Broadband speed needed vs. Not?

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Broadband speed needed vs. Not?

Postby Saber » Sat 2008 Sep 27 12:49

I heard that if your paying for more than 10Mbps DL/2 or 5Mbps UL thru put your throwing your money away? What are the Max speeds you need to play the most demanding PC and Xbox 360 Games online and be competitive? Max for hosting? My understanding is that there is a point of diminishing returns and your basically throwing money away after a certain point? I'm interested in knowing and understanding why?
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Re: Broadband speed needed vs. Not?

Postby Spock » Sat 2008 Sep 27 12:54

Good question and I'm not sure I know the answer. I do know that with a bigger bandwidth I'm able to download from more servers at one time but how many people do that?

I also know that your individual download speed is actually limited by the upload speed of the server you are trying to download from, so anything faster than their upload speed is basically wasted.

See if you can find the answer for us somewhere ... before someone else does. ;)
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Re: Broadband speed needed vs. Not?

Postby Saber » Sat 2008 Sep 27 6:03

Well I know broadband is a dedicated line, so you don't have the loop slowdown effect you have with cable when more people jump on w/ you. Yea, your on to something, because I think a lot has to do with the sites server speeds and a lot is out of your hands. Different games vary depending on their engines,servers used and what supporting sites provide. Not sure you normally do a lot of uploading playing games? Pings come into play too, but lag times can come about for different reasons and muck w/ your experience too. All I'm sure about is providers want to sell you on faster is better, because they can charge you more. Someone out there who knows what their talking about please feel free to chime in. I'm going to bed eventually? :zzzz:
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Re: Broadband speed needed vs. Not?

Postby Ben Last » Sun 2008 Dec 21 7:12

Saber wrote:Well I know broadband is a dedicated line, so you don't have the loop slowdown effect you have with cable when more people jump on w/ you.

Actually Saber this depends...
Although you have your own line to your telephone exchange, with home DSL you usually find you are sharing the connection from the exchange to your ISP with many other users - the number of users per connection to the ISP is known as the contention ratio & is usually either 1:1, 25:1, or 50:1 depending on how much you pay. This works on the basis that not everyone will be using the connection at the same time, but if many others are using it at the same time, it may appear slow.

Now I'm not sure and would be interested in finding out...
If you pay for a 2mb connection, you get a 2mb connection to the exchange, now with a contention ratio of say 25:1 does that mean you are sharing one 2mb line from the exchange to the ISP with 25 other users?
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Re: Broadband speed needed vs. Not?

Postby Saber » Thu 2010 Feb 18 6:57

Anybody have more feedback on your own personal experience w/ broadband? (Verizon vs. ect...)
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Re: Broadband speed needed vs. Not?

Postby Spock » Fri 2010 Feb 19 10:25

I'm still with Comcast and have recently found out that even they artificially limit the speed a customer can access. They have a "Premium" rate for higher speeds. That's alright, what I have is just fine ... especially when I think back to the bad old dial-up days!
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Re: Broadband speed needed vs. Not?

Postby Saber » Wed 2012 Jan 18 10:05

Thanks Ben & Spock, Just thought I'd let you know I do read responses and appreciate! Saber was here and no trees or animals were harmed in the process. As far as I can tell? Ready to :zzzz:
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