Speed Isn't Everything!

I discovered today that my internet speed and bandwidth was not what I thought it was. A few weeks ago I upgraded to Roger's new 6Mbps service, and within an hour I saw a big increase in how fast my internet was.

DON'T LET THAT FOOL YOU!

My girlfriend Deneen, of Diamond Decor Decorating (www.diamond-decor.com) was working on her website at the same time as me, both of us wireless, when she commented "I don't think we're getting all that speed we're supposed to."

So I quickly "googled" for an internet speed test and came across one of the best at www.pcpitstop.com (though they limit you to several tests in one session). Lo and behold it turns out their test showed my connection was only transferring at 50% (or 3Mbps).

I quickly called Roger's tech support who verified that my modem is receiving 6Mbps, and they suggested I try several things.

1. Disconnect from the wireless and the router and connect direct to the modem and run the internet test again.
2. Change the Ethernet cable between the router and modem (as sometimes that can make a difference).
3. Use a straight-through Ethernet cable between the modem and router (apparently a cross-over cable affects the bandwidth).

So I go and connect direct to the modem (with a regular cross-over Ethernet cable) and I re-ran the test at www.pcpitstop.com. WOW! There it was! 5Mbps! Was I glad to see that improvement, but it was still not the 6Mbps I wanted to see.

Again I "googled" for "tweaking internet connection speed and bandwidth". After reading through several sites I came across www.speedguide.net and their great little free tool called TCPOptimizer.exe which shows you you're current settings, what your optimized settings should be, and allows for your own custom settings. After applying the optimized settings, and a few more other tweaks I read in the pages of their web site, I rebooted my system and waited.

Once my system loaded back up again I was anxious to test my internet connection speed now that I had optimized it. To my disappointment, I was not able to use pcpitstop again because og their "limits". So I set out to "google" another site that would allow me to test my internet connection speed. After checking a few more web sites I discovered a test at www.speakeasy.com. This site (as far as I can tell) does not limit the number of times you can run the test, and the animated graphics during the test gives a great visual picture of what is happening during the test.

WOW! To my surprise and excitement, my internet connection speed came in at over 5Mbps. A definite increase from before the tweaking. Then on to the next level of testing. I reconnected my modem to the router and the router to my laptop and ran the test again. BAM!! Another increase. I was now clocking in at nearly 6Mbps.

That left me with testing my connection over the wireless 802.11b. Now this is where the topic title of today's blog entry comes from, "Speed Isn't Everything!". It was always my belief, and something I've always told my customers, that there is little reason to pay for 54Mbps or 108Mbps wireless for 1 or 2 users when no ISP provides higher than 6Mps (right now), especially when 802.11b (11Mbps) wireless hardware is cheap and still available on the market (though probably not for long). Well...today I've been corrected - or at least clarified, and re-educated.

Apparently, from what I have read (and since researched) it seems the typical average speed of 802.11b (11Mbps) wireless is really around 5Mbps. This would be fine for 2-3 users with only 1.5Mbps or 3Mbps or a single user with 5Mbps internet service. In my case there are two of us with 802.11b (11Mbps) wireless cards using a 6Mbps internet connection. When I ran the above speed test on my wireless laptop, my speed had certainly increased, but now to only around 4Mbps.

Deneen's laptop was only getting around 1Mbps to 1.5Mbps until I applied the above tweaks found at www.speedguide.net, and then it bumped up to around 4Mbps as well.

The lesson here is that if we want to get the full speed benefit of 6Mbps over wireless, we are going to have to use at least 802.11g (54Mbps). For now, we will continue to use our new found speed. 6Mbps is equivalent to a T3 line, and even at 4Mbps over wireless, it is still better then when we had 3Mbps service.

Besides, I'm not always running wireless in my home. Whenever I'm in the shop area of my home I connect direct to Ethernet, as I do when working on a customer's computer that I have to connect to the internet. So I'm getting a fair bit of use out of the entire bandwidth, and I must say 6Mbps...rocks!!

Thanks for reading, and please remember to visit my website at www.onsitetechnology.ca for great deals, articles, information and links, or my eBay consignment shop at www.udropcanada.com.

Troy Roach
519-404-3357
519-40-GEEKS

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