why is the internet so slow?

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

May the force be with you
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Back in college it seemed every year it was doubling in speed. 14.4, 28.8, 56k.Then ISDN, DSL, Broadband. All of those leaps happened for me in the span of about 5 years. That was over 15 years ago and the rate of improvement has since seemingly stopped. Have we hit the speed of light with respect to throughout and just can't go faster? Was it just determined that this is good enough? I find that just loading websites these days feel slower than it should given how far along we are and how long ago the MAJOR improvements came out. (Sorry by the way, I can't do carriage returns on Android in this forum anymore) I'm sure today's broadband it's not the same as Attbb we had in school but it feels like the space program. "Alright we did that. No more need to improve it anymore" I feel the improvement in performance is behind schedule.
 
The last mile has always been a limiting factor. Not many areas have fiber to the premise or fiber to the curb architectures. The backbones can use OC-768 (40 Gbps) but neighborhoods are more limited based on the transportation medium being used. At the low end is twisted pair used for DSL. On the cable side there are two primary limitations, one being the legacy 6Mhz per carrier (channel) and the limited reverse path bandwidth in a traditional cable architecture. The cable have overcome some limitations by binding channels together and splitting the bits between the channels thus providing a bandwidth increase. Add to that the case of it all being shared at some point and things can seem a bit slow, especially when everyone gets home at night and starts streaming Netflix.

I'm sure bigger and better things are coming, but it is still expensive to put cable of any sort in the ground. Others will most certainly be along with more explanations.
 
Retire to Desert Aire!
speedtest.png
 
I get 50 mb down 20 mb up with Fios, I could get faster but I'm too cheap and it's too expensive.
 
Why slow? Waiting for the ad servers to load your page with Flashcrap.
 
paflyer said:
Why slow? Waiting for the ad servers to load your page with Flashcrap.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah that.
I swear it takes 2 minutes to load any video on CNN regardless of where I am at.
 
@SixPapaCharlie Nope, you've just been asleep the past 10 years. And a matter of how much you'll pay the cableco to double your speeds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS

A 6 MHz DOCSIS channel can provide 42.88 Mbps max to your house. Manufacturers have been making modems that bond multiple channels together. It's gone from a single downstream to 4 to 8 to 16 to 24 and to 32 bonded downstreams. Upstreams can be bonded, but are smaller.

This limitation of using 6 MHz channel spacing is a leftover artifact of TV channel transmission. Analog channels were this wide, and then QAM digital channels were made to fit in that spacing as well. As technology moves to IP video, there will be no need to maintain this limitation.

Which brings us to the upcoming DOCSIS 3.1: one mondo fat pipe, from DC to light.
 
Part of it is the shared monopoly of the internet providers - in most areas you have only the cable company and the phone company. Sometimes not even that. Not a lot of competition means high prices and no incentive for the company to boost speeds.

Look at other countries, and you will drool over the speeds vs. price. South Korea is the typical example of this, with speeds of 1 Gbps available for about $20 (U.S.) a month - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2482327,00.asp

Of course, this is because wireless technology hasn't caught up with wired technology as far as speeds go, relative to the cost of installation of all those wires or cables or fibers. Hopefully the development of 5G technology will allow many more players in the game due to the reduction of infrastructure requirements, and competition will drive costs down and speeds up!
 
Caramon13 said:
@SixPapaCharlie I'm sure you know it's more than just the bandwidth you pay for that determines overall speed.
Click to expand...

Yep I just feel like the leaps in speed that we used to see have stopped or become orders of magnitude more expensive for the next leap then it was back in the day. I don't recall a major price hike going from dial up to DSL to cable. Small price jumps yes but there was always something faster coming down the pipes. I mean you could have got a T1 back in the day for an arm and a leg. You can still get something today much faster for an arm and a leg. You just don't evolve into the new faster connections like you used to.

They should fix that. This internet thing could be a big deal.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Yep I just feel like the leaps in speed that we used to see have stopped or become orders of magnitude more expensive for the next leap then it was back in the day. I don't recall a major price hike going from dial up to DSL to cable. Small price jumps yes but there was always something faster coming down the pipes. I mean you could have got a T1 back in the day for an arm and a leg. You can still get something today much faster for an arm and a leg. You just don't evolve into the new faster connections like you used to.

They should fix that. This internet thing could be a big deal.
Click to expand...

Are you starting your Internet properly? You realize, that you have to let it crank a couple turns, let it catch, then put the mixture to full. And it will sputter for a minute but after it starts, your Internet will be blazing fast.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Are you starting your Internet properly? You realize, that you have to let it crank a couple turns, let it catch, then put the mixture to full. And it will sputter for a minute but after it starts, your Internet will be blazing fast.
Click to expand...

And once you get it up and running, if it slows down again all on its own, just pull the red handle!
 
Everyone is playing games on the internet. And I don't mean video games. Games with your computer data, where you've been, who you are. The internet has become a giant INFORMATION machine. Govt collects on everyone because of crime and national security. Companies collect on everyone because they want to market to you. Gangsters collect on everyone because they want to steal from you. The internet is designed to do that to its users. THe companes that make the operating systems build those capabilities in on purpose. Welcome to the internet!
 
Only when the annual salaries, stock options and bonuses of the greedy corporate CEO's far exceed anything they could possibly spend in their lifetime will the internet see faster speeds. Even then we will be expected to pay through the nose for it.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Are you starting your Internet properly? You realize, that you have to let it crank a couple turns, let it catch, then put the mixture to full. And it will sputter for a minute but after it starts, your Internet will be blazing fast.
Click to expand...

Well Done!
 
Norman said:
Only when the annual salaries, stock options and bonuses of the greedy corporate CEO's far exceed anything they could possibly spend in their lifetime will the internet see faster speeds. Even then we will be expected to pay through the nose for it.
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And even then, not unless the connectivity and content businesses are severed. Cable TV companies are already sorry that they made the connectivity so fast that consumers are canceling their overpriced content services in favor of Netflix, Amazon Video, et al.

Just for reference purposes, I get 60 down / 6 up on copper cable with a 750 GB cap, plus the crappy "local" TV channels (the closest of which are about 70 miles away), for about $124.00 / month from Sparrow Fart Telecom. (If I were to drop the TV channels, my bill would increase by about $19.00 / month. Don't ask me why. I don't know.)

It's pricey, but let's face it: Given the capital cost to population ratio, you really can't help that. They only have so many people to split the fixed costs among. And service-wise, they're outstanding. On the few occasions I've called them, their techs were in the driveway before I hung up the phone.

As for wireless, I get between 40 and 90 Mbps over AT&T 4G LTE.

Rich
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Back in college it seemed every year it was doubling in speed. 14.4, 28.8, 56k.Then ISDN, DSL, Broadband. All of those leaps happened for me in the span of about 5 years. That was over 15 years ago and the rate of improvement has since seemingly stopped. .
Click to expand...

Every time the speed doubles, the amount of crap that comes with any download quadruples.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Are you starting your Internet properly? You realize, that you have to let it crank a couple turns, let it catch, then put the mixture to full. And it will sputter for a minute but after it starts, your Internet will be blazing fast.
Click to expand...

Unless you're trying to restart it after having just been online. Then you might have to sit there for an hour or so until it cools down, or you'll just drain the battery. :(
 
Norman said:
Only when the annual salaries, stock options and bonuses of the greedy corporate CEO's far exceed anything they could possibly spend in their lifetime will the internet see faster speeds. Even then we will be expected to pay through the nose for it.
Click to expand...

What makes you think that what they could possibly spend is the limit on their ambition?
 
paflyer said:
Why slow? Waiting for the ad servers to load your page with Flashcrap.
Click to expand...
Amen.
I feel bad for all the idiots I see browsing the web full of useless junk flashing, spinning, jumping, pulsing, whirring, buzzing etc.
I haven't seen an ad in years. I do not have plug-ins enabled (that's how idiots catch viruses from FecesBook), I disable JS from many suspicious servers.
I love my browsing, I can actually read the intended content on the pages! :)

I remember the "good ol' days" when ads (especially animated) started on webpages and were dragging down the loading speeds over modems. We thought it would be a fad and if enough people complained, the ads would go away. Boy were we wrong! :) Just like now most of us realize that Idiocracy was noting but a sad documentary.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
is there anyway to run my modem LOP? Or will that cook the ICs?
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You would have to buy flow-matched ICs and get a 4- or 6-channel monitor (CRT preferred over LCD) and you'd need to be very careful how far you lean ... cuz you don't want to fall out of your chair while web surfing.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Are you starting your Internet properly? You realize, that you have to let it crank a couple turns, let it catch, then put the mixture to full. And it will sputter for a minute but after it starts, your Internet will be blazing fast.
Click to expand...

And for maximum speed, be sure to run your internet rich-of-peak.
 
someone backed a tug into your cable box. it will take 4 months for the repairs to be finished but then your internet will fly.
 
It's really very simple: your internet is slow because you're downloading too much porn! And you thought nobody would call you on it . . . .
 
The simple reason is because there's no upside for them. The telecom companies keep buying each other and merging, so there's no competition. Why bother upgrading their infrastructure and delivering better speeds when you have no alternative? Google Fiber and Verizon were massively disruptive to the cable providers, which led to this last round of speed increases.
 
Cost to the evil capitalists is a minor factor - most (many) local gov'ts don't allow the gov't induced costs to be displayed on your bill - not talking the detailed taxes, fees, etc., you do see; rather, local gov't exacts a pound o' flesh from the providers in the form of permit fees, franchise fees, etc. So, far example, you might notice an affluent area gets fiber late in the game, well after surrounding, less affluent areas.

Could be the $30K permit fees for each road cut, even if they take just half a day. Or the $5M "in kind" required donation of fiber run and hardware for the county facilities. Verizon picks the low-hanging fruit first, as they should, where ROI is best.
 
RevDMV said:
134.53 Mb/s
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Thanks for that!

I initially thought you're getting a very odd bandwidth, since XFINITY doesn't offer a 150Mb/s plan... but now I'm seeing that they actually DO, and the 100 Mb/sec that I'm still getting is the odd one.

I've been subscribing to Blast Pro for years, and apparently they upped the speed 8 months ago for everybody except me. Grr.

Time to call them again... Sigh.
 
My brother sent me this gem the other day... Courtesy of his local municipality. I'm sure hes paying a fraction what I do for 60mbs.

upload_2016-6-8_8-31-36.png
 
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