How do I find out...

[madamesilverspurs]

How do I find out the speed of my present internet service? I really want to upgrade from this hideous dialup, but can't afford the wifi stuff. Comcast is offering their Xfinity internet for $14.99/month, with download speeds of up to 3 Mbps. I'd like to compare with what I presently have (PeoplePC) before making a decision.

Also, does anyone already have this low-priced Xfinity? Does it allow for viewing videos? Is it a good thing?

Thanks in advance!


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[Ptah]

1. speedtest.net

http://www.speedtest.net/

[ManiacJoe]

2. Go here for a speed test:

http://www.speedtest.net/

[PoliticAverse]

3. Try one of the online speedtests...

Such as:
http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
http://www.dslreports.com/stest
http://www.speedtest.net/

[madamesilverspurs]

4. speed test results

(not that I have a clue what any of this means...!)

Download: 0.04 Mbps 44Kbps (5.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Upload: 0.25 Mbps 246 Kbps (30.8 KB/sec transfer rate)


Pass? Fail?

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[ManiacJoe]

5. The numbers look reasonable for dial-up connections, but the upload seems way high.

If I was still on dial-up, I would hold my nose and switch to Comcast if they were the only higher speed connection available.

Assuming I got the math right, Comcast would be 50 times faster.

[Sentath]

6. Yeah, the UP is .. out of reason

Modems cannot do that. Would you try the test again, please?

[madamesilverspurs]

8. second test

Like the first, I used the speakeasy test, chose Seattle (couldn't get either of the others to load).

Download numbers came back the same as first test.

Upload numbers were different: 327 kbps (40.9 KB/sec transfer rate)


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[ManiacJoe]

9. That upload look odd too.

The upload is normally lower than the download speed. Those upload numbers suggest that your 56k modem is running at 327k.

[madamesilverspurs]

10. third test

download - same

upload 0.35 Mbps 349 kbps 43.6 KB/sec


this is after I asked PeoplePC for their upgrade; they said to wait twenty minutes before going back online, waited almost an hour; still can't get videos to run... Do I need to do a restart?


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[ManiacJoe]

11. Those upload numbers are way too high also.

But it does not really matter assuming you are a normal user and do mostly downloads. The download numbers are what you care most about unless you are very serious about gaming.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Compare to this:

Download...3.07

Upload..0.34

Ping @ 74 ms

DSL from Frontier
good thing about them is I pay less than 40.00 a month for unlimited DSL
We don't game or anything, but we do download and upload stuff a lot.

[Mnpaul]

12. 3Mbps should be fine for most video

You will really notice the improvement over dialup. You will end up saying "why did I wait so long?" to change over. I have 384k
DSL (roughly 1/10 of the Xfinity deal) and have no problems with any of the videos on Youtube. I'm waiting for the new fiber network(made possible by the stimulus) to go online in my area so that I can get 20Mbps speeds and higher. They hooked up all the public buildings in our county with the network and added extra capacity so that a private vendor can come in and hook people up to the system.

[Go Vols]

13. .