Full circle?

[Dustin2128]

Just a bit of irony I noted tonight. Way back when I had dial-up, I couldn't use a landline phone while connected to the internet. Those days have long since passed, but my family uses netflix in the living room, and whenever I torrent something with a speed limit of less than, say, 350k, it sputters and dies. Ah, the joys of a 1MB connection marketed as 8..

[cookiecloud]

Just a bit of irony I noted tonight. Way back when I had dial-up, I couldn't use a landline phone while connected to the internet. Those days have long since passed, but my family uses netflix in the living room, and whenever I torrent something with a speed limit of less than, say, 350k, it sputters and dies. Ah, the joys of a 1MB connection marketed as 8..

I have an "UP to 8Mbit" ADSL line - are you sure that is not what you have?

[Dustin2128]

I have an "UP to 8Mbit" ADSL line - are you sure that is not what you have?
I'm not sure, honestly. But I hardly ever get file transfer speeds above 700k outside my LAN.

[cookiecloud]

I'm not sure, honestly. But I hardly ever get file transfer speeds above 700k outside my LAN.

I have a solution; buy the interwebs, install them on your serverz, and all iz solved!

kThxBai!

^_^ hehe

[kevin11951]

I want to be rich for one reason:

https://www.twcbc.com/Texas/Products/ProductDetails/dedicated-internet-access.ashx


We offer a flexible level of service you can update and adapt to your usage needs.



Standard Features Include:

• 5 Mbps up to 10 Gbps Upspeed and Downspeed

• High-bandwidth, dedicated access using fiber optic technology
• Consistent network availability, minimal latency and low packet loss
• Large-scale data transfer to or from the Internet
• Dedicated local account management, providing a single point of contact

I will be rich... at. all. costs. ;)

By the way, i called them and it costs $48,000 plus the cost of construction...

[robro]

Thats alot of moneis :KS

[cascade9]

Ah, the joys of a 1MB connection marketed as 8..

8Mbit. 8bits to the byte, so 8Mbit = 1Mbyte. Blame yourself on that for not reading the fine print, and telcos/ISPs marketing using 'bits'.

Its a real pity you cant put marketing on the gardern, my chili plants could do with some bovine manure.

As an aside, distance from the exchange makes a big difference. I'm within 1KM of the exchange, and I get about 17-20Mbits from my ADSL 2+ 'up to 24Mbit' connection. Somebody else I know is on the same 'up to 24Mbit' connection, same company, and because they live about 3KM from the exchange they get 8Mbit maximum.

[mcduck]

8Mbit. 8bits to the byte, so 8Mbit = 1Mbyte. Blame yourself on that for not reading the fine print, and telcos/ISPs marketing using 'bits'.

Its a real pity you cant put marketing on the gardern, my chili plants could do with some bovine manure.

As an aside, distance from the exchange makes a big difference. I'm within 1KM of the exchange, and I get about 17-20Mbits from my ADSL 2+ 'up to 24Mbit' connection. Somebody else I know is on the same 'up to 24Mbit' connection, same company, and because they live about 3KM from the exchange they get 8Mbit maximum.
Data transfer rates are by standard calculated in bits, not bytes. So it's not a marketing trick. (not all data transfers are related to computers, and not all meaningful data requires 8 bits. Calculating the transfer speed as single bits makes a lot sense when you remember this)

The typical "up to 8Mbps" of course is a bit of a marketing trick. Although the slower speed is often caused by things your ISP can't actually control, like long lines or bad house cables etc.

[cascade9]

Data transfer rates are by standard calculated in bits, not bytes. So it's not a marketing trick. (not all data transfers are related to computers, and not all meaningful data requires 8 bits. Calculating the transfer speed as single bits makes a lot sense when you remember this)

The typical "up to 8Mbps" of course is a bit of a marketing trick. Although the slower speed is often caused by things your ISP can't actually control, like long lines or bad house cables etc.

I can see the point about 'by standard' but who gets an ADSL connection for anything but a computer? The few people who might be doing that should be able to figure out the bitspeed from a more user undestandable 'bytes' number anyway.

I actually dont think that the 'up to' is that misleading, but again I can see your point.

[mcduck]

It's not a standard just for ADSL or other types of Internet connections, but a standard for all digital data transfers. In all electronics, computing and telecommunication purposes.

So the unit is always bits, be it about a network connection, a bus between components in a computer, digital phone network, satellite transmission, or data transfer capability of certain cable.

[cascade9]

It's not a standard just for ADSL or other types of Internet connections, but a standard for all digital data transfers. In all electronics, computing and telecommunication purposes.

Yeah, wel, sort of....

Look around, you can find plently of places that will show you digital transfer speeds in bytes, not bits. Best example I can think of? Intel SSD product briefs. You can see yourself here-

http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/productinformation.htm

Mind you, they also list the interface in bits, not bytes.....Still, its not as clear cut as 'all digital data transfers as shown/listed in bits'

I know I've seen other product pages for things like cameras, etc list speeds in bytes as well.

Not that it really matters that much, I got used to bits/bytes a long time ago. Apart from one amusing 'discusion' I have going out here in reality over SATA speeds (the other guy insists that SATAII is up to 375Mbytes a sec max transfer rate, and no matter what I say about 8/10b he insists he is right) its not really that much of an issue for anybody who knows.

I still think that the ISPs should list transfer speeds in bytes, not bits, but who am I going to convince? Not the ISPs, and not you either mcduck :mrgreen:

[mips]

Just a bit of irony I noted tonight. Way back when I had dial-up, I couldn't use a landline phone while connected to the internet. Those days have long since passed, but my family uses netflix in the living room, and whenever I torrent something with a speed limit of less than, say, 350k, it sputters and dies. Ah, the joys of a 1MB connection marketed as 8..

Limit the bandwidth of your downloads or try something like QoS.

[mcduck]

Yeah, wel, sort of....

Look around, you can find plently of places that will show you digital transfer speeds in bytes, not bits. Best example I can think of? Intel SSD product briefs. You can see yourself here-

http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/productinformation.htm

Mind you, they also list the interface in bits, not bytes.....Still, its not as clear cut as 'all digital data transfers as shown/listed in bits'

I know I've seen other product pages for things like cameras, etc list speeds in bytes as well.

Not that it really matters that much, I got used to bits/bytes a long time ago. Apart from one amusing 'discusion' I have going out here in reality over SATA speeds (the other guy insists that SATAII is up to 375Mbytes a sec max transfer rate, and no matter what I say about 8/10b he insists he is right) its not really that much of an issue for anybody who knows.

I still think that the ISPs should list transfer speeds in bytes, not bits, but who am I going to convince? Not the ISPs, and not you either mcduck :mrgreen:

those are read & write speeds, not data transfer speeds. ;)

I wouldn't consider a read or a write as a transfer, as it's not actually transferrign the data between any two devices. The data transfer speed for a SSD drive would be the speed of the interface it's connected to (SATA). And for camera the speed of the USB bus.

(although I can definitely understand why somebody might consider the read or write operation itself as transfer, and from user's point of view the read/write speed would indeed be more meaningful than the actual speed of the interface)

[cascade9]

those are read & write speeds, not data transfer speeds. ;)

I wouldn't consider a read or a write as a transfer, as it's not actually transferrign the data between any two devices. The data transfer speed for a SSD drive would be the speed of the interface it's connected to (SATA). And for camera the speed of the USB bus.

(although I can definitely understand why somebody might consider the read or write operation itself as transfer, and from user's point of view the read/write speed would indeed be more meaningful than the actual speed of the interface)

Point, they are read/write speeds. :)

However, To read or write its got to be transfered from somewhere (but that could be internal..and to be honest I've never quite know if internal transfers are bussed up and down). Cutting a fine line to say that the 'data transfer speed is x, but the device can only read or write at 'y' and 'z' speeds'. Which is why the camera speeds I'm sure I've seen are in bytes, not bits, no users care if the interface can do 10000000000Mbit/sec if the device can only read at 8MB/sec.

Another example would be UDMA/ATA. AFAIK technically its not a 'ATA 100' interface, its ATA 6. I dont recall ever seeing ATA (or even PIO, but by the time I got back into computers PIO was going out) ever being refered to in bits, though I have some foggy memory of people on a BBS, heh, 'discussing' if ATA should be refered to in bit speeds, not a cryptic 'X' number or in bytes.

Also PCI, I dont recall ever seeing PCI in bits, I've always seen bytes. Apart from some odd examples like the wikipedia 'list of device bandwidths'. Maybe its around in engineering papaers I never read......

[koenn]

IIRC, the rule of thumb is : you look at how the data is transmitted :

- serial (rs323, xDSL, ethernet LAN, USB, ... ) -> bit/s
- parallel -> byte/s or in terms of to the bus's timing (x bus width)