How fast is your broadband?

[julian]

@DownPW Why is it called "Free"? Shouldn't it be called "Libré"

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Working out of a coworking space today...

[omega]

My first coaxial broadband was 0.5 Mbps, that was a real improvement over dial up hands down.

A few years later and a differing location, connection available offered a base that gave real world 6Mbps but ADSL, and around that mark web surfing really did feel instant and responsive, that's about 10 years ago.

Since then browsers have gotten more bloated, OS's too and the average web page layered with all kinds of elements, the rise of streaming and gaming add in the need for VPN's these days, is it actually overkill for basic web, yes it is and that's why I don't really need 1Gbps.

Meanwhile, I got a generic mailer for 1Gbps offer today for 50 euro bucks a month (switch over offer), other offers range around 60-70 eurobucks a month, 500 Mbps, around 30-45 eurobucks, all on fibre.

[omega]

@omega said in How fast is your broadband?:

Of course, back on topic, even using VPN I'm getting 190 D : 19 U today, but it's summer and it's quiet everywhere right?

My BB has halved since this test, I can't get past 60Mbps D/L at the moment, but the latency and pin rate went to pot, which IMHO is worse.

[omega]

The latest and greatest in these parts is 1Gbps FTTH for €40 per/month (100Mbps upload)

Surprisingly good too when testing, fast.com has often hit 1.2/1.3 Gbps whatever that might be worth but generally speaking, even with the hit VPN brings you can often achieve 500 Mbps picking the right servers, and sometimes there is no hit to the ping time, but of course it can more often be 80% less.

[julian]

Since I created this topic, my internet plan and price are unchanged $65 CAD for 60 Mbps.

@baris got a bit of a break, though. Our ISP got bought out by one of the large telecoms.

[phenomlab]

@julian said in How fast is your broadband?:

Since I created this topic, my internet plan and price are unchanged $65 CAD for 60 Mbps

[julian]

@phenomlab tell me about it

[baris]

$60/month.

Still a ripoff. If I want fiber at my address need to pay $120/month

[phenomlab]

@baris is there an installation charge? That's common in the UK.

[baris]

@phenomlab yeah there is. There is no competition here so 3 companies just rip Canadians off

[phenomlab]

@baris pretty much the same in the UK.

[brazzerstop]

In my country 8$ (USD)/month for plan with speed 10 Mbps.

[julian]

@brazzerstop still cheaper than Canada

[julian]

@phenomlab said in How fast is your broadband?:

@baris pretty much the same in the UK.

But do your ISPs do dumb things like call non-fiber internet "Fibe" to fool people into thinking they have fiber?

[phenomlab]

@julian oh yes. Copper phone lines to carry fiber, which would be a miracle in itself. Those in the trade know that there's FTTC and FTTH - and the only ones capable of delivering true fiber speeds in the UK without it costing a fortune are cable companies like Virgin for example.

Even back in 2007, the minimum speed to the house in Japan was 100Mbps...

[razibal]

In theory I have gigabit fiber, but I've never seen anything above 600 even when hardwired to ethernet. This is on WiFi

[omega]

@razibal It was 5 bucks extra to get 1 gigabit.

I thought if I get 600Mbps on that it's better than getting 300 on the 0.5 gigabit package!

I see comments that think providers will give improved performance if you're speed testing on one of the well known speed test sites, both of these seem more real, but good to run in conjunction with the others.

• https://speed.cloudflare.com
• https://www.dslreports.com/speedtest

I've read comments online that think when you try the popular speediest sites teh ISP's have it so you get great performance, DSLreports might be one of the more reliable ones out there. I say run about 3-5 different tests and see what you average.

There are also these one too:

• https://speedof.me
• https://fast.com
• https://testmy.net
• https://netperf.tools/

[julian]

I think I know why NodeBB is so fast. Our internet is so shit we have to build lean backends otherwise we're old and grey by the time the page loads.

[omega]

This post is deleted!

[omega]

@julian Indeedily, less is truly more.

Oh and here is the opening online comment from a run of comments on the issue of ISP magic and speedtests.

I want to start by saying this is anecdotal, and I feel paranoid for even thinking it. But often my internet will feel very slow, so I'll open speedtest to check if something's wrong. When I do, all of my stalled tabs suddenly spring into action and finish loading.

The tinfoil hat wearer inside of me speculates that my internet provider is overloaded and throttling my bandwidth, but immediately prioritizes me when it senses that I'm trying to check if I'm getting what I pay for.

Has anyone else noticed this pattern? Is there a way I can test this more scientifically?

Ask HN: Internet magically gets faster when opening speedtest? | Hacker News

(news.ycombinator.com)