What makes a fast internet connection?

[Scooterit]

Hi,

While visiting other homes and offices I have noticed a significant difference in how fast the internet experience is.

Often I am directly connected to the modem eliminating other users routers or switches. Using the same laptop with the same configuration.

My thoughts are that a high speedtest.net score is irrelevant to how fast a page loads. Also downloads from the internet are limited by the hosting server.

Is this where the business and consumer ISP service differences? If so why and how?

Looking forward to your replies,


Rogier

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Internet service like telephone system, has different tiers. Like there are regular trains, express trains or direct flight or stop over flight. That is in lay man's term. One trick I play with local ISP for our home service(50/3 and bundled with TV and phone) I keep complaining tactfully until they move my circuit to the better one. Been in the field during my working career.

 

[L&LD]

For myself, I find that cable based ISP's can have some of the worst online experience.

They may be able to claim 75+ Mbps u/d, but that is usually in the middle of the night (before dawn).

The quality of the lines (including the work done by the tech on site), low distances from the main connection and the guaranteed (at almost all times: 98%+) speeds of DSL is what has consistently impressed me with regards to the online experience.

Combine that with 50Mbps service or more (using bonded DSL) and you have all the benefits with none of the gotchas of cable.

Of course, my tune will change when we have Fiber ONT connections available freely.

Right now, I either have to move or wait another decade to see that happen for me.


It goes without saying that the router you connect to your bridged ISP provided modem/gateway is also important.

Last week I had a chance to setup an RT-N56U with Padavan's firmware (latest '75') and was very surprised how much more responsive the internet connection (cable) became vs. the official Asus v2239 firmware.

This was seen with 8 year old computers and the Ookla speed test results even gained ~4Mbps too (~16%). On my Intel AC7260 equipped laptop, the wireless was not the same as the Asus firmware, but the difference in routing speed was worth the tradeoff.

 

[Scooterit]

In my area most ATT DSL lines are anemic :-(

Just to step away from the max download speed. After all how fast does one need to load a page from the internet.. The question comes down to what sets one ISP service apart from the other?

• Ping?
• DNS?

I have been at a location where the speed test maxed out at 5Mb but every page just loaded instantly...


Smiles across the wires,



Rogier

 

[jlake]

In my area most ATT DSL lines are anemic :-(

Just to step away from the max download speed. After all how fast does one need to load a page from the internet.. The question comes down to what sets one ISP service apart from the other?

• Ping?
• DNS?

I have been at a location where the speed test maxed out at 5Mb but every page just loaded instantly...


Smiles across the wires,



Rogier

I have AT&T dsl and webpages load really quickly. I have relatively low latency. I use AT&T's DNS or sometimes google public DNS but don't notice any real difference.

If you describe your setup, you might get some better feedback. What modem/router do you have? Is it in bridge mode? If it's in bridge mode, have you set the MTU on your router to 1492? I've seen lots of people that put their AT&T DSL modem in to bridge mode, and then use a linksys router and leave the MTU set to "Auto". That will slow your pages right there. And it's always possible that your modem is on the blink. An AT&T/DSL modem will still work even when it's faulty, but it will give you lots of packet loss and other sorts of weird stuff. DSL modems don't last as long as you might think.

One of the most common problems DSL users have.... is they get their AT&T modem/router with an IP address of 192.168.1.1 and then they plug a third party router in to it with an IP address of 192.168.1.1 and double nat on the same subnet. And that will cause lots of problems.

Try using Netalyzer to compare your connection to others. It will give you a good baseline for testing.

http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/

 

[Scooterit]

As quoted in the beginning. My observations are made directly from the modem. Just the same MB Pro with ethernet cable connected to the modem.

With the exemption of my previous observation where I was connected to the wifi of a small hotel.

Smiles across the wires,



Rogier

 

[jlake]

As quoted in the beginning. My observations are made directly from the modem. Just the same MB Pro with ethernet cable connected to the modem.

With the exemption of my previous observation where I was connected to the wifi of a small hotel.

Smiles across the wires,



Rogier

Well, web page responsiveness and load times with AT&T DSL residential and business account in my neck of the woods is identical when I test with my laptop. And confirmed by Netalyzr.

 

[stevech]

Cable modem is always much faster than DSL or AT&T's gawdawful Uverse VRADs.

 

[Nerre]

Internet doesn't have a speed.

Internet is a network of networks, running a speed test will only test the speed between your IP-address and the test server at the very moment the test is run. The speed is not the same all the time, and not the same to other servers. Bottlenecks can occur everywhere.

How fast a web page loads depends not only on the link speed but also for example the load on the web server and how well written the page is.

A browser can start to render a well written web page as it receives it, but if the web page is not well written the browser will have to wait until it can start rendering the page.

 

[L&LD]

To me internet has a speed. When I first moved from a US Robotics modem to DSL almost 20 years ago the speed jump was unbelievable.

It was like reading documents stored on the computer itself, not on some remote location around the world.

When I upgraded to the highest speeds possible (50Mbps/10Mbps, d/u) I thought it may be a waste of money. Instead; I experienced the exact same thing.

You don't know how much you've been waiting until you experience the veil removed yourself (and it sure helps to compare the new to an once better than the previous old ISP speeds with a customer's setup for a needed reality check).

I have always been a fast reader; so this is very noticeable to me.

If someone just pokes along on the net without any real purpose (except to relax), then this kind of speed increase is not even on their radar.

 

[Nerre]

The emphasizis shall be on _a_ speed.

As I wrote, internet is a network of networks. The speed you get against another server depends on a lot of issues. The traffic between your computer and a a server usually passes half a dozen or more "links" (can be checked with traceroute). Each of those links are shared with other traffic. The only link you don't share is your own link to the nearest router.

Traditionally the bottleneck was the users "internet connection", but today when more and more users get 100 Mbit "internet" the bottleneck have moved (since the other links are shared with other traffic).

 

[stevech]

The Internet ACCESS link speeds have improved of course - from dial-up to DSL then ADSL, then DOCSIS cable modems, and for the lucky few, fiber to the home like Verizon FIOS, (not fiber to the distant curb then phone wires to the home as is most Uverse (yuck)).

The internet backbones have improved too, but not as dramatically as the access links. The backbones have increased mostly in capacity, not speed.

It's still amazing.

We all need to keep the US Government from taxing and regulating the free and open Internet.

 

[Nerre]

I don't care what the US government does because I don't live in the US

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Is this where the business and consumer ISP service differences? If so why and how?

ISPs often have higher speed packages for business grade.

ISPs usually use better, higher quality, higher performance "modems" or "gateways" for their business connections.

ISPs usually have different DNS servers for their business connections, higher performing, less load.

ISPs usually take a little more time running the cables for business connections, the techs that set them up do a better job....the line coming in from the street, to the NID (hits the building), runs to wherever the modem is.

ISPs monitor and control the bandwidth for the business connections better. Higher quality of service, much higher uptimes.

Between cable and DSL, I typically prefer cable for our business clients. We provide/manage IT services for SMBs...across much of New England, down to FL, into NY. So we work with a lot of different ISPs. Most of our clients with cable have Comcast...which does a great job with their business connections.

Since Docsis 3 came out, cable really took the lead over the phone company and DSL, as fiber if being rolled out very slowly. AT&T is doing a decent job with U-Verse lately, we've been having a lot of those installed and it's been good. Not as fast as cable, but solid. I've had it at my house for 3 years now and love it.