from the router can change strength, and also what sort of device you're using it on. Our Wii can't get a very strong signal (two floors and two 8-inch concrete walls from the router) but the laptop (Dell Inspirion 4300 or something, with XP) can in the same location. Same with my DSi, it's faster and easier to get a connection the closer I am to the router, but it doesn't seem to be so with the laptop. (We've got a desktop [Win2000 YAY] that is wired to where the antenna feeds the wireless into the house, because it's too old to have a wireless card in it... :P)

 

We can sit on our front porch with the laptop and access the internet, but it doesn't go much farther. I've tried with my DSi and I can't get anything once I'm out of the garage. I've heard stories of people with wi-fi who have other people 'hacking' it... ie purposely using it even though they aren't paying for it if it's not password protected. We live in the middle of nowhere, so that's not really a problem.

 

If it seems really slow, call up your ISP and ask them about it. For a week out internet was awful. If we pinged something, it ran the request through like 5 myspace servers before getting to where it was supposed to go. Obviously, it was the ISP's problem, and they fixed it... Our ISP is not particularly amazing, the only reason we have it is because they're the only people who can semi-cheaply (still $50 a month) serve our area with anything faster than dial-up.

[das]

Are you experiencing a slower connection?

 

This question is painfully ambiguous - Dial up has high packet loss due to phone line quality, DSL has distance from the DSLAM - loop length load coals and the like - wireless that comes from a dish has weather and ice that can affect it. Wireless from a wired modem has signal degradation through insulation and other things. Cable - Well, We don't have cable, so I don't know much about it.

 

What Type of Connection do you have?

What speeds are you getting (Go to google, type in speed test, post numbers)

What speed are you paying for

 

Keep in mind if you are on say 1.5 MB / 384 KB DSL - Your speed will be under that because you need overhead to stay authenticated.

 

 

I am a manager for a call center of an ISP - So I may be of some use .

[Dire_Wolf]

Don't know exactly some of the infos Das, but hope these can help

 

 

[das]

without knowing what type of speed you're paying for - i'd say the download speed is good. The upload speed is significantly certainly lower but is way below what i'd guess a low end upload for a 3 MB connection would be. - and depending on the connection type - it could very well not even be at your house (again connection type is very useful) - Was that test ran wirelessly or with a direct conmection?

[das]

ok i cheated and in order to help you used my admin tools to figure out who your isp is .

 

Judging by your speed you're getting above the first package in download - by a megabyte - so i'd say you're on the 3500/640 kbps package - I don't speak whatever they speak in norway - but it appears you are on DSL...

 

If thats the case i'm assuming you have a filter/splitter (little white box?) on every device that plugs into a telephone jack in the house? I'm not sure if they use those outside of america.

 

If you do - let me know - if not -i'd say an issue on the phonelines is causing "slow throughput" (what verizon calls it in america) and you'd need to contact your ISP for that.

[MageUK]

(A)DSL has a large overhead anyway. The speed you Sync at is likely to be 15% or so faster than the speeds you actually receive. So while the ISP claims 3500, that may be what you sync at, a more likely speed to get on that line would be around 3000 (assuming everything is perfect).

[das]

I'd say 2.9-3.2 would be normal for a 3.5 ADSL connection in America - ADSL (Keep in mind i work with the Verizon network) typically has a range of 15.000 feet from the DSLAM to get a signal. Now it's possible that the circuit or cross connects could be miswired in the CO which could hurt his speed. Since Verizon's crossconnects are virtual - and lol do they ever get corrupted at random - i'd say you'd need to call.

 

Now i've personally, with 5 years of troubleshooting ADSL voer the phone - seen speeds affected by other devices.

 

It's possible a filter/spliter may of went bad, and it's possible a new device may need filtering.

Of course if multiple machines are on the connection - the speed will suffer.

ADSL Being rebroadcast into a wireless signal from a device other than the modem such as the router - could pose problems as well.

 

 

Theres no excuse for your upload speed on any connection though - and often ADSL problems are phone line based for speed issues so i'd say it's "Slow throughput" which your company probably needs to put in a work order for.

[Sam]

My parents pay for 8mb/s. but I'm getting this on my mac;

 

 

There's 3 other computers including my one, but they all connect really well. Could Airport have something to do with it; I'm in the same room as the router, but I can't even watch youtube videos.

 

 

Sorry if it seems like I'm hijacking your thread, but I guess this is as good place as any?

[dsavi]

My parents pay for 8mb/s. but I'm getting this on my mac;

 

 

There's 3 other computers including my one, but they all connect really well. Could Airport have something to do with it; I'm in the same room as the router, but I can't even watch youtube videos.

 

 

Sorry if it seems like I'm hijacking your thread, but I guess this is as good place as any?

Small correction; Your parents are paying for 8mbits/s, not 8mb/s. 8 bits in a byte, so 8mbits/8 = 1mb/s is what you should be getting. So really you're seeing better performance than what you're paying for. Or at least that's what it looks like; I often find Speedtest.net results to be very inconsistent with reality. And also I'm no expert on the matter.

Generally it can depend on your ISP and there are some types of factors that effect any connection that you can't really do much about like the type of wiring used by the ISP or your distance from their exchange.

I would like to emphasize this; We pay for a 24mbit connection but due to our ISP's wiring in our area we only can get speeds up to ~8mbits. Really annoying.

No, it's not me that's paying, otherwise I would downgrade to 8mbits.

[Sbrideau]

Actually, there's a difference between Mb and MB dsavi, so here, speedtest.net shows it on Mb ->Mbits as you say. I personally pay for 10Mb/s, mostly because of the GB/month restrictions, But I get 9Mb/s and can download at 1MB/s.

[dsavi]

Stupid capitalization confusion.

 

[Sam]

My parents pay for 8mb/s. but I'm getting this on my mac;

 

 

There's 3 other computers including my one, but they all connect really well. Could Airport have something to do with it; I'm in the same room as the router, but I can't even watch youtube videos.

 

 

Sorry if it seems like I'm hijacking your thread, but I guess this is as good place as any?

Small correction; Your parents are paying for 8mbits/s, not 8mb/s. 8 bits in a byte, so 8mbits/8 = 1mb/s is what you should be getting. So really you're seeing better performance than what you're paying for. Or at least that's what it looks like; I often find Speedtest.net results to be very inconsistent with reality. And also I'm no expert on the matter.

Generally it can depend on your ISP and there are some types of factors that effect any connection that you can't really do much about like the type of wiring used by the ISP or your distance from their exchange.

I would like to emphasize this; We pay for a 24mbit connection but due to our ISP's wiring in our area we only can get speeds up to ~8mbits. Really annoying.

No, it's not me that's paying, otherwise I would downgrade to 8mbits.

 

But when I'm downloading I'm only getting 95kb/s, while my friend up the road is getting 800kb/s

[Sbrideau]

Stupid capitalization confusion.

 

Wtf? I know it's just some image to be funny, but I was just telling you that to get you out of the confusion :???:

[Laura]

But when I'm downloading I'm only getting 95kb/s, while my friend up the road is getting 800kb/s

Like, and actual download? For instance going into a browser and downloading a file? If so, that's not a very good gauge of your actual download speeds. I say this because the server from whence you are downloading from will bottleneck your connection. I believe that one user here used the analogy of water flowing in pipes. If you start out with a small pipe that pushes out 2 litres of water per minute, suddenly connecting a bigger pipe (one that could conceivably push out twice that amount) won't change how fast the water is moving. In this analogy, the server is the smaller pipe while your connection is the larger pipe. I have a 22 megabit conncetion, but I usually see 500 kilobytes per second (the equalavent of about 4 megabits).

[MageUK]

But when I'm downloading I'm only getting 95kb/s, while my friend up the road is getting 800kb/s

Like, and actual download? For instance going into a browser and downloading a file? If so, that's not a very good gauge of your actual download speeds. I say this because the server from whence you are downloading from will bottleneck your connection. I believe that one user here used the analogy of water flowing in pipes. If you start out with a small pipe that pushes out 2 litres of water per minute, suddenly connecting a bigger pipe (one that could conceivably push out twice that amount) won't change how fast the water is moving. In this analogy, the server is the smaller pipe while your connection is the larger pipe. I have a 22 megabit conncetion, but I usually see 500 kilobytes per second (the equalavent of about 4 megabits).

 

Yup, it's all dependent on where you download from (lots of places allow you to pick your download locations and such), and also the bandwidth of the server from which you are retrieving the file. Real download speeds (using a download manager) are often much more reliable tests than something like Speedtest.net, where quite often the saturate of their servers' bandwidth is to be blamed for the speed result as opposed to your connection.

 

I have 50MBit/s down and 1.5MBit/s up - I quite easily get 5.5MB/s when downloading which is 44MBit/s. No complaints here.

[das]

RaWr

[shawn3090]

Is this a show-off-your-Internet thread now?

[Sbrideau]

Weird, I have a lower connection than you laura and almost eveytime I download something on Firefox it downloads at 1 - 1.2MegaBytes/seconds. Shouldn't you getting more than me?

[Laura]

Weird, I have a lower connection than you laura and almost eveytime I download something on Firefox it downloads at 1 - 1.2MegaBytes/seconds. Shouldn't you getting more than me?

Well, I most certainly get faster downloads (versus the 500KB/s). I was going by my latest download which was something like 5GB and it was sluggish at 500KB/s. I'm just saying it's not all that rare to see downloads vastly slower than the internet speeds you're paying for. :P

[dsavi]

Stupid capitalization confusion.

 

 

 

Wtf? I know it's just some image to be funny, but I was just telling you that to get you out of the confusion :???:

Yeah I know. I just had to post the related xkcd.