Need High Speed internet advice

[aman74]

Hi all, I have SBC/ATT DSL currently, but would like to leave them. However I need a low rate and that's one of the good things about ATT, however there new privacy policy is a turn off.

Cox cable is pretty expensive here, but they do have a 9.99 a month option with a year contract, however it is 256k down and I believe 128 or 256 up. I beleive I get about 756 down right now.

I'm not a heavy downloader and am wondering how 256 down would be for general use such as XP updates, some software downloads etc...My thought is that most servers don't stream to you at much over 256 anyways? But I've never had cable internet before and wondered about bandwith slowdowns etc...

Also I heard some people say that there is a download limit with some cable plans? I didn't see anything about this on the cox page.

Thanks all

 

[cleverhandle]

I don't know any details on the various plans or companies you mention, but I can definitely say that most servers can fill up my 1.5Mbps line. If your downloading needs are strictly limited to automatic XP updates and general web-surfing that's not *too* image-intensive, I guess 256k down would be liveable. It's certainly cheap. But if you ever need to download big game patches or movie clips, you're gonna be killing yourself.

 

[aman74]

Thanks for the reply.

So even dowloading a movie trailor or some mp3s would be slow you think?

I don't download whole movies for burning or anything. Occassionally download some large raw files and maybe a 500mb program or two.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Livedistortion
Occassionally download some large raw files and maybe a 500mb program or two.

You definitely don't want 256k down, at least I wouldn't. Do the math. Accounting for overhead, it looks like 5.5 hours for a 500mb file. If you don't mind waiting for things to complete overnight, then sure. $10 a month is definitely cheap.

 

[halfadder]

It has been a long time since I've had 256 Kbit down. With overhead, you're looking at about 80% of advertised performance. 80% of 256 Kbit is about 205 Kbit, which is about 25.5 KByte (8 bits per Byte).

So if you can live with 25 KB downloads, then you'll be pleased with 256 Kbit. Keep in mind that a 500 MB download will take 5 hours and 41 minutes at 25 KB/sec.

 

[halfadder]

WOW!! Great minds think alike, cleverhandle!!

 

[aman74]

Thanks guys.

I know it isn't very accurate, but I checked my connection speed at a couple sites and right now I'm getting about 1.2mbps, ATT may have added another CO recently, since I never used to get that.

However, when I download files I never see anywhere near that. I usually see around 2-300 kbps in the dialogue box that pops up during the download. So how does my 1.2 mbps connection help me out that greatly over the 256 if I'm rarely ever using my speed?

Thanks for giving me an idea about the 500mb file, I guess it is rare for me to download anything that big, but it gives me a time frame to think about.

ATT is currently 12.99-14.99 a month, cable can't touch those prices for those speeds, but man I hate ATT.

Too bad to get the 9.99 price with cox it's a year contract or else I would just give it a whirl and see how I liked it.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Livedistortion
However, when I download files I never see anywhere near that. I usually see around 2-300 kbps in the dialogue box that pops up during the download. So how does my 1.2 mbps connection help me out that greatly over the 256 if I'm rarely ever using my speed?

Are you sure you're talking kilobits and not kilobytes? Most downloading tools (from basic ftp up through fancy GUI downloaders) report kilobytes (KB), not kilobits (Kb). That's a factor of 8 right there. I usually figure that after accounting for TCP overhead, your displayed KB/s speed will be about 1/10 of your rated line speed in Kb/s.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Yep, in other words, if you're getting 300 KB/s, that's a bitrate of around 3 megs.