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The Need for Speed — 11 Comments

  1. I'd put my money on the trees, GD.

    What surprises me about your speed test is that you have the same speeds for both upload and download. At home, I get on average about 12Mbps download (from a supposed 24Mbps connection) and about 3Mbps upload speed. I just did a speed test here (I'm in Patras at the mo), where I'm using my phone as a WiFi hotspot for the laptop, and I'm getting 8Mbps download, and 1Mbps upload. I thought it was always a slower upload speed, wherever you are, but obviously not.

    • I think you're probably right.  What's worse is that I only have one long pole left, though raising the aerial further should give me some grace.

      The crowd that [reluctantly] provide my service are the only ones that provide a synchronous connection.  It has always been three up and down, whereas others offer a higher download and a lower upload if you follow my drift.  Only a few of the others offer a service here and seeing as mine is so reliable, I never shifted to another carrier.

      Of course my service is bound to collapse any minute, now that I have been singing its praises……..

  2. It's tough living in the bogland of third world Eire. Here's what Confucius said about thwarted mountainy people:

    “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” 
     

  3. It's 4:30ish in the afternoon here so all the kids are home from school and online.  The best I could get was 87 down and 12 up.  If I test it in the morning I get well over 100 down and 20 up.

    • I wonder though what real difference there is between 3 and 100?  I know that sounds daft, but the only time that really comes into play is when streaming videos or downloading large files.  The average web page is small enough that the increase in speed is not really that significant.  The only time it would really affect me is when watching a streamed film, and it takes a while to buffer it before I can watch it, but I can wait!

  4. We're in the same boat, and had roughly the same story. Local ISP came up did a survey and said 'no go'. I went down to the farm where the mast is (with binoculars) and was able to see the end of our house (to the left of some trees). Asked them to come back with a 'trust me' sort of approach. Their engineer, who is a nice guy but very cynical, had to leave with tail between legs after successfully connecting us up. I now watch those trees every spring and wonder when the prob will hit.

    They're deciduous trees so I guess we could have 'seasonal internet' !!

    • Indeed the two histories are very similar [I'd say they were the same company but I know they aren't].  The one big difference though is that my trees are coniferous and growing at a great rate.  At least you'll have a connection in Winter?

  5. Oh, and before the broadband we too also had the old Eircom dial-up connection. Every spring the connection would drop from an average of 48kbps to 24 or if lucky 32. I rang their service centre and they explained that it was down to sheep farmers turning on their electric fences! yeah, right!

    • Hmm, just got curious about the electric fence thing and a bit of googling implies they were'nt actually bullshitting me!

      • How about an entire suburb of Dublin that used to lose all television reception because a bloke was shaving?  No kidding!  Actually happened.  Must write about it sometime.

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