# Internet speed question



## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

I enjoy watching TV shows on my computer in the evenings. I was having a lot of problems with buffering, so I bit the bullet and signed up for the next higher speed my ISP provides -- 3 GB. The basic is 1.5 GB. I'm still having a lot of problems with buffering. I just watched a show that should have been 43 minutes, but took 2 hours to watch. I'd let it buffer for about 10-12 minutes while I did something else, came back and watch 7 - 8 minutes until it stalled, then let it buffer, etc. etc. It is better in the early mornings, but that's not when I want to watch "TV". The ISP techs say there is nothing they can do about it. The router speed is testing out at 3 GB, but the buffering comes from the upline providers (I think that was the term). So.... am I paying $22.00 extra a month for the extra router speed for nothing? In other words, if the download speed according to speedtest is .88, would I be just as better off having the cheaper option of 1.5 GB -- would I still get .88 or would it be even slower? The ISP tech wouldn't (or couldn't) answer that one for me. 
Here is my latest speedtest, which is the highest of three tests I made:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2441776408.png
Anyone here made heads or tails out of it and can advise me? I thought doubling the router speed would stop or diminish the buffering.
Forgot to add that the above test is using IE on a Win7 computer. Here's the same test using Chrome, which is supposed to be faster:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2441796272.png


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

Your speed is not going to be in Gigabytes (GB) or Gigabits (Gb)
Capitol B is Bytes and lower case is bits.
8 bits to a byte then each step after is 1024,
1024 bytes = 1 Kilobyte (KB)
1024 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte (MB)
1024 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte (GB)
1024 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte (TB)

the test you posted is less then 1 Mb/s ( .88 or 880,000 bits or 110,000 bytes or 107.421875 KB ) So it takes you a little over 10 seconds to download a megabyte. So lets assume your getting a megabyte every 10 seconds, you would have 6 megabytes a Minuit so if a video is 300 mb (I'd say average for a 1/2 hour Flash video of medium quality) its going to take 50 mins to download.if it higher quality it will take longer ,lower quality less. Same with different formats, Flash is about the least bloated of video formats. a flash video vs a mpeg of same quality is half the size, more or less.

Now the reason I went in to all that is so you get a picture of whats going on.
Yes it can be confusing... 

but the GB you reference is your Transfer limit not speed. 
If your not bottoming out at 1.5 GB with normal use the extra is of no use to you.
with the 300 MB movie example 1.5 GB would be little over 5 videos and double for the 3 GB.
You probably get throttled after you hit your limit, or charged extra for every GB over.

I would be looking for a different provider myself. My speeds not great but better then most options available here. 3.5 Mb/s and .9 up. Movies can still buffer out though.
Depends on time of day and Internet Congestion. Right now as I type I can get full Bandwidth, Around morning it will drop off pretty good. 

you can do a couple things though tweak your TCP check out speedguide.net for that.
Disable Nagles algorithm it does help drop latency (ping) 
make sure your players optimized,
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager03.html
I like VLC for a lot of things get it here. 
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html
Make sure your OS is optimized, unnecessary services disabled for one, lots of little tweaks in all versions that improve performance, I could not cover them all. easy enough to google it.
Make sure nothing is running that will degrade performance.
you can use something like Gamebooster for that, 
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html
You can also Change the playback quality on a lot of sites and players.

I switched to a 64 bit os recently and using waterfox as a browser, but I just noticed not sure if its youtube or waterfox but I not only can select quality setting but also connection speed.

As a last resort you can get a program to download the videos so you can watch at your lesiure, some are real easy to down load, like youtube vids, there are plugins for browsers to do this or FDM (free download manager) www.freedownloadmanager.org/
others are hidden behind a bunch of code to prevent you from downloading it, and something like replay will simplify the process. (stream capture and direct DL)
http://applian.com/replay-video-capture/

If you still have problems after DL a vid then you either need more ram or processor or both.
GF has the same provider as me and vids always buffer on her PC but never on mine.


----------



## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

Sorry, but you've really confused me -- not difficult to do when talking about computers.  Let me use the English I know (and probably confuse you). I only have availabilty of one ISP -- a telephone Co-op, so changing providers is not possible. I'm on DSL. We get unlimited usage. What changes the monthly price is the *speed* of the connection. There are three levels. I was on the basic which is 1.50 *whatever* and since I was getting a lot of buffering, I paid extra to raise the speed to 3.0 *whatever*. 
I don't download shows if you mean I save them to the computer. I watch them on-line. I'm too afraid of downloading a virus along with the video. 

This is a fairly new computer with very little on it. It has 16 GB RAM, an AMD Phenom IIX4 955 processor with 3.20 GHz. I was told that was a quad core, large RAM and fairly fast. 

So, continuing in English. If the speed according to speedtest is less than 1.5 *whatever* -- right now is is 1.42-- I'm just throwing money away to have a higher speed from the ISP? And if that is true, why do ISPs (not just mine) even bother to sell higher speed if the Internet as a whole only runs at 1.5 give or take?


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

Ok so then you upgraded service from 1.5 Mb (Megabits) to 3 Mb (Megabits)
I'm going to assume this is DSL?
You need to run a Speed Test during non peak Internet times. 
It will give a truer number.
Like I said you need to do some Tweaking (adjustments) to your Operating System (OS) and the TCP 
settings.
If you go to speed guide I linked above they have a tool that makes it very easy. 
I have to assume you have a 64 Bit system? 
I don't know your OS , but my windows 7 installation ran like crap from right out of the box,
I made numerous changes to get it running smooth and improve overall performance.
Really was no different then any other windows version and most of the same tweaks.
make sure everything is updated OS, Browser,plugins.
then simple things like keeping the junk folders clean can help also.
did that ease some confusion? if not let me know

you will hardly ever get full speed, variety of factors at play. it varies. 
my connection goes under and over speed regularly. as long as its close to the spec speed I'm OK with it.
until I made the changes I recommended though it was a steady under speed.


----------



## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

Well, pits. I went to the speedguide site and tried to download the TCP Optimizer and got an error screen that says I don't have administrator priviledges and can't make the necessary changes with the program. I'm the only user and according to the Control Panel, there is only one account active and that is the administrator. Don't know how to get around that one!


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

what OS?


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

I'm thinking its your UAC settings. User Account Control.
you need to go into control panel to change them.


----------



## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

If you are paying for 3 Mbps and ONLY getting .88 Mbps and they can't find out why I would be screaming to high heaven to them so they FIND OUT what is causing you such a drain on speed.

Now I am at just over 9.00 Mbps and even sometimes at that SOME videos still may take some time to load IF I am at Full Screen and watching High Def videos. 
Come summer I am thinking we well get to 10 Mbps as I will get Fiber direct to the house and the house itself will be a WiFi "hotspot".
And I am also getting my Cable TV over the DSL lines.
That is cool. So as far as you being under 1 Mbps Call them up and Say FIND OUT WHY or drop me BACK to a lower level so I am not paying for something I am not able to get.
Are you on Cable Modem or is it DSL?

If cable the coax cable maybe to small to handle the higher speed.
If Phone DSL maybe you phone lines in house have long runs etc.
SDL modem should be as close to the Incoming telephone line as possible, AND not split into many way by using all sorts of connections etc.
The DSL Phone line Direct to the Incoming box, and that one line over to the Modem.
And then have a GOOD, preferably NEW data telephone cord between modem and computer.
Or if it is a Wireless Modem connect Wirelessly. That is the way I have mine.


----------



## How Do I (Feb 11, 2008)

Belfrybat, I'm no expert, but it sounds like a stalling/memory issue. I've been having problems similar to yours where the video would just quit loading until I started watching it again and then it would only start loading again once I got close to watching where it stopped buffering. I did a little test to try to find out why, using youtube.

I tried loading a Frontline video and it stopped as it has for a few months now, meaning the video quit loading after a few minutes. I thought I might have changed a setting somewhere, but couldn't remember where even if I might have. Then I thought, when is the last time I did a disk cleanup?? I ran one and again started loading the same Frontline video from youtube and it is already a quarter of the way through downloading with no signs of stopping. I didn't even get a couple of minutes to load the first time I tried it. So maybe rule out the memory issue if you haven't already.

OK, I waited a few more minutes before posting and it is _still loading_.


----------



## inspired (Jan 17, 2013)

The second poster was correct, the problem is your line speed is only 1mb. You then have 3GB of data to use per month.

The best way I can explain it would be using pipes and water.

Your 1mb line would be like a pipe with a 1 inch opening, your 3GB of data would be the 3 Gallons of water you have available to send through the pipe every month.

So no matter how hard you try you can only send a certain amount of water through the pipe at a time due to the size of the pipe, if you "upgrade" to a 2 inch pipe (2mb line) you could send that same 3 gallons of water through twice as fast.

My advice to you would be to find a Internet Service Provider in your area who would be able to provide you with a 2mb line as in my experience that is the smallest line that would be good for streaming movies with minimal buffering at low quality.

With a 2mb line you should be able to watch a 360p stream with little to no buffering and a 720p line with a small amount of buffering.


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

Well you guys are pointing out potentially valid possibility's, I would first make sure its not the OS.
I have never had a windows installation that did not benefit from some tweaking.
I liken it to GM and the car dealers garage...
My connection, wich is WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) sold as 2Mb/s came in at .67
and under on a standard installation of xp and worse under win7. I suppose my wires where to tiny? A little tweaking and I hit that 2Mb/s during peak usage, my ping went from 127ms to 23ms and I can hit 3.5 Mb/s in off hours.
The Isp uses a radius server which will throttle bandwidth if exceeded to long. so it only burst speed. but I did get 5.4 Mb/s on a few occasions.

after all the tweaking and not showing improvement, my next step would be to ask for a new modem. or in my case radio. these guys have a lot of junk and going junk radios, last one we had replaced worked but very poorly and they went through 6 before finding a good one.

I just ran a speed test on two different computers. my speed on the un tweaked pc 1.67 Mb/s my speed on the Tweaked one almost 3 Mb/s ping was a little higher but only a few ms. Same connection, the slow ones hard wired to the extender and the other is wireless. being the weekend I assume thats the difference between higher speed tests Ive ran.


----------



## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Belfreybat - I used to have similar issues with Hughesnet. A .88 speed won't allow much except maybe a 240 res Youtube - if that. As mentioned 3 is about the slowest speed where you can stream somewhat reliably. I suspect that the ISP you use has the system maxed out for the number of users, and you'll never get them to admit it.

I use Exede now. Just checked my download speed - 19.8. http://testmy.net/auto


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Belfrybat said:


> Sorry, but you've really confused me


Let me clear this up for you.

The basic data unit it a bit. Network speeds, including DSL speed from your ISP, are expressed in mega*bits*/second. A speed of 1.5 or 3 mega*bits* per second would be a reasonable rate for a DSL provider to offer.

The confusion comes when you look at file, application, and disk sizes, which are expressed in mega*bytes*. A byte describes a unit of data, called a "word" in software jargon. A byte is 8 bits. In fact the word "byte" is a contraction of the phrase "by eight", which makes it easy to remember.

So with a 3 mega*bit*/sec internet connection, you are only moving about 3/8 of a mega*byte*/sec, since a mega*bit* is 1/8th of a mega*byte*.

For simplicity, you can estimate that a mega*byte* is about ten times bigger than a mega*bit*. That's makes it easy to do in your head, so you have a quick idea of how long a download might take. Estimating that a transfer might take 15 minutes instead of 13 minutes is close enough, considering that there are other factors that can impact data transfer anyway.


----------



## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

arabian knight said:


> If you are paying for 3 Mbps and ONLY getting .88 Mbps and they can't find out why I would be screaming to high heaven to them so they FIND OUT what is causing you such a drain on speed.


Exactly


----------



## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

Belfrybat said:


> This is a fairly new computer with very little on it. It has 16 GB RAM, an AMD Phenom IIX4 955 processor with 3.20 GHz. I was told that was a quad core, large RAM and fairly fast.


 Has to be 64bit Vista, Win 7 or Win8 to use that much RAM -- Your computer is smokin fast - that's not the issue



Belfrybat said:


> So, continuing in English. If the speed according to speedtest is less than 1.5 *whatever* -- right now is is 1.42-- I'm just throwing money away to have a higher speed from the ISP? And if that is true, why do ISPs (not just mine) even bother to sell higher speed if the Internet as a whole only runs at 1.5 give or take?


People do get higher speed, my test came out to 15.8 mb/sec. I have broadband rather than DSL

Basically you are not getting what you paid for and I would be on the phone with them complaining.


----------



## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

Nevada said:


> A speed of 1.5 or 3 mega*bits* per second would be a reasonable rate for a DSL provider to offer.


If you are PAYING for 3 Mbps and only getting .88 Mbps NO it ins't reasonable AT ALL. That is the OP Problem.
I am paying for DSL Speed of 10 Mbps and getting well it varies some from 8.7 Mbps to 9.3 Mbps. That is what I am paying for that is what I should be getting.
THAT is what I am paying 10 Mbps I would not only expect to get Close to 10 or there is something wrong in Denmark. and I am very pleased at around 9 Mbps cause they are not done with getting the Fiber in the house yet.
And I am sure I will get somewhat over 10 after this summer when they bring the Fibre directly in the house. And if I wanted to pay more for a faster DSL Speed I could and that would be 15 Mbps to as high as 20 Mbps at the highest DSL speed.
I just checked my speed and it was 8.97 Down and .88 Up. Not bad at all for the fiber not yet connected up. Even if I am supposed to be getting 10. LOL


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

arabian knight said:


> If you are PAYING for 3 Mbps and only getting .88 Mbps NO it ins't reasonable AT ALL.


I agree. She should have the DSL connection looked at by her provider.

But there might not be a lot they can do about it. Since she lives in a rural area she could be on the outreaches of the DSL line. That could make it a "take it or leave it" proposition.


----------



## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

Nevada said:


> I agree. She should have the DSL connections looked at by her provider.
> 
> But there might not be a lot they can do about it. Since she lives in a rural area she could be on the outreaches of the DSL line. That could make it a "take it or leave it" proposition.


Then if not she has to call and drop back in paying for that higher speed. But the wires should be checked also from the box outside to inside the the house. 
The phone lines may have been there for 50 years or more. I have all new wires inside. And my Phone company supplied the wire going over the the cable box so it is a nice new one from them. And the wireless router is the same one that I have had for the past 6 years, also supplied by my phone Co.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

arabian knight said:


> Then if not she has to call and drop back in paying for that higher speed. But the wires should be checked also from the box outside to inside the the house.
> The phone lines may have been there for 50 years or more. I have all new wires inside. And my Phone company supplied the wire going over the the cable box so it is a nice new one from them. And the wireless router is the same one that I have had for the past 6 years, also supplied by my phone Co.


Like I said, she deserves to have it looked at.


----------



## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

OK -- let me try to answer some questions. Computer is new, fast, with Win7. This is a new house, so wires to the house are new. I'm on DSL and have unlimited data each month. Not sure about the underground wires that run throughout town. Within the next two years we are supposed to get fibreoptic, but that doesn't help now. According to the ISP (btw the only game in town) the router/modem is transferring 3.1 Mb, or whatever the speed designation is, but the ISP has no say on what happens before the signal gets to their servers" (or after it leaves), so although my router is working correctly the speed is as fast (or slow) as the connection between here and remote servers will allow. And apparently in rural Texas the speed is slow, but IMO it shouldn't be this slow. During the morning hours, speedtest shows 1.5 - 2.5 MB, but in the evening when I want to kick back and watch a video or two, the speed is usually under 1.0Mb. Tonight is an exception and it's running 1.34 the last time I checked -- that may be due to the tweaking I've done or just coincidence. However, I watched a couple of videos with very little buffering which was nice. 

I did manage to download the TCP Optomizer that Downhome suggested and I let it tweak a couple of things, but I'm not comfortable doing too much on my own for fear of messing up the computer. I've also installed a new program called System Mechanic which I hope will help keep the computer running at it's best. It found over 400 registry errors and fixed them, so maybe that is what is helping with the speed this evening. 

But back to my original question. If the internet coming to my house in the evenings is running below 1.5 MB, and if the changes I can make doesn't affect that speed, would I be just as well off to drop back down to the basic service and save $22.00 a month? The only reason I went with the higher level was to watch TV shows and a few movies on the computer. Did I mention I hate Win 7 and computers in general right now? :flame:


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Belfrybat said:


> During the morning hours, speedtest shows 1.5 - 2.5 MB, but in the evening when I want to kick back and watch a video or two, the speed is usually under 1.0Mb. Tonight is an exception and it's running 1.34 the last time I checked -- that may be due to the tweaking I've done or just coincidence.


I wasn't aware that you got near-promised data speed during the day. It sounds more like your DSL provider's network connectivity is oversold. In other words, when the data load increases with higher community usage in the evenings, the community is consuming most of the bandwidth. They'll never admit that their connectivity is oversold, but it's pretty clear that's what's going on.


----------



## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

Yes I also agree that is what is going on. You bet too many on line for what they can provide good speed for.


----------



## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

In my OP I did mention the speed was better in the mornings, but didn't specify how much difference -- sorry. If Nevada and AK are correct, then what the ISP told me about the slowness "upline" is a bunch of hooey? The Co-op is the only provider in town so I have no other options (other than satellite which would be more expensive and from what I've read not much better). I think I'll call on Tuesday and ask if they are oversubscribed for the capacity they have and if so, what they are planning on doing about it. Since a Co-op is community owned, they should have some responsibility to provide correct facts.


----------



## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

Belfrybat said:


> Did I mention I hate Win 7 and computers in general right now? :flame:


The problem is NOT Win7 or your computer, the problem is your DSL.


----------



## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

I will agree that the DSL plays into it as well as general Internet congestion. 
but you can not rule out that software issues are not contributing. 
You always check the things you can before delving into those you can't.
I call it deduction. Once you have, then you know you can safely and with out assumption rule them out as the culprit or contributing factors.Normally I start with the simplest first and work up.
Call me crazy. Besides when has MS ever released something that did not need a bit of "adjustment" or a computer that after some use not need a little "house keeping" ?
something could very well be running in the background eating bandwidth.

Belfry you may have a wisp available, Wireless Internet Service Provider.
I don't know where your at so you will have to search for one in your area.
Here is a list I dug up but like I said do a search with your area and WISP and see if one is available or close. http://wireless-isp.info/wireless_ISPs_Texas.html

The one we go through got a huge amount to expand from the feds, like 56 million or something it was obscene. But I would Imagine the same holds true for other providers. just keep checking.

Like I pointed out you need to test at different times, try doing it at the same time for a few days in a row. morning, noon, night, late late night if you can. it would show a better picture of whats going on. if you can start tomorrow and do it till next Saturday. not just one test each at time period but three. keep track. 

get tcpview, it will show all the programs connecting to the internet. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897437.aspx


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Belfrybat said:


> Did I mention I hate Win 7 and computers in general right now? :flame:


Wait until you try Windows 8.


----------



## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

Nevada said:


> Wait until you try Windows 8.


I sure don't know why MS wanted imitate the hand held tablets.
I can see why Apple is using it because those that have iPads are already used to using their fingers etc. to navigate. 
I have a what Apple calls a Magic Mousepad, which I can make my desktop (iMac) work and look like a iPad does. And Apple doesn't have a start menu to start with in the first place. (I sort of had to get used to that but no big deal after a time) But iMacs's are way different in the way you see things in their "Dock" which is where all icons are kept that you want to use.

But the other 85% of users that are MS folks are not used to do this and like you say Windows 8 is NOT Desktop or Workstation friendly because they are not touch screens.
And that is the only way these features work well is via a touch screen, and Nobody is going to get a or wants to get reaching up and touching their monitor. LOL At least I sure would not be wanting to do that.


----------



## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

An update: Last night my connection speed was .67. So I called three friends in town who are on the Co-op and they were all connecting at below 1 mps. One was on the cadillac plan of 6 mps but was connecting at .93. Then I called two friends who live in the two towns either side of ours -- each 8-9 miles away and not on the Co-op. They were connecting 2.73 and 2.90.

So armed with this data, I showed up at the Co-op first things this morning and told them I wanted some answers. They could no longer tell me it was a problem with my computer or that the problem was with the internet the "other side" of their servers. Finally after 6 months of complaining, I was told they needed to update their servers. In the meantime "supposedly" one of their techs will be going in the evening and tweaking their servers to hopefully get us better speeds. We'll see. I purposefully went down in habit (what I call power dressing) to hopefully get the manager to hear me. Having a mad nun confront you sometimes gets results!


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Belfrybat said:


> Finally after 6 months of complaining, I was told they needed to update their servers.


I'm not surprised. A lot of rural broadband providers underestimated their projected bandwidth needs. Heck, it wasn't that many years ago that phone companies believed ISDN service was going to be satisfactory, since they didn't see home Internet users requiring more than 128K (that's only 1/8th of a megabit/sec). Today you complain that you can't live with 5 times that speed.

But I don't think there's a lot the tech can do by tweaking. They need more bandwidth, pure and simple.


----------

