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connection speed explained?
Hi there, I have a question about my internet speed (sorry I am really bad at these things).
I have a 10mb internet connection (my provider is Virgin) and while connected to the wireless this afternoon I run a speedometer check using http://www.speedtest.net/ and I had a download speed of 2.23mbps abnd upload speed of 0.15. Now, we had 2 laptops on both connected to the net and one of them was streaming video content, which is why I think it was 2.23. Now, my question is how much is 2.23mbps out of 10mb connection? The reason why I am asking is because my gf was watching something on the bbc iplayer today and it kept buffering every 5 minutes, whereas with the previous provider she was with, I think it was talk talk and she had around 2-3mb I am not entirely sure - that didn't happen, so I wonder whether there is sth wrong with my connection
thanks
Hi jingda,
I was connected with the wireless. The thing is I don't know how much is what, as in my 2.23mbps, how much is it? Does it mean that if I have a 10mb connection it is downloading only 2mb per sec? I tried to find out on the net a bit more about that but didn't quite find anything clear...
One more thing: with this connection if I am connected to the wireless, skype with videocalling is really slow, it freezes every 40-50 seconds, whereas if I use the wires it is significantly better. The reason why I am saying that is because I tried with another internet provider, with a connection of only 2mb, connected to the wireless, and the videocall is absolutely perfect. That got me thinking that sth is probably wrong with the speed of my connection
The 10MB connections mean that is how fast your connection is when you are browsing the web. 2MB is the download speed, so if you have a 5MB download speed, you will download files from the internet at a faster rate and shorter time.
Second, you thought that something might be wrong with your internet connection. Are you using the same routers but different ISP when using skype. When using the ethernet cable, you receive the total of 10 mbps when using the internet. If use the router and connect wirelessly, it will be slower depends on your router. Does any other people using the same 10 mbps network as you have problem when using their skype? Go and check with your family members or your girlfriend and see whether their skype freeze.
I ran the test and got 26 Mbps for my 25 Mbps connection. I downloaded a 600 MB ISO, and the download eventually got up to 3 MB/s (equivalent to ~24 Mbps). So it seems that the speed test is working fine.
Are you on cable? One problem with cable is that you share your connection with a bunch of other people in your neighborhood. If everyone is using the connection, you can see a slowdown.
Also, were you streaming from the same website as your girlfriend was streaming from before? It's possible the BBC servers were busy and buffering slower.
As far as the wireless vs. wired issue, that's expected. With a wireless connection you will get slower speeds due to interference and the environment. It's recommended to skype using a wired connection if it's a available. It's more reliable.
hi there, thanks for you replies @jingda I am using the same router and I believe the same isp, nobody's got any problem with skype just my laptop which is why at one point I thought it could be my laptop even, but I don't seem to be able to find anything wrong with it, and it is pretty new (dell xps 17)
@LaMouche yes I am using the cable now everytime Icall with skype and it works much better.
I thought about the bbc servers being a bit busy actually, although my gf was saying she has never had that problem before even when she was living at her place and had a far slower connection than the one we have now...odd
It's possible that your cable connection is used more in your area and so everyone gets lower internet speeds compared to where she lived. Are you still having slowness problems with the bbc site?
LaMouche, well problems as in every now and then it stops and buffer, but when I plug the cable in it is significantly better, I guess that as long as it is not a problem with my connection I am quite happy
Hi jingda,
yes I mainly use chrome and firefox, and they dosn't seem to be that different in terms of performance. I have also opera IE8 and safari but I haven't tried with them but I kind of expect them to be slower, well surely opera and IE at least
So are you using the cable now? It speeds up the connection compare to connecting wireless. You might want to try a final test with other laptops conencting to the same network and see whether it is slower. A ping test is also good, it can check your connection speed. All the best:)
your internet browser has nothing to do with it. its your wireless card on your motherboard, and your internet service provider. The higher yuur bandwidth the easier it will be to achieve the current maximum wireless speeds of 300 Mbps. If your wireless capabilities of your computer ( via wireless card or built in "airport") are only 150 Kbps as is the wireless G adapters then you wont ever see speeds above 150 Mbps. Lets just say however that you have a Wireless N router, a N rated wireless card, then your only limitation is the bandwidth from your internet provider. I have a macbook for example and wirelessly i can barely stream videos without buffering while i watch, but my bandwidth is 15 Mbps. so why is ethernet faster than wireless???? BECAUSE MOST OF THE BANDWIDTH WIRELESSLY IS USED IN ROUTIE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE COMPUTER AND THE ACCESS POINT. So now you wonder if you can never get to even 150 Mbps then why would you ever need a Wreless N rated router? well im glad you asked hahah see the N rated routers have more updated technology, first of all being the N rated routers allow for bonded channels – this allows a single connection to operate on twice the frequency as a 802.11a connection. This effectively doubles the connection speed. The second speed enhancing technology is known as MIMO (multiple input multiple output). MIMO uses multiple antennas on both the wireless access point and the connected device to take advantage of a property of radio wave communication called multi-pathing. Yes if the G rated router had these two technologies incorporated into them they would be just as fast and more than plenty fast enough for devices today, but i guess the extra 150 Mbps allows for more communication between the router and internet connected device. So back to the topic.... If a wireless device was streaming at 300 Mbps and another laptop was streaming connected with an ethernet port the wireless device would have the buffering issue. This is due to the fact that the computer was designed such a way to offer priority to a hardwired connection, servicing the wireless after the wired is guaranteed to work without notice. If a wireless was streaming noone would notice anything but if BOTH were streaming then the wireless would buffer constantly till the wired signal was complete. Do yourself a favor and go ethernet hard wired connection. It is by far the Easiest, most stable connection you will ever have. Wireless comes with over 1000 times the issues wired connections do. Wireless can generate NAT (network adress translation) issues, which is ports not being opened ( set on either strict or moderate). Other issues are UPnP (universal plug and play) may be disabled not allowing you to play multiplayer online games as you would normally think they should work. The wireless router may sometimes not assign you an IP address correctly if you dont turn on your LAN devices in the correct order (Modem, router, then one wired connection at a time then one wireless device at a time). The router may also decide to turn down your Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU setting) this is like strangling the transmission of your information or bandwidth. Wireless routers must match the device with the security settings such as WEP WEP2 and so on, not to mention that annoying password that must be entered to even get connected to the network. Not to mention you must have your wireless device positioned into almost a quadratetrahedron in order to have a signal thats worth anything, making sure its not near any other devices putting out a frequency that might interfere with yours, placing device far away from metallic devices, and placing as few walls or obstructions between the access point and the connected device as possible. OR you could of course like i said plug in a $5 ethernet cord from your device to the router or modem and go download the internet before diner. I have always hated wireless except for one Lynksis Wireless N card i purchased that came with a three pieced stonehenge looking shape if you will. It had a strong signal from the mass of the antennae and was rated N so it was even faster than any of my brothers laptops or even my moms hardwired Dell Sempron hahaha. if your wondering why thats so funny picture 512 MB ddr memory, a 1 Ghz processor and a IDE connector from the hard drive to the motherboard ;) if you dont have a choice dont settle for anything less than a N rated wireless card and make sure that you arent competing with a wired device. oh i forgot to mention if you had a 15 Mbps bandwidth and there were no wired devices streaming content then you could have around 5 wireless devices streaming content together utilizing the full potential of the computer. because after you have the best wireless ratings, your processor and RAM speeds come in to play along with your power supply. Downloading content will bring into play the rating of your SATA drives the higher the number giving you way way WAY faster download speeds but that is only if you are going from one SATA connected device to another SATA connected device. I love sata transferring data from my CD drive to my Hard drive, and were talking massive file sizes too upwards of 6 GB in about oooo just a few minutes MAYBE having a SATA 6 rated motherboard and HD and CD drive. with a 6 core processor overclocked to 3.7 GHZ, with an ok RAM currently installed 4 GB DDR3 dual channel. even with all these components i would suffer trying to stream wirelessly when there was another WIRED device streaming as wel. Wired, however, i havent found anything that i cannot download by the time i cook and eat diner lol im done talking now stay away from wireless beause ALL wireless devices come with an ethernet port and with that said if you are connecting to an access point, then in my book you are close enough to run an ethernet cord over to the access point hahaha hope this info helps you understand wireless signals vs wired!!!!
my apologies i left out one of the most important details. the ethernet port on the motherboards nowadays are rated at 10/100/1000 Mbps so it is by far more superior than the wireless and thinking about the physics of it....... the ethernet cord using pulses of energy would send way more information faster than even rated HIGH capacity microwaves. ssssooooo anyone want some popcorn?!?!?!
and i just caught the PING test advice, hit start on your desktop, run your command prompt according to your operating system and then type the command for your os to run a ping test indefinitely if you are running Windows Xp it should go something like ping www.dslreports.com press space and type -f
to have it run the test until you type -i to tell it to stop testing have this test run for at least a min the longer the more accurate you will have of an idea of the ping your getting from the internet connection of the computer
the lower the pings the better
be looking for spikes that exceed 600 or so for the faster computers and anything over 1000 is just going to run slow anyways. if there is only ONE spike over that amount then don t worry its when you are getting hit often with them that you have found the cause for a laggy internet experience which getting a wireless card for a PCI-E Slot,( a millions times faster than a standard 8x sized PCI slot) and having a good amount of ram(2GB for internet surfing) with a fairly fast processor (if only surfing the web i can safely recommend a triple core operating at a speed of at least 2.7 Ghz) should clear that right up if not your router needs repaired don t forget this sometimes is the case with laggy internet that seems way to horrible to be used in 2011 who knows the pathways inside the router that transmit information could be running into each other or have developed an "STD" in which case will run so retarded you will want to stay offline rather than put up with that y
hi Xbox Support, thanks for the explanation, I am not really good at all that though, so I will take yours and others' advice and go wired when streaming content
jingda, I have tried with other laptops and they are actually a little faster...which is really odd because my dell xps17 should beat them all!! grrrr, that's annoying!
anyway, thanks
Sorry for the late reply, certain softwares can slow the network down or maybe even normal use. But all the best and see you next time:)
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