Download speed gets down after initial peak

[avominex]

Hello

I use ngroups.net and everytime I download, the download speed peaks to 1.5MB/s then drops down to 830 ~ 840 kB/s.

When I asked them they said they don't throttle it. I ran Google's utility to see if my ISP (Timewarner cable) throttles it but the tests came out negative.

Also, when I run speedtests I show a speed of 8 ~ 9 MB/s.

Can somebody advice why my speed comes down after a initial burst?

Thanks in Advance.

[Beck38]

I ran Google's utility to see if my ISP (Timewarner cable) throttles it but the tests came out negative.

Oh please. There may be other things going on that have nothing whatsoever to do with the small chunk of the path that is from your machine where it hooks up with the 'real' internet...

BUT listen to what the FCC says: ALL repeat ALL the cablecos in the US 'shape','manage', 'mangle', and otherwise 'stomp' on user connections, PERIOD. Right now, they're busy, as most of the commissioners are new (new administration) grappling with the hordes of hyper-paid lobbyists and the republican leftovers in crafting rules and fines that may, MAY, do some good 10 years from now.

But what you need to do is do a proper study of the path between you and the news-server you're connecting to. Remember, as using a cableco, you are on a 'party-line' (if you don't remember what those were with voice, find and read the wiki on it), and you are jostling with every other user on that cable system for bandwidth, depending on a LOT of factors, including the fact that you're competing for bandwidth on that cable system with 'real' revenue generating 'services' like VOD.

Which includes how the system was designed (or not), how it interconnects through the path, how it... just simply a lot of factors. The finger may point at the 'local' connection, but indeed may be that the throttling is taking place somewhere else along the path.

I get slowdowns on my path between myself and Astraweb, comes and goes. But it's not my local link (DSL) or ISP (Verizon), but usually one of the interlinks out there in fiber-land, like Global-Crossing or Alter-Net. It comes and goes, but is 'visible' even on my somewhat slow speed 'local' link. I'm sure if I was on FIOS I'd see the same thing.

As more and more big corporation use the 'public' internet to ship massive amounts of data across the planet for 'free' (in comparison to having leased circuits to do so), these slow-downs are common. Ten years ago, few used it, relying on those leased circuits. But I helped design a LOT of systems that used VOIP to India and the far east, and it's taken off from there.

I could go on and on, but what you're seeing is what every user of cableco data systems sees. You simply have to live with it.

(Now, I'm sure that other cableco users will chime in and say 'I have no problems' but they are the slim minority; everyone around where I live in Comcast land has major problems, and from what I continually read, TimeWarner is in about the same boat)

[avominex]

Thanks Beck38 !

Make it a Great Day !

[Beck38]

The FCC is 're-visiting' 'net-neutrality' rules; as soon as they announced that little over a week ago, the $10K suits cam out of K-street in hordes, with their Lexus's, thousand-dollar lunches, and money that flowed like water from the major cablecos and telcos (well, some of them; there are some like Qwest that champion net-neutrality).

If you get a chance to button-hole your local congressman, wade through the wing-nuts with their hitler placards and 'death panel' screams, and find out where they stand on this. When I used to give talks at local chambers of commerce and such, and bring up the amount of actual, usable, bandwidth out there (not only in the US but around the planet on submarine fiber) their jaws would usually hit the floor. There is no dearth, there's mostly a glut. But some 'forces' in the telecom world would like to perpetuate the idea that it's the 1950's still, fiber either doesn't exist or is expensive, and capacity is small. 'AT&T thinking'.

The US has, just like health care, the worst telecom system in the industrialized world. The reason is that, like many states, the one I live in had the telcos push legislation prohibiting municipalities from running their own fiber, despite the fact we have 99% public owned (public utility districts) electric grid. So, where folks out in the rural parts of the state could compete with India for support call centers, they can't. No Telecom.

Just simply another example of shooting ourselves in the feet.

[tesco]

For 8-9MBps that speed is about right (850kb/s).

My ISP (Rogers) is introducing a new feature where when you start a download it will initially download at a rate faster than you pay for.
For example what they are testing now is to allow a 16Mbps burst on a connection you are paying for 10Mbps.
In the real world this is useless because when you actually need the speed (downloading big files) it becomes throttled. It just gives the effect of a faster conenction when downloading web pages or small image files.
Your ISP might be doing the same and that is why you are seeing 1.5MB/s on a 8Mbps connection.

[EyeBaller]

Time Warner Cable offers Roadrunner with Powerboost in most markets. So if you have RR Standard (sounds like 8mbps in your market), you will get a temporary boost in speed when you initiate a download. Sometimes this lasts for a certain time limit, sometimes it might be for the first 2-3mb of file transfer. This is to make surfinmg faster and downloading of small files <5-10mb faster too.

[hdjunky]

For 8-9MBps that speed is about right (850kb/s).

My ISP (Rogers) is introducing a new feature where when you start a download it will initially download at a rate faster than you pay for.
For example what they are testing now is to allow a 16Mbps burst on a connection you are paying for 10Mbps.
In the real world this is useless because when you actually need the speed (downloading big files) it becomes throttled. It just gives the effect of a faster conenction when downloading web pages or small image files.
Your ISP might be doing the same and that is why you are seeing 1.5MB/s on a 8Mbps connection.

Exactly! Short answer and no long winded off subject tin foil hat response needed for it!

[Beck38]

[QUOTE=hdjunky;3294784]

Exactly! Short answer and no long winded off subject tin foil hat response needed for it!

Typical response... including the use of an example from another country (Rogers is Canadian Only, in fact they may be called the Comcast of Canada), of American attempts to always reduce a complex subject to a single word or phrase ('socialist', 'communist', 'not one of us', come immediately to mind), but maybe also one of a certain regionality as well.

When eastern folk first came to the US west, they thought killing off all the 'bad' animals, cutting down all the 'usable' trees, daming up all the rivers and streams (and that's a fairly recent development), would be 'good'.

Things are complex, rarely if ever able to be reduced to shorthand. There are issues (like 'net neutrality') that are being discussed today that will have far reaching consequences for literally a hundred years or more; if we, for instance, allow certain interests to buy influence today (earlier known as 'bribes' but due to more recent court decisions, now known as 'campaign contributions') and sway those decisions, we'll live with the result for the rest of our lives.

The last 15+ or so years will become known as the 'golden years' of the internet, never to be seen again as it's carved up into toll-roads, toll-byways, toll-parking, toll-breathing.

Hey, just like... Pennsylvania...

[SonsOfLiberty]

you guys are funny, I had to go get my phd real quick to figure this out....

Nah I understood, I'm a the low end of my ISP's reach, and sadly am only able to garble a whopping 1.5mb down speed, shitttttty.

But it's nice to find open wireless networks around the town that I can do some uploading with

[PhillyEagles]

fiber ftw! unmangled and unthrottled.