Download/upload speeds

Gilgamesh

I would really like to know which one of you guy would actually use a 256k upstream?
even if you are uploading websites etc, 128k is more than adequate,

also, I have been using Web conferencing over a 64K ISDN line without any problems.
unless you wan't High res streaming for it, what is the point of upping the upload?

Also, just to make this point, I think a lot of you are like kids who get something really cool, and the you b!tch about it and want more.
all other services I have seen sofar what even come near to this offer cost in excess of 50 Euros.

this is a great step in Ireland to hopefully egnite a competition under the Providers, which imho has been missing here.

I understand there are questions about this service, I think the questions shouldn't keep going to 'Oooh look at me, I need AT LEAST 256k upload'. sorry but it's just sad.
Garfield allready stated that they may look into it, guessing on feedback they will receive from customers over the year.

This system needs to be implemented and prove itself successfull before they can tweak the deal and consider other offers.

Am not taking sides, but have some understanding how a service provider opens new deals to the public.

There, had to let that out.

btw. have signed up for it Garfield. Great deal.

Jaoibh

Gilgamesh wrote:

I would really like to know which one of you guy would actually use a 256k upstream?

I've signed up for it to but I am seriously addicted to playing Halo 2 on x-box live and even on my eircom DSL line I get lagged sometimes .. thats my worry will 128k be enough. Everyone agree's that the 2mb line and the prices beat the pants off every other ISP in the country.

I'll get it I'll test it and if it doesnt do what I want it to do I'll cancel it.

Gilgamesh

Jaoibh wrote:

I've signed up for it to but I am seriously addicted to playing Halo 2 on x-box live and even on my eircom DSL line I get lagged sometimes .. thats my worry will 128k be enough. Everyone agree's that the 2mb line and the prices beat the pants off every other ISP in the country.

I'll get it I'll test it and if it doesnt do what I want it to do I'll cancel it.

just wanted to say, that 128K is more than adequate for that, the more important thing for online gaming is the latency, hence the pings.
Halo will run fine on it, as long a the pings are held low :cool:

Tazzle

Adequate? 56k is adequate. Didn't Eircom try to argue 9,600bps was adequate? Let's talk common sense. 256k should be the minimum for any line speed above 512k. We're talking broadband here. Even for games, 128k upload doesn't enough bandwidth to play an archaic game like Counter-Strike at full bandwidth. I appreciate you may need to charge more, but it still stands there //should// be an option of 256k available. I would choose it without hesitation. The minimalistic upload speeds on DSL in Ireland is unacceptable.

bla

Gilgamesh wrote:

I would really like to know which one of you guy would actually use a 256k upstream?
even if you are uploading websites etc, 128k is more than adequate,

also, I have been using Web conferencing over a 64K ISDN line without any problems.
unless you wan't High res streaming for it, what is the point of upping the upload?

Also, just to make this point, I think a lot of you are like kids who get something really cool, and the you b!tch about it and want more.
all other services I have seen sofar what even come near to this offer cost in excess of 50 Euros.

this is a great step in Ireland to hopefully egnite a competition under the Providers, which imho has been missing here.

I understand there are questions about this service, I think the questions shouldn't keep going to 'Oooh look at me, I need AT LEAST 256k upload'. sorry but it's just sad.
Garfield allready stated that they may look into it, guessing on feedback they will receive from customers over the year.

This system needs to be implemented and prove itself successfull before they can tweak the deal and consider other offers.

Am not taking sides, but have some understanding how a service provider opens new deals to the public.

There, had to let that out.

btw. have signed up for it Garfield. Great deal.

so basicly because you might not need nor want anything more than 128k upload the rest of the people here should suffer. As someone else pointed out earlyer the line that they have is the same speed up and down so surly it wouldnt matter incressing the upload speed as they already have the bandwidth. as for the 128k is more than enough for games etc is pure bs, with a 2 meg line you can have up to about 8 people on it no bother yet the upload limits it to 2 decently and 3 if you lower rates etc. not everyone lives in a house with just 1 person using the internet

on another note you did say that you didnt count 512k as true broadband(which it isnt) and hence the 2mbit then why limit the product with such low upload. All other isp's have greater than 128k up with their products that have 1mbit down or higher, atleast give an option to pay for extra upload as tazzle said. im sure most gamers and many other would opt for the option.

Blaster99

It's fairly irrelevant what Gilgamesh thinks as I have exercised my choice and have gone for the service that offers 1 meg up. I can't see myself going for anything less than that so I'm not interested in Smart's current offering.

Smart should of course offer a wider selection of services and I'm sure they will. ADSL2+ should be good up to 24Mbps considering what's available in other countries, certainly minimally 8Mbps.

Steve S

Gilgamesh wrote:

I would really like to know which one of you guy would actually use a 256k upstream?
even if you are uploading websites etc, 128k is more than adequate,

also, I have been using Web conferencing over a 64K ISDN line without any problems.
unless you wan't High res streaming for it, what is the point of upping the upload?

You just answered your own question.

I am quite frankly tired of the patronising attitude about what is 'normal' to want or need. The fact is that broadband offerings in the rest of the world make even this welcome addition look like ****e. Instead, once again, we get an Irish solution to an (invented) Irish problem.

We want what the rest of the world has: fast broadband down and up with no caps for a reasonable price. Until we have that, we are well within our rights to complain. Those who want to kiss the hand that's doling out the bread rations can continue to do so if they want, but don't tell us we're not 'normal' for refusing to go along.

That said, the Smart offer is certainly better than the pure crap that Eircom and IOL are flogging.

digitalninja

Steve S wrote:

You just answered your own question.

I am quite frankly tired of the patronising attitude about what is 'normal' to want or need. The fact is that broadband offerings in the rest of the world make even this welcome addition look like ****e. Instead, once again, we get an Irish solution to an (invented) Irish problem.

We want what the rest of the world has: fast broadband down and up with no caps for a reasonable price. Until we have that, we are well within our rights to complain. Those who want to kiss the hand that's doling out the bread rations can continue to do so if they want, but don't tell us we're not 'normal' for refusing to go along.

That said, the Smart offer is certainly better than the pure crap that Eircom and IOL are flogging.

well said.

Gilgamesh

bla wrote:

so basicly because you might not need nor want anything more than 128k upload the rest of the people here should suffer. As someone else pointed out earlyer the line that they have is the same speed up and down so surly it wouldnt matter incressing the upload speed as they already have the bandwidth. as for the 128k is more than enough for games etc is pure bs, with a 2 meg line you can have up to about 8 people on it no bother yet the upload limits it to 2 decently and 3 if you lower rates etc. not everyone lives in a house with just 1 person using the internet

on another note you did say that you didnt count 512k as true broadband(which it isnt) and hence the 2mbit then why limit the product with such low upload. All other isp's have greater than 128k up with their products that have 1mbit down or higher, atleast give an option to pay for extra upload as tazzle said. im sure most gamers and many other would opt for the option.

what do you need a 2MB line for? as you said, this is an offer for residents.
I personally will not believe that the majority of people at home will have more the maybe say even 2 PCs. If you have more than that, then you might consider getting a commercial line to compensate.
128K is more than enough to run Cs Source on 3 Pcs simultaniously.
I have tried and it works.

No company will powerplay their network by offering their maximum capacity from te start as they will have to run a major upgrade of the network to accomplish this in future.

NTL is the best proof for this at the moment, they offer a great deal to customer, but can't back it up with the promised times because they lack resources to build it up as required.

I am not saying that becasue I am fine with it, that everybody else should be, but if you don't like it, then don't take it, be happy that they are at least offering a way higher download rate than the competition, they probably will upgrade the upload on the long run, but this is their offer as it stands and they probably took some time to work this one out, if it is beneficial for them at a good price for a customer.

explained in easier terms, if you go to a pub, and wan't a pint which is on offer for 3 Euros, you see the bartender has another barrel there, you would never even think of telling him to give you barrel, just because he has the resources and you think you are obliged to have them because you paid for the pint

Tazzle

128K is more than enough to run Cs Source on 3 Pcs simultaniously.
I have tried and it works

It's neither more, or enough, it would require using the minimum of rates and making the bad game, which is CS Source, worse.

Even in 1.6 using a cmdrate, ie. amount of packets per second sent to the server, of 100 will lag you. Fact. You sir are disagreeing for the sake of it.

Attention seeking?

Moriarty

I've split all of this out of this thread.

I expect that any more arguments about whether specific download or upload rates are needed, more than enough, or not enough to stay in this thread. Feel free to suggest that smart take a look at the upload speed with a view to increasing it in the other thread, but I don't want that swamping out what is otherwise a very useful thread for everyone.

PiE

Gilgamesh wrote:

as you said, this is an offer for residents.

As Garfield has said, this is open to businesses as well as residents.

Gilgamesh wrote:

128K is more than enough to run Cs Source on 3 Pcs simultaniously.
I have tried and it works.

See what Tazzle said above and stop talking rubbish.

Gilgamesh wrote:

I am not saying that becasue I am fine with it,

No? Then why are you saying it? Will you complain if suggestions on this thread got the upload raised to 256k? Didn't think so.

Gilgamesh wrote:

explained in easier terms, if you go to a pub, and wan't a pint which is on offer for 3 Euros, you see the bartender has another barrel there, you would never even think of telling him to give you barrel, just because he has the resources and you think you are obliged to have them because you paid for the pint

That's the most retarded analogy I've ever heard.

Steve S

Especially since the real analogy would be more like this:

the bartender wants to charge you 8 euro for a half-filled pint and claims that he has to charge that much because beer is in limited supply (even though he's sitting on several full kegs).

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Gone West

long way from the old 300 baud, eh ?

Tenshot

There are two separate but related issues to consider:

- Upstream bandwidth
- Latency

Both of these work together to limit the maximum download speeds you can expect. On a 2 Mb/s line, an upload rate of 128 Kb/s means a 16:1 ratio between download and upload speeds. It also means that the latency for TCP acknowledgment packets will be much, much longer than (for example) on a 2 Mb/s symmetric link.

TCP automatically paces the speed of downloads to match the perceived bandwidth available, and the longer it takes for acknowledgement packets to reach the transmitter, the slower the rate at which the transmitter will send. This in turn means that you'll be unlikely to see speeds anywhere near 2 Mb/s for actual downloads.

For example, we have a 2 Mb/s Eircom connection at work, which should in theory support up 200 KB/s+ download speeds. In fact, the maximum I've ever seen, even from fast, local sites, is around 110 KB/s. The interleaved connection, along with the relatively modest 256 KB/s upstream speed gives a typical minimum ping time of 50-60ms. I would expect this to be significantly worse with a 128 Kb/s upstream rate.

(It's worth mentioning however that this only applies to individual TCP connections. When lots of users are surfing at the same time over a 2 Mb/s link, their aggregate throughput may reach 2 Mb/s.)

Garfield mentioned in the Smart Broadband thread that Interleaving is being used to improve reliability and reach. However, studies have shown that for TCP connections (probably the dominant type of traffic over most user's ADSL connections; I'm not including gamers here), the drawbacks of Interleaving often outweigh the benefits.

Specifically, the nature of interference on most ADSL lines is quite bursty, rather than tiny little hiccups of interference. This usually leads to a situation where a frame is too badly damaged to be corrected, regardless of whether it's Fast Mode or Interleaved. In the interleaved case, this means all the frames in the interleaved bundle are lost, whereas with Fast mode, only a single frame is lost.

TCP handles single-frame loss and retransmission well, without incurring much significant extra delay. If multiple frames are lost in succession though, TCP backs off and this can make the connection briefly grind to a halt while it recovers; it then takes a little while for it to get back to full speed again.

As mentioned elsewhere, Interleave also has significant negative benefits for VoIP users and Gamers, since it greatly increases latency. Other interactive applications, like Remote Desktop or video conferencing, are also affected.

A cynic might suggest that it is in Smart Telecom's interest to keep upstream rates low and interleaving high, because it will effectively limit the download capability of most users, while still allowing Smart to truthfully offer a 2 Mb/s connection. It also helps ensure that users don't latch onto free VoIP services like Skype as an alternative to Smart's own voice offerings.

I'm not particularly suggesting this though (especially since the service hasn't even been officially launched yet). To be honest, at €35 per month including line rental, it's still streets ahead of the other ISPs' offerings.

Still, it's hard to see that Smart would incur much extra cost by enabling Fast Mode and 256 Kb/s upstream by default - after all, the links from the DSLAM back to Smart's data centre are almost certainly symmetric, so there should be plenty of spare upstream bandwidth available for all the users to share, right?

Here are a few references for anyone in the mood to read more about interleaving and asymmetry:

Boards Thread from 2003 about interleaving

Thesis on throughput of ADSL modems (original PDF seems to be offline)

The Effect of Asymmetry on TCP performance (PDF of a classic paper; Chapter 6 is most relevant.)

CuLT

I want, and am getting, 1MB up/down IBB for these reasons:

• No Cap
• Static IP
• 1MB Upstream
• 1MB Downstream
• Justifiable price for the service, if a little expensive.

The reason I want a 1MB upstream is as follows:

• VNC to my home machine from college
• Send large files via SFTP and FTP (I do a huge amount of uploading to the webserver I maintain and my netsoc account)
• Hi resolution transatlantic video conferencing (MSN, to the uninitiated )
• Emailing, even small files at 128k is atrociously slow. I'm not ordering broadband to get ISDN speeds.

I think these are things that anyone would understandibly wish to have in a broadband package. I have heard differing views on gaming over IBBs products, but that 1MB upstream will most certainly make a difference as Taz pointed out, even more so if I am to have a network game with a couple of mates.

Blaster99

Tenshot, something is wrong with your setup if you're only getting 110KB/s with an Eircom 2048/256 ADSL line. Everyone gets 200+KB/s on one of them.

Gilgamesh

okay, I think the only thing to say bout the offer is, take it or leave it.

can't bothered to fight in a possibly endless discussion on this matter.
For those I might have insukted in this thread, sorry bout that.

on the overlook of it, I think the only plausible statement in the shole thing was from Tenshot.

Steve S

Right, sure. Well, enjoy your 56k connection. That's all any normal person needs.

snappieT

Regarding the Ratio of Downloads to Uploads, since there has been quite a bit of support for more upload bandwidth, I have taken the liberty of creating an online petition to sign in favour of this. I would invite all boardsies to sign it here: http://www.petitiononline.com/boardsie/petition.html

Thank You,
Snapscan

Tenshot

Blaster99 wrote:

Tenshot, something is wrong with your setup if you're only getting 110KB/s with an Eircom 2048/256 ADSL line. Everyone gets 200+KB/s on one of them.

Hmmm... just connected remotely to the office, fetched a large file from Easynet in the UK (Tucows Mirror), and ... whaddayaknow, 200 KB/s!

So the moral is: don't expect massive download speeds during the day when the rest of the staff are busy on the football sites. (Thanks for the correction, Blaster99.)

MickFarr

Steve S wrote:

Especially since the real analogy would be more like this:

the bartender wants to charge you 8 euro for a half-filled pint and claims that he has to charge that much because beer is in limited supply (even though he's sitting on several full kegs).

lol, That is sooo true!!

I for one would not be interested in the 128kb upload speed for 35 euros but would be happy to pay more for 256kb/512kb etc..

Hopefully in the near future they might offer other broadband packages with different upload speeds but it will be interesting to see how the other broadband provider's react to this.

I think by the time this does get rolled out there will be other offers from the other providers.