Archive for the ‘Download Speed’ Category

Internet Access and the Need for Speed

Friday, July 30th, 2010

Sometimes we like to get back to basics and go over exactly why high speed internet is such a big deal.  We found this great article about the need for internet speed and the basics of broadband, and we thought we’d share its insights with you.

If you don’t know or remember what sounds dial-up modems make as you’re waiting, hoping to be connected, check out this YouTube clip. 

Broadband is the always-on gateway to internet-based services delivered at lightning-fast speeds to homes and businesses. Think of it as a pipe — many times bigger than a dial-up connection — that carries information to your home or office. A bigger pipe means that you can receive lots of information quickly — enabling fast downloads, streaming audio/video, fast uploads of large files (e.g. pictures) and more.

Broadband also offers a fast-growing number of entertainment choices:

• Online games that marry cutting-edge technology to the magic of movies, animation and audio
• On-demand news and other information that is tailored to your interests and needs
• Audio sound that is as sharp as any CD
• Digitized video images that are crystal clear
• Interaction lies at the heart of the Internet — interaction with friends, family and work through e-mail, Web surfing, audio, video, online games, you name it. Broadband gives you the power to make that interaction faster, richer and easier to use.

Speed comparison chart

File Size

High-Speed Internet

Dial-up

Downloading 10 MP3 music files 

 30MB

1 minute

 

   1.6 hours

Uploading 30 digital photos            

80MB

9 minutes

 

10 hours

 

Downloading one DVD movie       

 20GB**

12.5 hours

 

   48 days

 

Uploading 100 web pages           

  3MB

19 seconds

 

   22 minutes

 

*Typical DSL/average cable speed = 4Mbps, High-Speed Internet upload speed = 1.3Mbps (DSL), speeds are rounded.
**Typical DVDs run 20-30GB.

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From YouTube to Your TV

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Internet speed isn’t just for computers anymore. In an article cleverly entitled “YouTube Moves Closer to the Boob Tube” from the New York Times’ Bits Blog, they tell us how YouTube is moving forward with the plans they rolled out in January. Then, they made a version of their site tailored just for the TV screen, called “YouTube.com TV”. This version took away the comments and scroll bars to look more like what you’re used to seeing from your cable setup. But it only worked with certain connections—like with game consoles connected to a TV set, or via TiVo, Apple TV or certain TV’s.

But on Tuesday, they launched a new and improved version that gets them closer to their goal of providing interactive TV. It works on any web browser connected to any TV or computer screen, though it’s intended for large screens, hence the name, “YouTube XL.” Keyboards and some remote controls work with it and it has also the ability to run a series of clips continuously. I can imagine that running in the background of a themed party—like for a graduation party, you could play several clips that have graduates tripping and falling on the way to claim their diplomas.

Currently the regular YouTube service offers some full-length TV shows for viewing from your computer. Some of the most popular include Jimmy Kimmel Live, Weeds, Britain’s Got Talent, and a variety of documentary TV and anime shows. But YouTube XL hasn’t yet secured all the rights from media partners. They’re working on it though. And right now, don’t include ads, but that’s likely to change if TV networks and film studios are going to agree to make their content available on the extra-large screen.

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Spam Pollutes More than the Super Highway

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

A new study entitled ‘The Carbon Footprint of Spam’  published by ICF International and commissioned by the computer security company McAfee, claims that spam uses around 33 billion kilowatt hours of energy annually, which is approximately enough to power 2.4 million US homes for an entire year.

They calculated that the average CO2 emission for a spam email is around 0.3 grams. “That’s like driving three feet (one meter) in equivalent emissions, but when multiplied by the annual volume of spam, it’s like driving around the Earth 1.6 million times,” the report states. 

Interestingly, the majority of energy usage–around 80%–comes from users viewing and deleting spam, and searching for legitimate emails within spam filters (also known as false positives).

Spam creates the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using two billion gallons of gasoline each year.

The good news is that McAfee notes that current levels of spam filtering save 135 billion killowatt-hours of electricity that would otherwise be wasted. “That’s like taking 13 million cars off the road,” the report says.  But, we could remove the equivalent of another 2.3 million cars if every inbox were protected by a state-of-the-art spam filter.

 “Filtering spam is beneficial, but fighting spam at the source is even better. When McColo, a major source of online spam, was taken offline in late 2008, the energy saved in the ensuing lull — before spammers rebuilt their sending capacity — equated to taking 2.2 million cars off the road,”  the report tells us.  But another way to fight the energy-sucking power of spam is not to pass it on. Be mindful of slowing down the traffic on the information superhighway, and you’ll be helping keep up the internet speed!.

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Internet Speed Envy, Globally

Friday, March 13th, 2009

A recent article from The New York Times tech blog compared high-speed Internet use around the world to see if it’s true that many other countries get faster, cheaper and more widely available broadband service than the U.S..

They found that in Japan, broadband service of 150 megabits per second (Mbps) costs $60 a month. The fastest service available now in the United States is 50 Mbps at a price of $90 to $150 a month. So they get three times the speed at about a third of the price.

In London, $9 a month buys 8 Mbps service. In New York, broadband starts at $20 per month, for 1 Mbps. That’s quite a difference.

But if you take into consideration that Japan, Korea and Sweden have made significant investment in their fiber optic networks, the United States may not be too far behind. Japan’s average speed is about 16.7 Mbps. Sweden was 8.8 Mbps. And Korea averaged 7.2 Mbps.

In countries that haven’t made the investment in infrastructure we see average download speeds ranging from 3.2 Mbps in Italy to 6.4 Mbps in Germany, according to a study by the Saïd Business School at Oxford. The United States has an average download speed of 5.2 Mbps.

But Internet speeds in the United States are getting faster. Verizon’s fiber optic service, FiOS, offers 50 Mbps service with the capacity to offer much faster speeds. AT&T is building up their U-Verse service, offering data speeds of up to 25 Mbps with Internet video as well. Cable systems are starting to deploy the next generation of Internet technology called Docsis 3.0, offering speeds of 50 Mbps (compared to a maximum of about 16 Mbps available with today’s cable systems) and eventually much more.

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YouTube and Internet Speed

Monday, March 9th, 2009

YouTube has changed the way the world uses the internet. And if you haven’t been able to participate, it’s probably because your internet speed is too slow.  Their system requirements include a minimum broadband connection of over 500 Kbps.  Here’s a quote from their site:

“Still rockin’ the 56k? No problem. As you may already know, a slower connection simply means slower delivery of services. You only need a little more time and patience than with a faster connection. For best results, you may want to start the video player and then click on the PAUSE button immediately. Then, wait until the red progress bar has reached the end of the video before playing it. Allowing the entire video buffer lets you watch it without interruption. Remember, the shorter the video, the shorter the amount of time it takes to buffer.”

But what if you want to share a video with the world? 

“Depending on your connection speed and the size of the video, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours to upload a video. Generally, if you have a high-speed Internet connection you can expect the upload to take somewhere between 1-5 minutes for every 1MB. However, the experience is different for every user because of the variation in connection speeds.”

There are other issues with accessing YouTube, such as the one that President Obama is having.  According to Read Write Web:

“Relatively archaic government policies, rules, and customs that impede progress are being covered by the Washington Post and reach the highest levels of government. To this day, Department of Defense workers, even some of whom are in charge of new media output, cannot access YouTube.”

So don’t feel too bad, internet speed is not the only thing that might be keeping you from enjoying YouTube.

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Why Rural Broadband?

Friday, March 6th, 2009

Right now, broadband and high-speed internet are only available where the infrastructure is there to support them.  But for those living outside of urban areas, they may be left with only the super-slow-motion of dial-up, or options that only the wealthier can afford. These are people who are being left behind, unable to benefit from the telecommunications and information revolution. This creates a digital divide.

According to SpeedMatters.org, “The digital divide leaves a large slice of our citizens without high speed Internet access, and some without Internet access at all. Those who ‘go without’ are left out of the potential advantages of high speed Internet access in areas as diverse as education and health, to civic participation and staying up on the news.”

Recently though, the New York Times reported that one company said they were working with rural electric cooperatives to offer high-speed Internet service, delivered over power lines. The technology has been around for several years, but hasn’t typically been able to offer enough capacity at a low enough price to beat service from cable and phone.

They began deploying Internet service last year with one rural cooperative in Alabama, and this week announced an expansion to include five more cooperatives in Alabama, Indiana, Virginia and Michigan, where 5,000 customers signed up in the first two weeks.

Wireless service is another option for rural areas, but delivery over power lines can overcome hilly terrain or other obstacles that block wireless signals.

The company charges $29.95 a month for service at 256 kilobits per second and $49.95 for 1 megabit per second. Those are far slower speeds than cable and phone companies offer at those prices generally 1 to 3 Mbps, but if those options aren’t available, it’s still much better than dial-up speeds at a maximum of 56 kilobits per second. Clock your internet speed now to see what kind of access you’re enjoying.

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Jack Up Your Download Speed

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

Since a webpage needs to be downloaded before it appears on your screen, a fast download speed will actually make your internet surfing experience more pleasant. For those of you who love downloading the latest movies or enjoy experimenting with upgraded software, a faster download speed will save you from the frustration of having to wait a long time for the download to complete.

Some of you may have a website that gets high rankings in the search engines and attracts a good number of visitors. But you may find out to your dismay that most visitors are leaving after visiting your website’s homepage. The problem may be the loading time of your web pages. Ideally, a homepage should be around 40 - 50 Kilobytes in size, and anything larger will result in a slow downloading page. Often, the images are the culprits, so cropping them or reducing their colors will make a webpage lighter and download faster. If you have a better download speed, visitors are more likely to stay longer at your website. Studies have shown that majority of web surfers wait about 5 seconds for a page to load, before going elsewhere.

For those of you who are using dial-up connection, try switching to a newer modem because old modems tend to slow down internet connection speed. Clearing the cookies and temporary internet files will also improve the download speed. The capacity of your hardware is a factor as well. However, the best method to jack up your internet connection speed is to call up your ISP and upgrade your subscription plan. With the availability of Broadband and DSL nowadays, downloading is a breeze.

Furthermore, you can take the assistance of an internet connection speed test to get an idea of how fast your current download speed is.

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