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Surviving the Internet On Low Speed DSL

toygeek writes "Earlier this year my family and I moved out into the woods, where high speed is simply not available. We traded in high speed for high latency, clean air and peace and quiet. We've made it work, and can even watch Netflix and Hulu while I'm off in another room working from home full time. Read along as I share some tips about how we've made it work, and the compromises we've had to make." It can be done; low-end DSL from AT&T is also what I somehow muddled through with for most of the last 18 months; though the connection often failed and the followup support was terrible, it worked well enough most of the time, and sure beat a 56K modem.

277 comments

  1. How is this news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How is this news?

    1. Re:How is this news? by EmagGeek · · Score: 1, Informative

      It's not news. It's a guy trying to generate click revenue on his blog.

      His solutions aren't even that good. They are overcomplicated and unelegant.

    2. Re:How is this news? by twocows · · Score: 2

      DSL. Hah. I lived on DSL for the better part of a decade, from the early 00s well into 2008. I've lived with dial-up several times in the past few years alone (see here for a detailed post about that and how I coped if you care). I sure as hell didn't try to submit it as an article, though. Maybe I should start a blog with a fancy newsy-sounding name and submitting every entry to /. at the rate articles are getting greenlighted these days.

    3. Re:How is this news? by slugstone · · Score: 0

      you forgot to add profit to the bottom of your post.

    4. Re:How is this news? by toygeek · · Score: 3, Informative

      I was afraid folks would think that. I removed the ads, they're all but ineffective for revenue anyway. I'm sorry you didn't like my solutions, but that's how it goes. If one person benefits from something I wrote, that's enough for me. Plus, I just like getting my stuff out there and being *read*.

    5. Re:How is this news? by Khyber · · Score: 0

      That's what your fucking JOURNAL is for. Not /.'s fucking front page.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    6. Re:How is this news? by Khyber · · Score: 0

      Here, let me help you find the right fucking section.

      http://slashdot.org/~toygeek/journal

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    7. Re:How is this news? by hodet · · Score: 2

      I don't know what all these people are bitching about. I liked the read, thanks.

    8. Re:How is this news? by toygeek · · Score: 1

      Thanks! I do appreciate that quite a lot :)

    9. Re:How is this news? by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Clearly someone thought it was useful, or else, the submission wouldn't appear on Slashdot.

      Not necessary to remove ads. Slashdot has them. All the major blogs have ads. Clearly they generate something for all the bloggers out there; probably mainly in relation to the relevance of ads with regards to the content.

      But I understand sales affiliate programs are more revenue-generating than simple Ads in many cases; where the blogger can make a meaningful product review.

    10. Re:How is this news? by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      Uhhh...how EXACTLY is "Linux" any sort of solution when it comes to bandwidth? I'd like to have that one explained please, because you can have a BSD/OSX/Windows box that never phones home and a Linux box that is a chatty Cathy and since pretty much any modern OS can use scheduled tasks I really don't see any advantage for one OS over the other.

      As far as the other tips using your own DNS and using a router for QOS? Honestly? No offense man, as it seems like your heart is in the right place, but that kind of stuff would probably fit better on an eHow article or in your slashdot journal, most of the guys here already know networking 101 stuff.

      BTW you think that's bad Internet? I was on HughesNet for nearly 5 years friend, now THAT is some painful fricking Internet! I would have killed to have even low end DSL, hell shotgunned modems was less painful than the Hughes Blues!

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    11. Re:How is this news? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      His solutions aren't even that good. They are overcomplicated and unelegant.

      So what are the right solutions O wise one?

      You haven't offered any which means I suspect you're just trolling.

      The solutions seem quite reasonable to me. I'm on not quite so slow speed DSL, but I'm actually considering a few of them as the result of his blog.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    12. Re: How is this news? by Sigg3.net · · Score: 2

      Survived on ~28kbps satellite link in the Sahara doing fieldwork. Not getting shot also helped.

      What were you saying, again?

  2. You poor baby by 0racle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    OMFG how ever will you survive on 1.5mbps?

    5 years ago where I live finally got DSL at 768bps. 2 years ago it actually got bumped to a maximum of 3mbps. WTF are you whining about?

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    1. Re:You poor baby by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Informative

      Amen. Until I moved 7 months ago I was on 1Mbps for the last 10 years, and actually - it ain't that bad. File downloads go a bit slower naturally and some video streaming stuff didn't work great (Youtube worked fine though), but in general web browsing was absolutely fine at that speed and online gaming wasn't an issue either.

      When I moved to my current home my local ISP has a host of plans available - from a minimum of 10Mbps to a max of 110Mbps. I took the bottom plan at 10Mbps and I've still not found any major reason to go faster. Don't get me wrong I'm a big techie and spend tons of time on my computer, but I haven't yet found a need for some of the crazy internet speeds available these days.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    2. Re:You poor baby by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The fact he works from home certainly raises the stakes.

      Secondly, what may have been OK 5 years ago is not necessarily OK today. When tech is available, it tends to become implicitly mandatory. There are now many jobs where it would be frowned upon to not carry a cell phone, for example. Expectations rise - not just our own expectations but those placed upon us. I don't think this is recognized enough among people who always feel we should be "thankful" for everything.

    3. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The article is pretty lame, and appears to merely be ad click-bait.

      Up until 3 years ago I was limited to 768kbps down, and I made do without all the weird crap that is mentioned in the article (other than AdBlock). Even now -- I just checked -- I only get 3mbps down. I never really thought about this as being slow. I guess I don't stream enough videos simultaneously in resolutions higher than my monitor supports?

    4. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unless he's working from home in a media-intensive industry such as photography or video editing or something, I can't really fathom the need for a high speed connection. I work from home with a 3mbps link in a pretty media-heavy industry: video game development. I never really thought about download times as being excessive for all the content that I end up downloading.

      Granted I'm not moving content continually, and I do initiate large syncs at night so that I'll have them when I need them. The majority of my network needs are pretty minimal text-only transactions. (Chat, VCS transfers, web browsing for API docs.) But there's still plenty of bandwidth for voip calls too.

    5. Re:You poor baby by robot256 · · Score: 4, Funny

      The article is pretty lame, and appears to merely be ad click-bait.

      Well, he does work from home. Be a sucker and click on a link so he can have a cup of coffee.

    6. Re:You poor baby by alen · · Score: 1

      KVM switches need lots of bandwidth
      in our old office with a few T1's every time i would fire up the KVM switch app on my PC the networking guys would call right away

    7. Re:You poor baby by McGruber · · Score: 1

      OMFG how ever will you survive on 1.5mbps? 5 years ago where I live finally got DSL at 768bps. 2 years ago it actually got bumped to a maximum of 3mbps. WTF are you whining about?

      +1

      I live within 4 miles of the center of a major US City and the best DSL I can get is 0.65 Mbps down and 0.10 Mbps up.

    8. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been on 1.5Mbps since 2006. It would be great to get higher speed, but Comcast will never get a cent of my money.

    9. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless he's working from home in a media-intensive industry such as photography or video editing or something, I can't really fathom the need for a high speed connection.

      Very few people need a lot of bandwidth all the time.

      In my case there are occasionally situations where it is of interest to transfer a 200MB+ disk image for some "embedded" system or similar.

      If someone along the line have a customer on the phone waiting for a problem to get fixed then that extra bandwidth could be really good for PR.
      Heck, sometimes it is better to have a problem and fix it on a short notice than to deliver something that works flawlessly.

    10. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OMFG how ever will you survive on 1.5mbps?

      5 years ago where I live finally got DSL at 768bps. 2 years ago it actually got bumped to a maximum of 3mbps. WTF are you whining about?

      Well, they won't...eventually. It seems that more videos are being stream at 720p. That doesn't work so hot with only 1.5mbps. So while it's adequate for the time being, it won't be long before you will need 3, 4, 5...n mbps.

      Nature abhors a vacuum.

    11. Re:You poor baby by CastrTroy · · Score: 2

      Yeah, most people don't really need internet that's that fast. 5-10 Mbps should really be more than enough for most home users. This gives you enough bandwidth to stream a couple videos at the same time. The big problem that I have is that with my current ISP (and all others in my area) is that the pricing structure is set up all wrong. You can either pay a low price for 5 Mbps, but be limited to 15 GB of transfer, or you can pay more for higher transfer speeds (up to 150 mbps), and then be given more higher transfer limits, but it still tops out around 150 GB. I would love to be able to purchase extra throughput, without having to pay for higher speeds at the same time, but such a plan doesn't exist.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    12. Re:You poor baby by TWiTfan · · Score: 1

      Nature abhors a vacuum.

      I think it's more the case that internet providers abhor someone who isn't paying top dollar for their top "Super Duper Fast" tier.

      --
      The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
    13. Re:You poor baby by sandytaru · · Score: 2

      I'm still on 6 Mbps down and 0.5 up - and I live in what is technically classified as an urban area. There are higher speed plans available from other companies, but the QoS from them is notoriously terrible.

      My crummy little DSL might take a while to download a large file and has an occasional burp if two people try to stream at once, but the connection itself is otherwise rock solid. I'm connected to the line via an Ethernet cable since I'm the gamer in the house, but everyone else does just fine on wireless connections.

      --
      Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
    14. Re:You poor baby by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      I lived on no better than 320k DSL until 5 years ago when I moved out of the US. I presume higher speeds would have been available in the same areas now, but I don't have to worry about it.

    15. Re:You poor baby by CubicleZombie · · Score: 1

      I have friends 15 miles from Washington D.C. who are on dialup (or Verizon wireless cards) because it's apparently not cost effective to run cable or DSL to their neighborhood. My folks live in Montana. They don't even have good dialup. Forget 56k, they're falling back to 14.4kbps.

      I'm in suburban VA. No DSL and my Comcast loop is so saturated that I don't even bother trying to use it at prime time.

      --
      :wq
    16. Re:You poor baby by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nature abhors a vacuum.

      Is that why my cat hates the vacuum?

    17. Re:You poor baby by saleenS281 · · Score: 1

      I'm whining about the fact that downloading an ISO is an overnight event. This is 2013 and we live in the richest nation in the world. There's absolutely no reason we shouldn't have had this entire country wired with fiber a decade ago. Wait, there is - we spend tens of billions of dollars dropping bombs on innocent people in the middle east only to spend billions more rebuilding their countries instead of spending it on infrastructure to improve our own country.

    18. Re:You poor baby by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Ugg, metered Internet... there is no future in that, the sooner ISPs drop that idea the better...

      I live in Texas and have Verizon FIOS, 150 down 65 up, and it is wonderful. Works all the time, amazingly fast, low latency.

      Downloading large media files or games from Steam, normally I get over 18 megabytes per second. That is faster than I can write to a lot of USB flash drives! :)

      We use a lot of streaming media in our house and while 150 down isn't required for that, it sure makes the experience nice for multiple users. The 65 meg up also helps for remote VPN connections (I work from home a lot).

    19. Re:You poor baby by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1
      Then you both have crappy Internet connections. It is easy to say, "what are you complaining about, it's fine" when you've never had a good connection.

      However...

      Once you've had one, you'll never go back...

      My office has 75 down, 35 up, and I can tell the difference between that and my home which has 150 down, 65 up. Not a huge difference, but there is one.

      My Mother is still with AT&T on DSL, 6 down, .768 up. Complete crap experience all the way around, but she doesn't know it because she's never used my connection.

    20. Re:You poor baby by hey! · · Score: 1

      He's a regular Daniel Boone, leading a life of simple-but-rewarding chores: loading logs into the log splitter as he waits for his iTunes movie to download; snow blowing a clear path for the UPS truck to deliver their Amazon groceries; or just whittlin' a shim to mount the high gain yagi antenna to the mast so he can check his Facebook down at the fishin' hole.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    21. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heck I am still using a 1.5mbps line. And up till this sunday I am damn positive my provider was throttling youtube as we couldn't stream ANYTHING from them no matter what I did for the past year. Where as before it was a rock solid connection and 360p was fine if you let it buffer, where as untill sunday no amount of buffering will save you.

      Really it only be a story if he figured out a way to do this on dialup with all his games on steam while keeping them all up to date for online play.

    22. Re:You poor baby by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Just a case of geeks feeling entitled to internet. 1.5mbps is great for almost all uses, more than most people actually get, and all you need as long as you don't go in for bandwidth hogging uses (streaming video).

    23. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      I'm not a fan of waiting, I value my time, and waiting for a 20GB Steam game to install on a 1mb connection would drive me nuts. I only have so much time on Earth and I don't want to spend it waiting for a progress bar.

      Everyone has opinions and priorities, and this is just a reflection of how I feel on the subject.

    24. Re:You poor baby by BitZtream · · Score: 2

      In the modern world ... people use RDP which is extremely lightweight, or VNC, which isn't horrible. Both are far better than streaming video. What app do you speak of that was so bandwidth intensive?

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    25. Re:You poor baby by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Fiber to every home? That's ridiculous. Who pays for that? Even if you get a fiber backbone you still won't have fiber for those last few hundred yards. The only way it happens is if the customer pays exhorbitant fees, like $100/month. No ISP is going to act as a charity.

      Plus you don't need fiber. 768Kbps DSL is adequate for the vast majority of people, and yet we don't even have that available to the majority of the people. Stop whining about your streaming being bumpy when there are people who can not recieve or afford anything better than dialup.

    26. Re:You poor baby by lgw · · Score: 1

      Big downloads run overnight, just as they always have for me. Still faster and easier than driving to the store. It's not like I'm staring at the progress bar while downloads happen.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    27. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know you don't have to sit in front of the thing and stare at the progress bar, don't you? Do something else while it downloads.

    28. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OMFG: I've got TWC basic broadband that's a meager 512/256 and it's enough for my modest needs because I use a god damn host file to block bandwidth wasting connections to ad-servers. Works well for me.

      Fast Turtle
      Posting AC due to mod=rules

    29. Re:You poor baby by bloodhawk · · Score: 4, Informative

      nothing much has changed in 5 years that would make working from home any harder on such a link. Unless he is into high end photo or video editing it just means it is slow to surf utube during breaks. I CURRENTLY regularly work via a 500kbps link and it is perfectly fine, most people have an overinflated view of what you actually require for bandwidth which has come from multimedia intensive sites and streaming video.

    30. Re:You poor baby by MBGMorden · · Score: 2

      Unless you're downloading from a BBS using ZModem, you can actually do other things while your computer downloads a game.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    31. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The biggest cost of a fiber buildout is putting the actual fiber in the actual ground. The places where the "last few hundred yards" is a problem are places where people who live there could easily dig a ditch and put the fiber in all by themselves, and then have it connected to the backbone by the professionals. Digging a ditch is not rocket science, especially in the boonies.

    32. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I live outside DC in Prince William County VA in a rural area, property is zoned A1, there is only electric in the area and no other public services (I have a well and a septic field), no sidewalks, no lines painted on the roads etc and surrounded by 10 acre plots. DSL is out because of distance but I've had Comcast for the last 10 years. It started with somewhere around 3m down and 256k up but it has been creeping up over the years. I get 50m down and 15m up pretty much any time of the day and night, even the traditional peak periods at 8-11 pm on weekdays. Fios just got into my area too but I have no interest.

      Strange thing with my Comcast traffic though and it has done this for years, almost all of my packets go to Manassas and then directly to Capitol Heights, MD which is 50 miles away and then back 50 miles to the the major exchanges in Ashburn/Northern VA. Latency could be better but I'm not complaining, I get about 4-8ms to Giganews in Ashburn and my voip provider is in KS and have no problems.

    33. Re:You poor baby by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1, Insightful

      KVM switches need lots of bandwidth in our old office with a few T1's every time i would fire up the KVM switch app on my PC the networking guys would call right away

      That. Does. Not. Compute.

      Seriously, this suggests a totally messed up network setup (and/or the networking guys didn't what the hell they were doing.)

    34. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've notice that myself. It's practically mandatory to keep Skype running on your smartphone at all hours of the day, along with checking the work email system using webmail, and using VPN tunneling to run a remote desktop in case you have to fix anything - that requires a workstation class desktop system (the workplace provides you with one if you don't have a desktop system of your own).

    35. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except in the case of bulk file downloads, the biggest difference past 10mb/s is the quality of the bandwidth, like latency. My work's 10gb fiber connection feels slower than my at home 50mb fiber connection because my residential line has lower latency to Chicago, where all the popular regional CDNs and datacenters are located.

    36. Re:You poor baby by Idbar · · Score: 1

      Indeed.

      I lived for 1.5 years in a place. Since I didn't originally know the length of my stay in that city, I contracted Sprint 4G instead of a wired network provider.

      Turned out my connection was very spotty, so I had to tape the usb dongle to the window, use a USB cable extension and use a laptop to share the internet. I still had about 1Mbps, with 100ms+ latencies to Google. I streamed Netflix and hulu without much issues (unless it was heavy raining, or something happened at Sprint).

      Not sure what's all the fuzz about this article.

    37. Re:You poor baby by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 1

      Also, why should people in urban areas be forced to subsidize people who want to live in the middle of nowhere and then bitch because there's no infrastructure near by.

      If you want the advantages of a place with a high population density, move to a place with a high population density. If you want the advantages of a place with a low population density, move to a place with a low population density. But you can't have your cake and eat it too.

    38. Re:You poor baby by NormalVisual · · Score: 1

      I would love to be able to purchase extra throughput, without having to pay for higher speeds at the same time, but such a plan doesn't exist.

      Look into any business plans your provider offers. They're more expensive for a given speed, but are often uncapped, plus you get better customer service.

      --
      Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
    39. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      I don't do it as much as when I was younger, but I still like to play games as soon as they're released. I won't be fully satisfied until there is absolutely no perceivable wait. I am content and happy with waiting over night, but my goal is to never wait for anything when it comes to transferring data. With new tech coming down the pipeline, my dream may be realized before I die.

    40. Re:You poor baby by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 1

      Using a mac is a good way to instill a lust for bandwidth.

      A delta update is a few hundred meg, and the new OS versions are a few gig each. Much more if you (like any sane geek) want the compilers as well.

    41. Re:You poor baby by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 1

      My guess is the K and M components do just fine on limited bandwidth connections. It's the video that's the problem.

      Perhaps the CLI would trim those demands down to something reasonable? GUIs are a passing fad, anway.

    42. Re:You poor baby by dugancent · · Score: 2

      If you want food, grow it yourself.

      --
      SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
    43. Re:You poor baby by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 1

      as long as you don't go in for bandwidth hogging uses (streaming video).
      Huh? I don't quite understand.
      Why would you not stream video?

    44. Re:You poor baby by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1
      That is true, ping times and latency do matter. Thankfully my local FIOS has pretty good latency, it is nice.

      One benefit of fast downloads isn't obvious until you think about it.

      The amount of time it takes to start streaming superbit 1080P from Netflix is shorter with a fast connection, when you fast forward or rewind, it starts playing faster as well since it buffers faster.

      When you have 3 TVs in the house doing this, as we sometimes do, it becomes even nicer. A 10 megabit connection would not nearly be as nice as a 150 meg connection, in that situation.

    45. Re:You poor baby by 0racle · · Score: 1

      Then you both have crappy Internet connections. It is easy to say, "what are you complaining about, it's fine" when you've never had a good connection.

      I said whining and I did it in an extremely condescending way, because the whole premise of the article is 'how will I ever survive on 1.5mbps.' It wasn't, 'this kind of sucks but oh well.' The article is whining like a little bitch for having speeds comparable to most of the rest of the US.

      my home which has 150 down, 65 up

      That's it? How ever do you manage, I would die if I was ever constrained so much. BTW you seem to be under the impression I've never used faster.

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    46. Re:You poor baby by saleenS281 · · Score: 1

      Good god I hope that's a bad attempt at trolling. People having even shittier service is an excuse to find 768k DSL acceptable? Again, richest nation in the world. If we spent 2% of our annual defense budget on building out a broadband network, it would be done in two years. Who pays for it? We do, with taxpayer dollars. Run back to a central aggregation point and give the US actual competition at the POP instead of granting monopolies on last-mile.

    47. Re:You poor baby by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1
      Funny... :) 150 down / 65 up is reasonable, however they do offer faster here, they just charge a ton for it and I'm not ready to pay quite that much.

      Our local equipment can handle gigibit today, but I believe the most they actually sell to a single home is 500 down, 200 up. Costs more than $200 a month however last time I looked. As it stands, I pay $90 a month for 150/65.

    48. Re:You poor baby by IANAAC · · Score: 1
      I get by on basically the same as the story submitter, and I work from home too. There is a speedier option for me - satellite internet, for about the same price.

      I won't jump to satellite, though. Here's why: I stream a LOT of shows. I mean most of what I watch is done over the internet. I may occasionally have to wait for a buffer to fill, but other than that I have no problems. Satellite comes with bandwidth caps (unless I want to be up all night taking advantage of "free" off-hour bandwidth). With all the shows I watch, I clock in around 50G download, 3-4G upload every month, and that's at the lowest resolution I can get, if and when I have a choice to change it. No way a satellite provider would let me do this month after month, year after year.

    49. Re:You poor baby by jeffmflanagan · · Score: 4, Funny

      Maybe you should smarten up and not stare at the progress bar. There's this new thing called Windows that allows you to use other applications while Steam downloads. There's another thing called "life," which has something to do with being away from the PC, but I'm not really qualified to speak on that topic.

    50. Re:You poor baby by toygeek · · Score: 1

      This is why I removed the ads almost as soon as I put them up. I don't want to be taken for click bait. Ads have their place, but not with this crowd! Even I hate them when they're obnoxious.

    51. Re:You poor baby by toygeek · · Score: 1

      I too could work at 500kbps. It would suck for some of the things I need to do (a lot of my work is browser based). The bigger challenge is when my son is gaming, skyping, browsing all at once, and my wife is watching a movie, all while I'm trying to work. Fitting all of that into 1.5mbps IS a challenge, and That is what the article is about.

    52. Re:You poor baby by tepples · · Score: 1

      If "other things" use the Internet connection, they will cause the download to finish later.

    53. Re:You poor baby by Algae_94 · · Score: 1

      So don't wait. There is no need for you to stare at the progress bar while it downloads. Go do something else while the download is going on. Come back in a couple days and play your game.

    54. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Just because you can do all of your work over SSH, doesn't mean the rest of us can. On a side note, how would you propose to live stream you game play in 1080p? Why would we "need" to? Why do we "need" computers? Why do we "need" society as a whole? The only "need" is food and a roof, but we've decided we can more in life than just the survive.

    55. Re:You poor baby by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 1

      When I want food, I pay for it myself. If you want broadband out in Donkey Butt, Montana, pay for it yourself.

    56. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      FTTH is more expensive than copper in the same way the pony express is cheaper than UPS. Just because your ISP has invested a lot of money into a lot of horses, doesn't mean it's cheaper to maintain a herd of horses than a fleet of trucks.

      They have a term for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_previous_investment

    57. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Actually, the biggest cost if sending people to the houses to plug in their ONTs. It makes up about 60% of the over all cost. Trenching the fiber and running it to each house is only about 30% of the cost and the last 10% is the fiber and network equipment.

    58. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if you have a natural cat.

    59. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      And how much are you paying for your $0.70 of bandwidth? Is that even dedicated? The problem is 99% of your Internet bill has nothing to do with bandwidth, but your connection. It's like paying $35 for an 8 port 100mb switch, when you could have gotten an 8port 1gb switch for $40, and your reasoning is 100mb is fine. Why not fork out the extra $5 and get 10x the speed?! Who cares how much of it is a "waste".

    60. Re:You poor baby by lgw · · Score: 1

      What a bizarre notion. Of course, it's common on Steam for bigger games to be able to pre-download the game and just unlock it when it launches (and then not be able to play because the game servers are completely overloaded, of course), so I guess there's a market for that.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    61. Re:You poor baby by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      My point is more towards the self entitled urban core dwellers who think that super high bandwidth is a basic right, or who naively think that everyone can get it if they only wanted to.

      This is now about places with low population densities. There are places with high populations that do not have the sort of internet to support the speeds some people think is "standard" and they can probably find that within their own city if they looked around. The ISPs do not put the high capacity internet in the poor parts of town, or even middle class parts of town, and some towns won't even have it for the affluent parts of town. There are places in silicon valley with crappy internet.

    62. Re:You poor baby by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      True, it would require government expense to do this. But the US is stuck on the free-market hands-off ideology which does not coexist well with public infrastructure.

    63. Re:You poor baby by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      But everyone is basically stuck with the connection they can get, and they have no ability to make it faster. Basically in most places it means relying upon the unregulated cable monopolies. If they don't want good internet to your house then you are out of luck, or if you're boycotting Comcast or Time Warner you're also out of luck. The reason most people have DSL is because the government requires sharing of the copper cables that were originally installed through government support and the government granted phone service monopoly.

      But my point was that 1.5mpbs is still more than most people get. Why complain that some entitled geeks can't get faster internet than that when there are millions of people who can't get even that much speed with DSL, or who are still stuck with dialup as their only available or affordable option? Why put all the effort into making sure that people who already have fast internet get even faster connections instead of worrying about people with slow internet.

    64. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You didn't say what the cost per month was?

    65. Re:You poor baby by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      The unnatural cats all flew away. Only natural cats left.

    66. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We can grow cake?

    67. Re:You poor baby by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Agreed (what moron modded you flamebait??). I've had DSL for years and have no problems with it. TV shows stream nicely (or did, damned Windows computer has gotten slow but the wifi streams to the phone just fine), and that's with BitTorrent and often other stuff running.

      Of course, I live alone. I can see where someone with a big family where all ten kids are watching a different YouTube show while playing Angry Birds might need more throughput, but DSL works for me. It might be different if I were still a gamer.

      That family's bottleneck will likely be their own router. Internet bottlenecks are often your own wiring.

      I find it amusing that people keep trying to sell me shit I don't need, like OMFG SUPER FAST CABLE!!! I simply don't need the speed, what I have works well and doesn't cost a lot.

    68. Re:You poor baby by Creepy · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I get about the same - technically it's 7/768, but due to distance to router it is more like 6/.5. On the plus side, CenturyLink finally updated the ancient Qwest CO (like a month ago) to be able to carry faster traffic, probably because I think they are getting killed by 4G (both Sprint [formerly Clearwire], aka WiMax and 4G phone carriers). Comcast has offered high speed service in the area for about a decade, but they only seem economical with pay TV, and their pay TV is overpriced. I seriously plan to switch to a faster network soon, as I think their 25Mbit plan is actually cheaper than the old one I have now (to keep it competitive).

    69. Re:You poor baby by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 2

      I would say "Yes," but it would be a lie.

    70. Re:You poor baby by dugancent · · Score: 1

      I pay mine. $40/month for 1.5mbit.

      --
      SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
    71. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it's called Second Life. It's an MMO where you pay to pretend to have sex with men who pretend to be women.

    72. Re:You poor baby by smash · · Score: 1

      This is 2013 and we live in the richest nation in the world

      Actually you live in the most indebted nation in the history of the world. ergo, you do not live in the "richest nation in the world" despite what your politicians would have you believe.

      --
      I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
    73. Re:You poor baby by smash · · Score: 1

      Try keeping Ubuntu up to date. The individual downloads aren't as big but they are every day.

      --
      I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
    74. Re:You poor baby by Wolfrider · · Score: 1

      > 768Kbps DSL is adequate for the vast majority of people

      --So you're seriously trying to say that "768K should be enough for anybody"? On Slashdot?? Srsly?

      --
      .
      == WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
    75. Re:You poor baby by saleenS281 · · Score: 1

      Right, except for the part where it already exists in parts of this country, and is rampant in foreign countries. If your excuse is really that you think you shouldn't pay taxes on anything you don't personally benefit from you should probably look into finding citizenship elsewhere.

    76. Re:You poor baby by mysidia · · Score: 1

      5 years ago where I live finally got DSL at 768bps.

      Do you have some better tips on how to survive that?

      If you can write them up and post them to a blog, then it might be /. worthy.

      Nothing wrong with the ideas in this article.

    77. Re:You poor baby by VortexCortex · · Score: 1

      Back in my day we had to connect the networking wires by hand, and shout into tin cans.

    78. Re:You poor baby by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      "vast majority"

    79. Re:You poor baby by anagama · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When you buy food in your city store, you are accessing a myriad government incentive programs designed to ensure that every time you go to the store, it is stocked with food rather than empty because farmers went broke, or bridges washed out, or whatnot.

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    80. Re:You poor baby by Gob+Gob · · Score: 0

      Don't get me wrong I'm a big techie

      Fatso!

    81. Re:You poor baby by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      what has gaming and streaming 1080p got to do with working over a low speed link? unless you are specifically a game tester or video stream editor you are just building a strawman. I never claimed or argued they would be good for such purposes.

    82. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could start the download and you know ... go outside and play?

    83. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's the trenching, at least in rural areas. You realize that we're talking about hundreds of yards per drop, don't you? The cost of sending someone to connect the equipment is roughly the same per drop, but the trenches are much longer.

    84. Re:You poor baby by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      5-10 Mbps should really be more than enough for most home users. This gives you enough bandwidth to stream a couple videos at the same time.

      I have DSL. It used to be 4Mbit, some days it hits 5.5 on some downloads. Usually it saturates at around 4.5. Let me tell you that is not enough for streaming video, unless you like really poor quality. I've tried various of the free streaming ones, like iPlayer and 4OD and they suck. You will often get a chunk in high quality then it hits a wall pauses drops out and reconnects at what loks like upscaled 160x64, then the quality slowly climbs and so it repeats.

      I couldn't imagine trying to watch two videos at a remotely decent quality at the same time.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    85. Re:You poor baby by isorox · · Score: 1

      5 years ago where I live finally got DSL at 768bps.

      wow, my first modem I used for the internet was 15 times faster, and that was 20 years ago.

    86. Re:You poor baby by MBGMorden · · Score: 2

      Not by that much, and honestly I can't say that I care. I downloaded tons of Steam games on my 1Mbps connection but I mostly bought Steam games when they were on sale - I had no desire to play them immediately - I just wanted them for when I got around to it. Buy it, start the download, and then when I'm ready to play the game (which might be weeks later - I'm busy with OTHER games right now) its ready.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    87. Re:You poor baby by sandytaru · · Score: 1

      I go to the kitchen and cook dinner usually. Or do some housework.

      --
      Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
    88. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      In my experience, not all of them and not all the time. Mind you, I haven't had to worry about large downloads in a while and their policies may have changed.

    89. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      You spoke with a tone of authority claiming your use of "work" gave you a position to say that "people don't need high bandwidth because they're just used to media heavy sites". Essentially you were claiming that "media" for non-work reasons is not a "need" and most people could do just fine without a faster internet speed if they just forgo media heavy services.

    90. Re:You poor baby by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      With a 5 mbit connection, it should only take 1600 seconds (ignoring protocol overhead) to download a gigabyte. That's less than 1/2 an hour. Even assuming protocol overhead is really high, it should still take less than 1 hour. A reasonable quality 2 hour movie can fit in about 1 gigabyte. So you should technically be able to stream a movie (or two) easily on a 5 mbit connection. I think it depends on the source where you're doing the streaming from though. I have a 28 mbit connection, and Netflix obviously plays fine. But stuff on Youtube is almost always unwatchable, as it refuses to buffer more than 3 seconds in advance, and often freezes. And it won't start playing again until you refresh the whole page.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    91. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      A 7 man crew can do about 3,000 feet per day with modern machinery and I've seen them clear several blocks in a day's time. Even in our more rural areas between the city and farm-land, that would still pass a several houses. When the 2 man crew stopped out at my house to install fiber in the house, I asked them how long it takes on average. They said about 4 hours to run CAT6 through-out most houses for their IPTV. I didn't have TV service, so it only took about 30 minutes.

      So a 7 man crew can pass about 8 houses per day in trenching, but a 2 man crew can only do about 2 houses per day. I'd say that's pretty close. In the city, it's much better of course. My dead-end with about 30 duplexes+houses was finished in about 2 days for the trenching crew. All units had fiber ran to the premises, customer or not.

      My brother has fiber to his farm, but they just run it on the poles way out there.

    92. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this is already way old, but I live in the middle of a 200K town and I can only get 768K, TODAY!

      I had a friend, lived on a hog farm in the middle of no where, an hour away, that could get 1.5, and I am stuck with 768.

      Shut the f up all of you. And ATT can kiss my...

    93. Re:You poor baby by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      Agreed. It has only been a handful of years since I had to make due with **ISDN**, so my heart does not bleed for this guy and his unspecified job. Tasks that are synchronous, like SSH sessions, are more noticeably affected than things like IMAP where the user doesn't usually spent a lot of time staring and waiting.

    94. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      You make the faulty assumption that high speed means more expensive for the ISPs. It does not. Fiber is cheaper than copper and can naively supply 1gb speeds for the same price as 1mb speeds. High speed 1gb Internet is more expensive in the same way my CPU is more expensive than a mainframe from 50 years ago because my CPU is faster.

    95. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Our money is based on debt. Remove the debt and we have no money. OK, not that simple, but still funny because it is true to a certain degree. Different types of debt.

    96. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      The "entitled geeks" are the foot in the door to getting faster fiber internet for everyone. Fiber is crazy expensive to roll out to only a few people. You need to mass deploy to make it worth while. If the entitled geeks can get fiber internet, then everyone gets to benefit from cheaper, faster, more reliable internet.

    97. Re:You poor baby by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do know that it'll keep downloading without you watching?

    98. Re:You poor baby by coolsnowmen · · Score: 1

      While Second Life (aka Life v2.0 ) has a bunch of fancy features, I hear the nostalgia of Life (v1.0) is still worth a good turn.

    99. Re:You poor baby by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      bullshit, I said people have overinflated view of how much bandwidth you require for work due to bandwidth intensive sites. The rest was made up in your own head.

    100. Re:You poor baby by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      About $90 per month...

    101. Re:You poor baby by RoLi · · Score: 1

      The US government already directly controls more than 50 cents on every dollar. And this does not include several bookshelves of regulations and laws that gives the government indirect control over the rest.

      How can anybody be so brainwashed to call this system "free-market hands-off ideology"?

    102. Re:You poor baby by Bengie · · Score: 1

      You just said it again.. wtf? You are looking down on bandwidth intensive sites like YouTube, Netflix, and Twitch as if they don't matter because you don't think they matter.

      512kb/s is fine because I can do my work on it, media heavy sites just make the rest of the internet look bad, just use lynx. Whatever. Use that same argument to claim that 14.4k is fine.

    103. Re:You poor baby by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      since when do sites like youtube, Netflix or twitch MATTER FOR WORK? are you just retarded or simply don't bother to read.

  3. What about super high latency/packet loss? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My mother is in the same boat too, whereas I moved to the city. The ability to load up webpages at her place is pretty unreliable.

    https://zdware.com/wp/1-month-later-the-first-report-from-ping-collector/

  4. slow and reliable vs. fast and not by davidwr · · Score: 1

    Dollar for dollar, I'd gladly trade 1/3 my current speed with bursts of large numbers of dropped packets (esp. packets over 4000-5000 bytes) in exchange for almost-no-dropped packets.

    Due to bursts of high packet losses, ordinary web browsers typically abort long downloads after 20-40 minutes. While SSL web pages typically load fine with the occasional glitch that requires re-loading, other secure data connections fail unless the application has a good recovery mechanism.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:slow and reliable vs. fast and not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why aren't you using a download manager? Anything taking longer than 20 minutes shouldn't be downloaded with a browser.

    2. Re:slow and reliable vs. fast and not by Bert64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because of all those horrendous sites that force you to use the browser...
      I pine for the days when download links were direct links to files which you could cut+paste to wget.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    3. Re:slow and reliable vs. fast and not by ls671 · · Score: 1

      large numbers of dropped packets (esp. packets over 4000-5000 bytes) in exchange for almost-no-dropped packets.

      hmmm... try playing with MTU, packets over 4000-5000 bytes?

      I have an MTU of 576 in similar setups. VOIP works flawlessly and I have 0 dropped packets. Using qdisc, I use htb, to do traffic shaping is recommended too. The important thing is to keep your cable-modem empty...

      http://luxik.cdi.cz/~devik/qos/htb/manual/userg.htm

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    4. Re:slow and reliable vs. fast and not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can still use a download manager. Take a look at GetRight.

    5. Re:slow and reliable vs. fast and not by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      Similar to this, I'd gladly trade 2/3 of my current speed to get unlimited (or very high) throughput. Currently with my provider you can't get higher throughput without upgrading the speed, which increases the price quite a bit.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    6. Re:slow and reliable vs. fast and not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have yet to meet a download I can't do from either wget or youtube-dl.

    7. Re:slow and reliable vs. fast and not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, if you cut your current speed by 2/3, your maximum throughput (not counting the effects of compression) is by definition 1/3 of your current speed, whatever that is. So the question is:

      Would you trade 2/3 of your current speed for a throughput of 1/3 of your current speed (ignoring the effects of compression)?

    8. Re:slow and reliable vs. fast and not by Bengie · · Score: 1

      MTUs beyond the MTU of your link will just slow things down. It requires more buffer, CPU overhead, and is more sensitive to jitter and loss. The Internet pretty mush uses a MTU of 1500 for most. Some devices may be slightly less because of encapsulation overhead, so maybe 1480 MTU or something.

    9. Re:slow and reliable vs. fast and not by Bengie · · Score: 1

      He may be getting effectively less than 1/3 of his speed or very inconsistent speeds to the point where he'd rather be slightly slower, but more reliable. Getting full speed one moment, then 1/3 the next moment is quite annoying. A lot of ISPs handle this large performance swings with large buffers, which creates buffer bloat and lots of latency.

      In order to have consistent latency, you need consistent bandwidth. He's will to trade quantity for quality.

  5. I'd love to have DSL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We moved 5 years ago out to the country. We are within sight of town but all that is offered to be is a 4G card from Verizon. No DSL (across the street they have it). No cable (houses to the north are the last ones on the line), no WISP (too many trees close to me), no fiber (main trunk line is across the street but no branches). I feel for you ... not!

    1. Re:I'd love to have DSL by OhSoLaMeow · · Score: 2

      We moved 5 years ago out to the country. We are within sight of town but all that is offered to be is a 4G card from Verizon. No DSL (across the street they have it). No cable (houses to the north are the last ones on the line), no WISP (too many trees close to me), no fiber (main trunk line is across the street but no branches). I feel for you ... not!

      I also have the tree issue (100' Douglas firs) but I've found a WISP that uses the 900Mhz Motorola Canopy system that works pretty well through the trees. The other end is about 2.3 miles away. It gives me 1.3Mbs which is not a speed demon by any stretch but it does beat the pants off of 33Kbs dialup.

      --
      They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
  6. No streaming and remote desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If I found myself in the same situation I'd locate my "real" computer somewhere else with better bandwidth, sneakernet the big stuff, and then finally find out how much it would cost to put in a high speed microwave link between me and someone with more access.

  7. Usenet & Gmane by wispoftow · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have found enjoyment reading the (text!) news groups and RSS feeds via Usenet, gmane, and gwene. (I prefer emacs and gnus)

    Although they are no match for the information of the entire web, I find that there are more than enough high quality posts on different topics to keep me entertained during my personal "surfing" time, and the text groups load in an instant and can be easily browsed and responses written in "unplugged" mode.

    1. Re:Usenet & Gmane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have found enjoyment reading the (text!) news groups and RSS feeds via Usenet, gmane, and gwene.

      Another "hipster" ...

  8. Meh... by Malenx · · Score: 1

    Didn't really see anything useful except for maybe the bandwidth monitoring.

  9. Latency by thetagger · · Score: 2

    Well, to begin with, for Netflix latency doesn't matter. It's streaming. As long as there is sufficient bandwidth and not too much packet loss it's going to work.

    The poster's experience with the Internet is probably as bad or better than what people have to live in most of the world that isn't the US or Europe.

    1. Re:Latency by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 2

      With latency comes jitter (the first derivative of latency with respect to time). Jitter most definitely does matter, especially with streaming.

      See, if you had a nice steady 30 seconds (RTT) of latency, that would be fine. Your content starts streaming 30 seconds after you click play, no big deal, as long as there is no jitter. Now, what happens if latency suddenly drops to 20 seconds? Well, you just got yourself 10 seconds of streaming video in an instant. That needs to be buffered. Nobody expects jitter on the order of 10 seconds if latency itself is in the millisecond range. Buffers are allocated based on jitter, which itself is at least loosely correlated with latency.

      Source: I've stared at way, way too much GSM/RTP/UDP/IP traffic in Wireshark in the course of evaluating tactical radio systems.

      --
      Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
    2. Re:Latency by toygeek · · Score: 1

      Streaming isn't the only thing we do here- with my work from home, latency matters, as it does with the gaming we do. Perhaps I should have made it clearer that we're trying to fit 5mbps of usage into a 1.5mbps line.

    3. Re:Latency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Source: I've stared at way, way too much GSM/RTP/UDP/IP traffic in Wireshark in the course of evaluating tactical radio systems.

      I'm sorry but this is not a valid source. I've stared at way, way too much sex on film, but that certainly doesn't make me knowledgable about the subject.

    4. Re:Latency by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      You get that extra 10 secs of video at no more than the maximum transfer speeds. So in practice far less than 10 extra seconds of video to buffer - shouldn't be a real issue for a properly written app.

    5. Re:Latency by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      The poster's experience with the Internet is probably as bad or better than what people have to live in most of the world that isn't the US or Europe.

      ...or South Korea or Japan or Taiwan or Iceland or Uruguay...

  10. Even slower by Bert64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Until recently i had to make do with 0.5mbps dsl, and there are people who are still forced to use much slower links than this...
    This is one of the reasons i immensely dislike streaming services, i would much rather schedule a download to occur at night when i'm sleeping, streaming over 0.5mbit would be very poor quality but i can download a 720p movie or tv episode while i sleep.

    --
    http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    1. Re:Even slower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah 1.5 Mb isn't that bad. Besides the ping times aren't that bad. I spent almost twice as long to ping google (142 ms) even though I have a 20 Mb DSL. This works great for everything I need and I haven't even considered it crippled ping times (I might think otherwise if I played ping sensitive online games). 1.5 Mb transfer rate appears to cover the needs for streaming.

      Nevertheless this is a good article on how to minimize the internet connection, which is good both for limited bandwidth as well as for people who pay for bandwidth usage. What it doesn't mention at all is unstable connections which makes me believe this isn't a problem for the writer. I have been on a location with horrible bandwidth (way less than 1 Mb) and where the connection dropped every 10th minute. I think the problem was the wifi hotspot and not the DSL connection, but the result on the usability on the connection doesn't care for the cause. In fact that connection was next to useless. Stability is way more important than bandwidth as long as bandwidth is high enough to support streaming.

    2. Re:Even slower by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1
      Where are all these sub 1.5meg DSL connections?

      In 2000 I had a 1.5meg DSL connection from SBC in Dallas, that was considered the "baseline" for DSL back then, when did someone install slower?

    3. Re:Even slower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DSL degrades with line quality and noise. just because you have a theoretical 8Mbps connection or a 24Mbps ADSL2 connection doesn't mean that is what you get. plenty of people paying for those services are getting sub 1.5Mbps.

    4. Re:Even slower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm in a co-operative housing complex.We have fibre-optic network outside our block and the set-top boxes/modems are the latest models. But the cable company just seems to ignore any request for faster speed or just gives you the run-around. Oh, you need to talk to the electricity company, they operate the network. The electricity network replies "Oh, you need to speak to the cable company, they run customer accounts".

    5. Re:Even slower by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 1

      My first post dial up connection was half DSL. I think it was actually good for 850 kbs down, 160 kbs up.
      Verizon swapped it out for FIOS four or five years ago.

    6. Re:Even slower by tepples · · Score: 1

      Then talk to the phone company and add 3-Way Calling to your phone service.

    7. Re:Even slower by mysidia · · Score: 1

      i would much rather schedule a download to occur at night when i'm sleeping, streaming over 0.5mbit would be very poor quality but i can download a 720p movie or tv episode while i sleep.

      It sure makes sense.... a service provider could offer a service where you rent or buy a unit with a 4TB hard drive; has most of their media content pre-loaded (encrypted) instead; a couple thousand full movies would fit. And caches new content that you're likely to want to watch based on recommendations/past viewing habits, or that you added to your list, by trickle-downloading over time.

      Then you connect to their service; and when you want to watch something.... it's served up from local media; without stressing the WAN.

    8. Re:Even slower by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      640 kbps down is all I can still get in Iowa (unless I want to pay through the nose for Verizon 4G). I live less than 20 miles from the new Facebook datacenter...

  11. In Soviet Russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Low Speed DSL survives without YOU!

  12. Noscript is your friend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Annoying ads, annoying plugins, and annoying ajax crap are the major slowdowns when browsing the web.

    So much faster without them - and I'm on a fast fiber connection :)

  13. Get off my lawn by MrEricSir · · Score: 0

    Back in my day we had 14.4 kbps modems and it took forever to download games with EGA graphics. And we liked it. So shut up and get off my lawn, kids.

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    1. Re:Get off my lawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Back in my day, we had 300 baud modems, and we had to dial the # manually. Plus, no graphics.

    2. Re:Get off my lawn by camperdave · · Score: 2

      Back in my day, we had 300 baud modems, and we had to dial the # manually. Plus, no graphics.

      ... and we hated it. So we invented 14.4kbps modems.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    3. Re:Get off my lawn by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 1

      Anachronistic comment. VGA, SVGA, and other nice VESA modes were commonplace by the time I got me a Zoltrix 14.4 voice/fax modem. While I remember games with EGA graphics (mechwars, test drive 2?), they predate my involvement with modems. I'd imagine they coincide with the 300-1200 baud era.

      --
      Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
    4. Re:Get off my lawn by MrEricSir · · Score: 1

      You seem to be forgetting that in that era, games weren't targeted toward top-spec machines.

      --
      There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    5. Re:Get off my lawn by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 1

      CGA was introduced in 1981.
      EGA was introduced in 1984.
      VGA was introduced in 1987.
      Mechwarrior and Test Drive 2 were both released in 1989.
      VESA defined modes for SVGA were introduced in 1989.
      v.32bis (the ITU recommendation that defined standard 14.4kbps modem communication) was published in February of 1991.

      You're talking about 1991 at the earliest when you mention 14.4 modems. Realistically, more like 1992 or 1993. By then, VGA was at least 4 years old, if not 6. Even SVGA was 2-4 years old. Games with awesome graphics like Star Control 2, Wolfenstein 3D, Dune 2, and Ultima VII were being released in 1992. Kings Quest V was released in 1990; this was the final game in the Kings Quest series to offer an EGA release (alongside the VGA release). By 1991, EGA was virtually abandoned, only seen in very old games or shareware/freeware titles. Notably, Commander Keen was EGA and released in 1990.

      You're saying that while your friends were playing Doom, you were downloading EGA games? ... Me too! :)

      --
      Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
    6. Re:Get off my lawn by MrEricSir · · Score: 1

      Notably, Commander Keen was EGA and released in 1990.

      The first series was; the second series was released in 1991 in both EGA and CGA versions (yes, really.) Before DOOM there was Catacomb 3D, which was also released in 1991.

      When Jill of the Jungle came out in 1992 with VGA graphics, it poked fun at Apogee for still making EGA games. Which was a bit silly given that Epic had released ZZT in 1991 with only ASCII graphics.

      Personally I didn't have a computer powerful enough to run DOOM, Raptor, and many other awesome VGA games until early 1993. Besides, it's not like it's illegal to download and play games that are a year or two old.

      --
      There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    7. Re:Get off my lawn by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 1

      You just brought back some awesome memories. Jill of the Jungle!!

      --
      Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
  14. I weep tears by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Informative

    Tears that used to weep at the blinding speed of 300 baud modems after my early 110 baud modem days.

    You poor poor thing.

    Hint: use the mobile website and turn off images.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:I weep tears by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BinDere DunDat

    2. Re:I weep tears by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You had 110 baud, in the old days we had to listen on the phone ourselves and then enter the data that was transmitted. I tell it was hard work, BUT WE LIKED IT. Now get off my lawn.

    3. Re:I weep tears by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      Well, I wasn't going to be mean and suggest he use punched cards and put them in a manilla routing envelope to send via UPS ...

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    4. Re:I weep tears by SpzToid · · Score: 1

      You had UPS? I remember having to wait weeks for the results of our FORTRAN cards to come back to us students.

      The teacher brought the stack of punch cards into the room, and I'm guessing he must have driven a Chevrolet Suburban to get to school.

      --
      You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
    5. Re:I weep tears by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm a youngster (25) and I love FORTRAN. FORTRAN forever!

    6. Re:I weep tears by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      We coded in hex. And we liked it.

      Remember when you sent data tapes on cassette. And it was just a typical 30 minute cassette tape?

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    7. Re:I weep tears by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 1

      What's a cassette tape, grandpa?

    8. Re:I weep tears by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      What's a cassette tape, grandpa?

      It's like bubble memory for the soul

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  15. there are ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Our dsl with max 20K down just got bumped to 90K, and yeah most streaming can kinda work. Throwing money at the problem with satellite, 3g with active repeaters etc I now have a bonded vpn faster than the 35mbps fibre just 2 miles away. The high latency sat n variable 3g/h+ can be a ball ache in open source but it can be done. £180 sterling a month, for personal use.

    1. Re:there are ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      90K down? Most modern equipment only allow provisioned speeds to be integer values of megabits. My ISP couldn't offer that slow if they wanted to.

  16. More productive, too by Nemosoft+Unv. · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I bet you are being more productive too. Having a low speed forces you consider what to do/watch/download, and simply not click on every thing that comes into your mind or pops up in your mailbox/twitter/facebook/whateversocialmediayouaresubscribedto. So less distraction. I also like your batch-download; rather than drumming your fingers for 15 minutes until that file is finally downloaded, you queue it up and continue with whatever you were doing.

    --
    "Fix it? It has been disintegrated, by definition it cannot be fixed!" - Gru in Despicable Me.
    1. Re:More productive, too by Ardyvee · · Score: 1

      Even with fast internet access that seems like a sensible thing to do. Sure, if I have nothing to do I might be okay with waiting for that download, but otherwise just let it run in the background. Preferably without disturbing everything else (such as video streaming, voip calls, gaming, timely communication with remote server, etc).

      --
      I don't care if I'm wrong. I only care about everyone obtaining something from the discussion.
  17. moving to the woods and then worrying about slow by ajdub · · Score: 1, Funny

    internet is "doing it wrong."

  18. First world problems.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ahh....

  19. Get your bits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Posts like these make me want to ride out to the "country" and rip that dsl out of their hands and replace it with my 600 baud modem

  20. Unnecessary trade-off, IMO .... by King_TJ · · Score: 1

    I live in a small, rural community myself ... yet we have both the local cable provider AND Verizon FiOS available to most homes and farms in the area.

    If you *really* have your heart set on living literally in the middle of nowhere, that's one thing (and at that point, I'm not sure one can even expect DSL service?). But we've got clean country air and plenty of peace and quiet in our town of 5,000 or so people -- while still having enough customers to apparently make broadband offerings viable. (A number of people complained that we can't get a Redbox video rental kiosk in town because our population is too low to meet the corporate requirements though.)

    1. Re:Unnecessary trade-off, IMO .... by swb · · Score: 1

      I wonder what the minimum size requirement is for Redbox.

      You would think they could get those things down to pretty bare-minimum maintenance. I don't think they take cash, so the only thing really left to maintain would be the movies themselves.

      You would think they could almost boil that down to some kind of maintenance mode where the disks to be removed could just be bulk ejected and then the new disks just fed in. They could almost hire someone locally to do this once a week and just have them Express Mail a box back and forth with returns and new disks.

      It's not like the disks themselves are any kind of significant investment.

      Any real maintenance (broken mechanism, etc) could just be done when it was actually needed.

    2. Re:Unnecessary trade-off, IMO .... by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 1

      Posts like this make me want to stab someone.

      I live in NJ, right in the middle between Philadelphia and New York City. My town has about 100,000 residents, and ranks as the fifth most populous municipality in New Jersey. We've been seeing advertising for FIOS for close to a decade now. It's still not available.

      Meanwhile you're sitting on a farm in a small, rural community, with your god damn fiber to the premises. Fuck my life.

      --
      Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
    3. Re:Unnecessary trade-off, IMO .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have about 7100 in town and have at least 4 Redbox kiosks that I can name right now. Is it possible that redbox just doesn't like you?

  21. High Latency? by Fieryphoenix · · Score: 2

    I don't remember my 1.5Kbps DSL having high latency.

    1. Re:High Latency? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you're trying to stream "HD" quality Netflix with low-grade DSL, there's plenty of latency between the constant buffering pauses.

  22. Trials and tribulations of the first world! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man has first-world problem and somehow manages to survive. Film at 11!

    1. Re:Trials and tribulations of the first world! by JackieBrown · · Score: 3, Funny

      Cool - Slashdot has broken through to the third world market and they are posting!

      We have our films at 10 in the first world :)

    2. Re:Trials and tribulations of the first world! by BitZtream · · Score: 1, Troll

      I've been to the central timezone of the US, I don't really think I'd call that the first world, perhaps you're thinking of 11pm as it is in the Eastern timezone ... where civilization actually lives.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    3. Re:Trials and tribulations of the first world! by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Great. More home-made porn.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    4. Re:Trials and tribulations of the first world! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been to the Eastern timezone, definitely not any better than what I see in the Central Timezone, more obnoxious people I guess?

    5. Re:Trials and tribulations of the first world! by Optali · · Score: 2

      I heard they call it "sex"

      --
      -- 29A the number of the Beast
  23. Wireless Might Help.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you have a view, or access to a place with a line of sight path to another location (or set of them) with a commanding view, you might find that wireless is a good way to go. I am using rather inexpensive Ubiquiti equipment to get between 50 and 100 MBit/s speeds, even on multiple hop links of many miles. Solar panels are getting cheaper all the time, so you don't actually need power at your view sites.

  24. If you have access to DSL at all... by Jawnn · · Score: 2

    ...you are most definitely not "out in the woods". Yawn...

  25. don't understand the "problem" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    T1 service is available in "the boonies". Mine works great. It's "expensive", but everything else (taxes, etc) is "cheaper enough" to make it a wash.

  26. We're not really rural by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    But it's rural enough that the neighbor's cows had to be chased out of our yard more than once.

    Anyway... even here, we've got 25mbps down / 5mbps up cable internet through Comcast - and I could get 50 or 100, if I chose to pay for that. But we can see our neighbors, and perhaps the poster is living out more in Kaczynski territory.

    The world, it's a changin'.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  27. to bad Comcast cable tv sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I have att dsl and directv now with weather nation tv (it has weather and not the shit on the nbc weather channel)

    comcast hsi is faster but there cable system is so far behind other cable systems much less dish / direct

  28. Oh noes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    30,000 Amazon workers in Germany just went on strike demanding low-speed DSL.

  29. Squid by hduff · · Score: 1

    He needs a squid proxy and also block the ads there.

    Another speed tip: Use the mobile version of the website.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
    1. Re:Squid by nemesisrocks · · Score: 1

      He needs a squid proxy and also block the ads there.

      Squid's effectiveness has been declining over the last 5 years. More and more sites are moving towards https, and most sites out there nowadays don't set caching headers in a way that allows for aggressive caching without breaking the HTTP spec.

      Squid has difficulty even caching content from many CDNs nowadays -- and this is content that should inherently be cacheable (static, shared amongst all users, etc).

  30. I'm still at 2.0up/0.2down - AT&T by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    AT&T says we can't get anything faster where I live. I only have DSL with AT&T. To get faster I'd have sell my soul to them for UVerse shit or get ComCast shit. There may be some other ripof...cable company where I can get overcharged.

    Well, my wife has to use a program called OptiTime in Paris. We're in GA. When she is on there for work, ALL internet activity has to cease or she'll get a bunch of time-outs. So having only 2.0/0.2 (according to SppedTest) limits our use.

    Streaming video has to have its quality lowered to show many times.

    Although, hats off to NetFlix! You guys did a nice job.

    Youtube is just atrocious.

    See the thing is, bandwidth is like memory and other computer resources - developers and content makers assume all of us have top of the line hardware and bandwidth.

    I can go on a rant here about how every damn piece of software and its updates has to install shit to 'C:' drive and I'm running out of space - no matter how much clean up I do.

    And the fact that content providers seam to think we all have First World internet access. I'm in that States! I have shit access!

    1. Re:I'm still at 2.0up/0.2down - AT&T by Luyseyal · · Score: 1

      Not sure why you're not interested in Uverse if it's available. Are the Internet-only plans there unreasonably priced?

      -l

      --
      Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
    2. Re:I'm still at 2.0up/0.2down - AT&T by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I too am stuck on dialup. Nearest 'high speed' wire-line internet reaches ~17 miles from my home. AT&T says they won't be expanding to my area any time soon. Charter isn't going to expand either. I h ave the choice of dialup, 2/3G AT&T wireless (3GB cap is way too small), or MAYBE Satellite. I live ina location where the trees are tall, the height from the horizon is low for satellite access and the trees are not on my property so I can't cut them.

      I need a low latency, very high data usage, connection for SSH, VPN, and several other projects which include rather large (multi gigabyte) files to be pulled down per month. I'd be very happy with 1.5MB DSL if it did not include a data cap, and actually performed at the 'rated' speed.

  31. We need a new button here... by jddeluxe · · Score: 1

    So we can mark TFA as being troll...

  32. Re:moving to the woods and then worrying about slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At least he's somewhere nice. I'm suffering with less than 1 Mbps in downtown Seattle. Comcast is at capacity on the block and won't upgrade so I'm stuck with CenturyLink. It makes me wish I hadn't moved here from the bay area where people actually cared about the Internet. Here, many of my coworkers that are developers don't even have access at home. It just isn't a big thing in this area unless you're talking about an Amazon.com employee.

  33. Cry me a river: try 56K by water-and-sewer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's an interesting article, but I have trouble sympathizing with anyone "suffering" with low speed DSL. I lived and worked in Benin, West Africa for four years, with a DSL connection that was barely any faster than dial-up. I even got myself a dial up connection as well, to compare, and found them nearly equivalent during most of the day.

    Here's what I learned about it: http://www.therandymon.com/index.php?/166-Life-in-56K.html

    I can tell you one thing, the idea of downloading an ISO and burning it just disappears. Youtube is not an option (I don't even bother clicking on the links). And most crappy webpages stuffed to the gills with scripts, javascript, counters, ad displayers, and the like, are useless. I did a lot of websurfing with Lynx, which I'm surprised to say was a better experience for many sites, including sometimes this one.

    Good luck with your DSL, buddy. I hope you don't suffer too much during the drone wars.

    --
    If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
    1. Re:Cry me a river: try 56K by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many folks over the years with 56k modems never even got the 53k that was the established max due to the nature of the phone lines. Large numbers of us back when were stuck with a 28.8k or so connection even on a "private line" cause the pair of wires was not dedicated to just our phone number and it was actually was a "shared pair", essentially a party line with addtional switch filters to make it "private" essentially limiting the connection to 28.8ish connection.

      Modern time nonsense of trying to put caps back in is especially ridiculous when it gets as bad as a GB/month which you can burn in one night at Hulu, YouTube, etc or pay x5 to download OpenSUSE's current 4.7GB DVD distribution or similar. Might have to bring back highly active LUGs for install fests and disc copy creation if that gets too widespread? Heck with penny loafers, we need USB loafers! New sneakernet?

      Don't worry, I won't be here all week, will hit cap again before then.

    2. Re:Cry me a river: try 56K by couchslug · · Score: 2

      "I can tell you one thing, the idea of downloading an ISO and burning it just disappears."

      I downloaded plenty of .isos while on dialup. (The first was Corel Linux, it's been a while....)

      Start download manager in the morning, leave for work, perhaps stop then resume the next day if I wanted to surf in the evenings.
      Not worse than awaiting a very slow and interrupted torrent today.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    3. Re:Cry me a river: try 56K by NoImNotNineVolt · · Score: 1

      Honestly, I'm shocked to hear that Benin even has any Internet connectivity. If you don't mind me asking, what were you doing out there?

      --
      Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
    4. Re:Cry me a river: try 56K by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 1

      An ad blocker may keep out the newest brand of leaches-- video banner ads.

    5. Re:Cry me a river: try 56K by LienRag · · Score: 1

      This is what I came for when I've read low-speed...
      I have a better bandwith here than your 56k modem, but not that much (usually around 20 ko/s).

      The technical solutions on your link are interesting, but a bit more extreme that what I would need.
      Actually, I'm particularly interested in understanding what's non-optimal in bandwith allowance and usage (both from the tower to my computer, and inside my computer, between applications).
      There are some behaviours (pages refusing to load at random times) that show that the problem is not only poor bandwith, but bad usage of it too.

  34. Good morning, America by water-and-sewer · · Score: 1

    You know, just noticed something about most of the responses to this article: most people saying "I live near a major city and still only have X.Y bandwidth" are American.

    This seems to be a reminder that lots of the world has awesome broadband (S. Korea anyone?) while the United States of Dysfunctional America is still struggling with crappy bandwidth and monopoly provider ISPs.

    You'd think the NSA would lobby for better bandwidth so they have more interesting stuff to listen to.

    --
    If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
    1. Re: Good morning, America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ghgq had or has a fibre tap 20 miles from here but BT needs millions off the gov to hook us to it. Tax money and priorities...

    2. Re:Good morning, America by freeze128 · · Score: 1

      You'd think the NSA would lobby for better bandwidth so they have more interesting stuff to listen to.

      Then they would need a LOT more storage, which means a LOT more money. They're trying to stay off the radar of congress....

    3. Re: Good morning, America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GCHQ has a huge "secret" operation < 2 miles from where I live in Oswestry and I still can't get fibre DSL in my office ...

    4. Re:Good morning, America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I live in Ireland. I can't get anything except 3G. No LTE, DSL, cable, or dial up.

      I live 20km from Dublin.

    5. Re:Good morning, America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      shhh.... you're contradicting his argument bashing Americans.

    6. Re:Good morning, America by periol · · Score: 1

      I live in Southern California, smack in the middle of Orange County, in an affluent neighborhood. We have two (2!) options for internet - Cox cable and AT&T DSL. I hate both, but there are no other options where we live. It's ridiculous.

    7. Re:Good morning, America by ruir · · Score: 1

      Nope, European, 100MBps at home, 80Mbps/8Mbps in speedtest.net via my wireless Macbook Pro, 200GB cap by ToS

  35. Whaaa! by gravis777 · · Score: 1

    Lets get real here for a moment. It’s 1.5mbps DSL. It isn’t going to be fast. There’s nothing you can do but work around it and not try to make it something it isn’t.

    Oh, whaaa! You may not be able to stream 1080p SuperHD from Netflix or HDX from Vudu, but this is fine for just about everyone. Most of my friends who are on DSL are on 768k, and I got a few friends on cable and UVerse at 1meg and 1.5 meg. They watch YouTube and Netflix, they download torrents, they play games.

    Truthfully, if you are still close enough to an exchange to get DSL, you are probably in an area where you can get wireless internet (microwave). I have friends who live way out on ranches and stuff who have microwave internet and 40Mbps speeds with unlimited transfers. And if you are really out there, there is always HughesNet and CenturyLink.

    Yeah, I may have 20meg at home, but I don't think I would be complaining about having to deal with "slow" 1.5, as you have options pretty much anywhere in North America to get faster via satelite, and I could make allowances (such as downloading versus streaming) to compensate if I want to do HD. I had 1.5Mbps for years up until about 7 or 8 years ago, and it was fine.

    80ms ping rate isn't bad either. It's not great, but up until about 3-4 years ago, that is what I was getting on most things. So it takes a few extra seconds for facebook to load up. Whaa!

    Worse, the article is really poorly written. It sounds mostly like a rant from someone who thinks he is entitled to fiber or something.

  36. Satellite and 4G by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At least you can still get DSL. I have to resort to Satellite and 4G, not actually terrible expect for the monthly caps and overages. I would kill for Hulu and Netflix.

  37. Great Move... by mattydont · · Score: 1

    Welcome to Australia, we might even see a speed increase in 5 years.

  38. Amazon Prime ships faster than that by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    waiting for a 20GB Steam game to install on a 1mb connection would drive me nuts

    To put it into perspective: 20 GB (160,000 Mbit) at 1 Mbps is about two days if you don't do anything else with the connection. Amazon Prime ships faster than that.

    1. Re:Amazon Prime ships faster than that by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 3, Funny

      Station Wagon full of tapes, eh?

    2. Re:Amazon Prime ships faster than that by gman003 · · Score: 1

      I'm living on a 3Mbps connection. Installing one 20GB game? Not bad, although it makes impulse playing impossible.

      Installing my full 1.2TB Steam library? Now that was a pain. I actually ended up carting my desktop into to work for a week to download them all, plus the handful of other games on Origin or GoG.

      And don't forget updates. With that many games, I usually have a gig or so of updates to download every day.

    3. Re:Amazon Prime ships faster than that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      waiting for a 20GB Steam game to install on a 1mb connection would drive me nuts

      To put it into perspective: 20 GB (160,000 Mbit) at 1 Mbps is about two days if you don't do anything else with the connection. Amazon Prime ships faster than that.

      Posting as anonymous coward out of fear that I may be wrong.
      But isn't this off by a factor of 10. And how the hell did this get marked informative on Slashdot.

    4. Re:Amazon Prime ships faster than that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Beleaguered warehouse slaves.

    5. Re:Amazon Prime ships faster than that by hattig · · Score: 2

      I think you read the game size in bits, not bytes.

      20 Gbit: It's under six hours: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+billion+bits+%2F+1+million+bits%2Fsecond+in+hours (But that assumes you don't get slower speeds at peak times.)

      20 GB: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+billion+bytes+%2F+1+million+bits%2Fsecond+in+hours (45 hours)

  39. 300 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those of us who started with 300 baud acoustic couplers and were delirious at the introduction of 9.6k laugh at the term "low speed DSL"! ;-)

  40. where can you even get modem anymore? by rewindustry · · Score: 1

    when you can afford either a phone or the internet, like me, it turns out, apparently, that i cannot get a phone line that will support a modem at all, anymore. it all goes digital shortly after it leaves my space anyway, i am told. yay. only wish i was living in the "third" world, fiber is cheaper than copper, and for my worth i would get a much better connection out there - i imagine - than anything the fubar over pots my north of merkin world is prepared to shaft me for here.

    1. Re:where can you even get modem anymore? by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      Considering that 56k modems *require* phone lines to be digital on the other end, your statements don't make any sense... unless you're talking about consumer VoIP.

    2. Re:where can you even get modem anymore? by kriston · · Score: 1

      In our area, the phone company, before installing FiOS, installed these boxes on the telephone poles that had miniature DSLAMs on them about seven or eight years ago. A side-effect of this project was nearly perfect 56k connections (which cannot be reached due to FCC limitations, but whatever).

      It's not the same kind of "digital" line that you're thinking of when talking about DSL, but it was much better than it was more than ten years ago when I dropped my faulty cable modem for 56k dialup for a few months time.

      --

      Kriston

  41. I have Verizon DSL, 1.5Mb down, 350Kb up by Control-Z · · Score: 1

    It's not so bad. I can stream Netflix OR download stuff OR play games. Not at the same time. Latency is good, about 50ms at best.

    1. Re:I have Verizon DSL, 1.5Mb down, 350Kb up by MiniMike · · Score: 1

      I'm guessing you don't have FiOS in your area yet. Verizon DSL was usable for me until FiOS came through- the DSL quality started going down immediately. The connection speed theoretically remained the same, but it dropped the connection with increasing frequency until it became unusable after about a year. I suspect they just stopped doing any maintenance on the DSL lines and equipment.

      On the positive side, FiOS does work well.

    2. Re:I have Verizon DSL, 1.5Mb down, 350Kb up by Control-Z · · Score: 1

      No Fios in the entire county as far as I know. But my DSL price went up about $6 over the last 3 months. I have read that many phone companies are trying to phase out DSL. I will be in trouble then, no other options where I live.

    3. Re:I have Verizon DSL, 1.5Mb down, 350Kb up by MiniMike · · Score: 1

      If you have cell phone service, a WiFi hotspot using 3g (either discrete or using a cell phone) should give you comparable speeds to DSL, and might cost less. Maybe someone who has done this can comment? I've thought about switching as we have 4g available, but haven't looked into the details yet.

    4. Re:I have Verizon DSL, 1.5Mb down, 350Kb up by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 1

      "Don't have FiOS in your area yet" doesn't apply because Verizon halted FiOS expansion almost 4 years ago. If you can't get FiOS to your house now you likely never will get it. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2361919,00.asp

      AT&T has virtually halted U-Verse expansion as well http://stopthecap.com/2012/02/08/at-atts-rural-broadband-solution-we-dont-have-one/

      The future of high-bandwidth Internet access in America is not bright.

    5. Re:I have Verizon DSL, 1.5Mb down, 350Kb up by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 1

      I get FIOS drops all the time. Sometime resetting the ONT box does the trick.

    6. Re:I have Verizon DSL, 1.5Mb down, 350Kb up by Bengie · · Score: 1

      50ms is "good"? You should try 8ms, it feels much better.

    7. Re:I have Verizon DSL, 1.5Mb down, 350Kb up by Control-Z · · Score: 1

      Yeah that is another option I forgot about. I had that before the DSL, but it wasn't very satisfactory. Tried it from Sprint and Verizon. Ping was 125 or so and it was $60 a month.

    8. Re:I have Verizon DSL, 1.5Mb down, 350Kb up by toygeek · · Score: 1

      Agreed. You can feel the difference when banging away at the linux shell. *that* is the reason it matters to me.

  42. It all applies to "highspeed" too by Gothmolly · · Score: 1

    All of his incredibly insightful suggestions are wise even if you have a fat pipe. Local DNS? Adblock? A VPS somewhere when you need to look like you're somewhere else? DUH. -1, Oblivious.

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  43. system design cross training & nostalgia by globaljustin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    AC first poster says,

    How is this news?

    Of course it's modded +5 Insightful....but I'll bite....

    This is news because at the extremes of any system's performance you can more easily see the faults of the system.

    Anyone who does internet work of any kind should try to do their daily browsing or w/e you do on a 56K modem at least once.

    When you see, even just browsing the mainstream 'internet-y' sites like yahoo.com, facebook.com, nytimes.com and compare to slashdot or others...sometimes system design solutions **just click** because you see it in a different context

    TFA is like a pro football player doing cross training. It's relevant to us professionally and personally too if you have nostalgia for the early days of the internet.

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
    1. Re:system design cross training & nostalgia by houstonbofh · · Score: 2

      I wish I had points. And I wish web developers did not think everyone has 20meg connections to the net. MANY places outside of big cities are very speed limited.

    2. Re:system design cross training & nostalgia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Anyone who does internet work of any kind should try to do their daily browsing or w/e you do on a 56K modem at least once.

      Except that the author of TFA says he's using 1.5Mbps, which is twenty-five times the bandwidth of 56K (and twice the low end DSL bandwidth I have). It doesn't really stretch the boundaries of anything other than the author's patience, unless maybe he's trying to maintain a high-volume content site.

    3. Re:system design cross training & nostalgia by manquer · · Score: 1

      It is not that difficult I am sure there are plenty of ppl out here who have done better than me but here is what i do I routinely work with 56K, with latency hitting 800-1200ms(extremely poor ISP). Just need to adjust your browsing behavior accordingly. Unless I absolutely must, almost always have images and plugins are disabled. I prefer using links as a browser for reading news and blogs, by and large these sites do not require JS for the basic functioning. As a bonus, it is probably as safe as using noscript stringently, and also perhaps protect against the obscure img hacks? Also if possible i avoid using browser based applications when i can use desktop applications using appropriate protocols such mail clients, chat apps etc, or use apps that really use web storage properly, so you don't really feel the speed issue. By and large I find more than speed it the latency is this bigger problem. Of course i enjoy normal speeds like everyone else when i return to civilization so to speak.

    4. Re:system design cross training & nostalgia by manquer · · Score: 1

      To put this in context I develop applications for asynchronous video conferencing primarily targeted towards low bandwidth environments in developing countries, where regular video chat is simply not possible.

    5. Re:system design cross training & nostalgia by globaljustin · · Score: 1

      almost always have images and plugins are disabled.

      this is what I mean, when you disable all the interactive stuff, styling, flash, etc etc you can see what a page really looks like from a system design perspective

      it's no coincedence that the best web pages also work the best at low bandwidth

      --
      Thank you Dave Raggett
    6. Re:system design cross training & nostalgia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      56k modem instead of several megabits per second broadband? fuck that. i can't even handle using someone's internet explorer instead of my firefox with adblock and noscript.... on second thought, my firefox on dialup is likely faster than the ad, tracking, script and flash-infested browsing of i.e.

  44. KVM for maintenance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    For many devices, KVM's are the only way to do remote maintenance.
    RDP and VNC aren't much help if that server is waiting in the bios to tell you a SCSI disk is offline.

    1. Re:KVM for maintenance by hab136 · · Score: 1

      >RDP and VNC aren't much help if that server is waiting in the bios to tell you a SCSI disk is offline.

      You can set up a gateway VM (or physical machine) on the same local network and RDP to that, then connect to your iLO/DRAC/IPMI/KVM. The bandwidth-intensive KVM will stay on the same network, and you can use a lower-bandwidth protocol like RDP to connect to the gateway machine.

      Many places use this as a security measure - users from the VPN are only allowed to RDP/SSH to the gateway machine, then access internal systems from there. It makes it easy to firewall off systems from the outside.

  45. ISPs are evil by gottabeme · · Score: 1

    The military has nothing to do with your Internet access. Wait, I take that back: the Internet exists because of DARPA which exists because of the military; i.e. without the military the Internet wouldn't exist.

    The reason you and I don't have fast Internet access is simple: The ISPs are evil, greedy, and selfish, and our government lets them get away with it. e.g. see former FCC chairman (who was appointed by Obama) go work for the cable industry and actively encourage cable companies to increase subscription fees and implement usage caps. This despite the fact that net costs to operate Internet service have decreased even though number of users and overall bandwidth usage has skyrocketed.

    In other words, even though usage is increasing exponentially, AT&T and the like are spending less money overall to provide the service--yet at the same time they are increasing fees, and they are decreasing service by implementing usage caps. Why? Because even though their profits are increasing dramatically, they aren't increasing fast enough to satisfy them.

    And how do they get away with it? By co-opting the government

    In other words, ISPs are evil. Period.

    --
    "Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
    1. Re:ISPs are evil by smash · · Score: 1

      ISPs are not a charity, they are a business. Business exists to make money. Deal with it. If your politicians are doing favours, it is your politicians that is where the evil lies.

      --
      I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
  46. His "solutions" (DNS/Adblock) have issues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For Pete's sake - He uses a DNS server: That's MORE POWER CONSUMPTION + complexity & set "recursive mode" (for updates) exposes him to Kaminsky bug (- patch) & DNS = WEAK vs. "fastflux" botnets!

    AdBlock? It doesn't DO 1/12th as much as hosts files for users in added speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity (to an extent only on the latter vs. DNS request logs)

    A BETTER SOLUTION:

    Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ a faster level (ring 0) vs redundant browser addons (slowing up slower ring 3 browsers) via filtering 4 the IP stack (coded in C, loads w/ OS, & 1st net resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization):

    ---

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    (Details of hosts' benefits enumerated in link)

    Summary:

    ---

    A. ) Hosts do more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse", or Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4127345&cid=44701775

    B. ) Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" complexity + room 4 breakdown,

    C. ) Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish), reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).

    ---

    * Addons are more complex + slowup browsers in message passing (use a few concurrently - you'll see): I work w/ what you have in kernelmode, via hosts ( A tightly integrated PART of the IP stack itself )

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts = "2-for-the-price-of-1" (less) vs. DNS & AdBlock... apk

  47. Re:moving to the woods and then worrying about slo by lightBearer · · Score: 1

    Downtown Seattle, eh? Does that put you in the Gigabit Seattle coverage area?

    --
    - No Bounce, No Play -
  48. Meaningless by Thor+Ablestar · · Score: 1

    To be meaningful the article should include:

    The model of actual MODEM, not a Asus RT-16 that is a router only, (my hw is D-Link DSL-504T)
    The version of MODEM firmware (My fw is OpenWRT Backfire)
    The actual DSL protocol,
    The distance from DSLAM and a model of cable, (1 kilometer 0.4 mm polyethylene)
    The cappings (speed limits set by provider) and provider's policy in this matter (586k up, 8m down, unsupportive, no way to increase)
    Uplink and downlink attenuation and noise margins (att 20 dB dl, 10 dB ul, margins about 20 dB)

    And only with these data, it's possible to do something to improve the link.

    1. Re:Meaningless by toygeek · · Score: 1

      I can't tell if this is satire or not, but I'll bite anyway. What does the modem matter? 1.5 down, 896 up, does't matter at the modem level. The rest is irrelevant. My ISP won't sell me higher speeds and nobody out here has another terrestrial solution, literally.

  49. Oh I already had this experience. by Dripdry · · Score: 1

    I only had to move from Chicago to LA to experience low-end, unreliable DSL. Why did this guy go to so much extra trouble?

    --
    -
  50. New location... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you move to Australia?

  51. Re:moving to the woods and then worrying about slo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No. It doesn't look like city hall is ever going to allow them to offer service.

  52. How about the opposite? by mschuyler · · Score: 1

    I finally fired CenturyLink's 1.5Mbps DSL after a decade waiting for their promised "upgrade" for 40Mbps+ download--for the SAME price! I am astounded at the speed of, well, everything. Videos play without "buffering." Downloads are amazingly fast. It doesn't help shitty web sites bringing in ads from all over the world to 'populate' their crummy sites, but overall I'm as happy as a clam. Wow! Just wow! The 21st century has arrived.

    I know. No big deal, but I'm enjoying wallowing in all this speed for awhile!

    --
    How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
  53. Use AOL or use an accelerator program by kriston · · Score: 1

    We all probably know that AOL has Turboweb, now called TopSpeed, which compresses graphics. On broadband you have to specifically turn it on by clicking "TopSpeed" and "Use AOL Proxies for broadband" and "Always compress graphics" and "Turn on maximum graphics compression" for extreme cases. It works very, very well on 768 kbps DSL.

    If you don't use AOL, you can use a number of accelerator programs but they constantly come and go. One of them is known as Slipstream but there are many more. They work just like AOL by using proxies that compress the graphics.

    --

    Kriston

  54. wshaper wonder shaper QOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    to get the most of a bottlenecked ISP connection, you should look into Wonder Shaper. It's a simple shell script that adjusts the flow so that ACK packets can always get through without being buffered by a megabyte of data in the upstream router. It makes it completely possible to run a low latency ssh connection over the same link as several http downloads running at the same time.

    http://lartc.org/wondershaper/

    "... This is a much observed phenomenon where upstream traffic simply destroys download speed. It turns out that all this is possible, at the cost of a tiny bit of bandwidth. The reason that uploads, downloads and ssh hurt eachother is the presence of large queues in many domestic access devices like cable or DSL modems. "

  55. Citrix by Barbarian · · Score: 1

    Try having to run a program over Citrix on a laggy and slow connection.

    1. Re:Citrix by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      ummmm that is using a mix of SSH and citrix, probably half and half.

  56. ping times by iamagloworm · · Score: 1

    seriously, he's complaining about 80ms ping times? i just pinged google.com and it is over 1000ms. life goes on.

  57. Cox Cable destroyed two of my computers so far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I dunno but two times SO FAR Cox Cable Internet service has destroyed tow of my computers. In the course of adding extra television channels they asked me would I want to raise the Internet Speed, so I said OK, Why Not? I found out why not too! My last computer had a very fast video card but the board & cpu were not that fast, so raising cable speed must've burned up either the m'board the cpu or both. I mentioned this to Cox and they barely uttered an apology, much less some monies for my wasted units. Let the User Beware.

  58. Some good points by DaChesserCat · · Score: 1
    My wife and I have both worked from home, using a 3G Verizon link which might, occasionally, approach 1 mb/s. And yes, that's megabit, not megabyte, per second. Typical behavior was more like 1/2 megabit / second. Implement the following, in order, to get by comfortably.
    1. #1 yes, get a cloud server. Do the big upload/download thing from there. I use rsync to move the "deltas" between my home systems and the cloud system, which allows me to avoid big uploads/downloads from/to my home system. If I need to actually modify a big file, sometimes I do a VNC-over-SSH to the cloud server and run GIMP or whatever in the cloud, so I don't actually have to download it. So long as the latency is decent, you can do this pretty effectively.
    2. #2 yes, get a good router. One which will allow you to prioritize connections. I have a CradlePoint MBR-1000. It does this. That way, connectivity to the office VPN or the cloud server takes priority over whatever else is going on.
    3. #3 yes, get a local, personal server which can do caching DNS. This will reduce the latency on most everything else. It is hard to overstate just how big a difference this makes.
    4. #4 have that personal server do a caching web proxy. Much surfing has the same stuff (CSS, images, javascript, etc.) from one page to the next. Also, wireless tends to have a higher error rate, so downloading stuff tends to result in lots of packet retries. Browsers don't like that; they can do it, but it tends to disrupt everything. The caching web proxy handles that transparently so the browser just sees a pause, when a packet has an error, then a burst of data when the following, non-errored packets and the retried, error-free packet come out of the proxy in order. Meanwhile, the browser kept downloading everything else it needed and running smoothly. This also works very nicely if you have multiple machines running some Linux distro which need to be updated. The first machine to do the update may have to wait for slow downloads, but additional machines will get files from the cache, making them screaming fast to update.

    I had an old Cobalt RAQ2 which did the 3rd and 4th items. It died, recently, so I'm looking at a QNAP box, which runs a version of Debian. It can do the caching DNS, but it might not be up to the caching web proxy. We've definitely noticed a difference with the 3rd and 4th items out of commission.

    --
    ... by the Dew of Mountains the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning
    1. Re:Some good points by Daniel+Klugh · · Score: 1

      HTTP uses streams (TCP), not datagrams (UDP). So the browser never sees re-tries. Just time-outs. And the proxy is using the same protocols as the browser.

      --
      Daniel Klugh
  59. Cry me a river... by DiEx-15 · · Score: 1

    My girlfriend and her folks cannot get any DSL where they live. Good old 56k, baby!.

    Now imagine my frustration and complete impatience whenever I have to fix their computers out there in the sticks. (I'm not just their future son-in-law, I am their round the clock, personal Geek Squad). I would kill for low speed DSL there. Imagine how I have to hear it when they whine about the 'nets running slow because Winblows has to get Balmer's weekly update gifts. (They have to have it on because of what her mom does). Before you say "Satellite": That would be a viable option if it wasn't for the blasted data caps, costs, and weather causing issues.

    Cry me a fucking river with your First World problems. Some people have it way worse than you!

  60. A better way Bert64 (for less) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    DNS servers = MORE complexity & set "recursive mode" (for updates) exposes the Kaminsky bug (- patch) & DNS = WEAK vs. "fastflux" botnets!

    AdBlock doesn't DO 1/12th as much as hosts files for users in added speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity (to an extent only on the latter vs. DNS request logs)

    A BETTER SOLUTION:

    Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ a faster level (ring 0) vs redundant browser addons (slowing up slower ring 3 browsers) via filtering 4 the IP stack (coded in C, loads w/ OS, & 1st net resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization):

    ---

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    (Details of hosts' benefits enumerated in link)

    Summary:

    ---

    A. ) Hosts do more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse", or Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4127345&cid=44701775

    B. ) Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" complexity + room 4 breakdown,

    C. ) Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish), reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).

    ---

    * Addons are more complex + slowup browsers in message passing (use a few concurrently - you'll see): I work w/ what you have in kernelmode, via hosts ( A tightly integrated PART of the IP stack itself )

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts = Superior to AdBlock (by a longshot - for details, see the link above), & shores up/reinforces DNS faults

    ... apk

  61. Re:wshaper wonder shaper QOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Upcoming DOCSIS 3.1 modems are supposed to support variable buffer sizes. I hope this helps buffer bloat, assuming ISPs correctly configure them. I know my fiber ONT only has about 10ms of buffer. No matter how fast I transfer, my ping times don't exceed 10ms of jitter, but that's only at full line saturation. If I keep my line rate no higher than 80%, I have sub 0.3ms jitter, even with BitTorrent seeding hundreds of connections. Below 80% line rate, micro-bursting isn't an issue.

    Even when running my upload as fast as it can, my jitter peaks about 10ms, but my packet-loss starts to approach 0.1%. TCP and uTP are pretty good about backing off in the presence of loss.

  62. Better "hint" (& better than article) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    DNS servers = MORE complexity & set "recursive mode" (for updates) exposes the Kaminsky bug (- patch) & DNS = WEAK vs. "fastflux" botnets!

    AdBlock doesn't DO 1/12th as much as hosts files for users in added speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity (to an extent only on the latter vs. DNS request logs)

    A BETTER SOLUTION:

    Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ a faster level (ring 0) vs redundant browser addons (slowing up slower ring 3 browsers) via filtering 4 the IP stack (coded in C, loads w/ OS, & 1st net resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization):

    ---

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    (Details of hosts' benefits enumerated in link)

    Summary:

    ---

    A. ) Hosts do more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse", or Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4127345&cid=44701775

    B. ) Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" complexity + room 4 breakdown,

    C. ) Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish), reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).

    ---

    * Addons are more complex + slowup browsers in message passing (use a few concurrently - you'll see): I work w/ what you have in kernelmode, via hosts ( A tightly integrated PART of the IP stack itself )

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts = Superior to AdBlock (by a longshot - for details, see the link above), & shores up/reinforces DNS faults

    ... apk

  63. Even MORE interesting (& more effective) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    DNS servers = MORE complexity & set "recursive mode" (for updates) exposes the Kaminsky bug (- patch) & DNS = WEAK vs. "fastflux" botnets!

    AdBlock doesn't DO 1/12th as much as hosts files for users in added speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity (to an extent only on the latter vs. DNS request logs)

    A BETTER SOLUTION:

    Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ a faster level (ring 0) vs redundant browser addons (slowing up slower ring 3 browsers) via filtering 4 the IP stack (coded in C, loads w/ OS, & 1st net resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization):

    ---

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    (Details of hosts' benefits enumerated in link)

    Summary:

    ---

    A. ) Hosts do more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse", or Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4127345&cid=44701775

    B. ) Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" complexity + room 4 breakdown,

    C. ) Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish), reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).

    ---

    * Addons are more complex + slowup browsers in message passing (use a few concurrently - you'll see): I work w/ what you have in kernelmode, via hosts ( A tightly integrated PART of the IP stack itself )

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts = Superior to AdBlock (by a longshot - for details, see the link above), & shores up DNS' faults

    ... apk

  64. excuse me, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    all dsl is low speed

  65. Not Everywhere even near 'cities' gets good data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We can't get DSL installed. Even 56K modem works at 20K at best. Don't ya just love AT&T. (Also, no cable is here, Satellite works but is expensive.)

    We are just outside Nashville TN.

  66. eh? by rewindustry · · Score: 1

    a 56k modem "requires" another 56k modem on the other end, am i wrong?

    i was thinking more 9600 actually, as i'm not into porn.

    1. Re:eh? by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      Not really. 56K modems exploited the fact that everything in a modern telephone system except the local loop (the part that connects your telephone handset to the telephone network) was digital, normally a 64 kilobit connection (a T-1 was 24x64 kilobit channels). Your end was analog, but the ISP's end was digital. The signal can survive one analog to digital conversion, but not two. If you had either a fully analog connection, or both ends were analog, you'd end up with a 33.6 kilobit connection. I'm no expert, but my understanding is that basically the 56K modem is communicating digitally, like any other digital communication over copper would.

      So, basically, 56K relies on the fact that everything except the wire hooked up to your physical phone is digital. That's why the GP's statement that "it all goes digital shortly after it leaves my space anyway" doesn't make sense, because 56K modems counted on exactly that being the case...

  67. I used it too - this makes it FAR better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    DNS servers = MORE complexity & set "recursive mode" (for updates) exposes the Kaminsky bug (- patch) & DNS = WEAK vs. "fastflux" botnets!

    AdBlock doesn't DO 1/12th as much as hosts files for users in added speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity (to an extent only on the latter vs. DNS request logs)

    A BETTER SOLUTION:

    Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ a faster level (ring 0) vs redundant browser addons (slowing up slower ring 3 browsers) via filtering 4 the IP stack (coded in C, loads w/ OS, & 1st net resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization):

    ---

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    (Details of hosts' benefits enumerated in link)

    Summary:

    ---

    A. ) Hosts do more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse", or Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4127345&cid=44701775

    B. ) Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" complexity + room 4 breakdown,

    C. ) Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish), reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).

    ---

    * Addons are more complex + slowup browsers in message passing (use a few concurrently - you'll see): I work w/ what you have in kernelmode, via hosts ( A tightly integrated PART of the IP stack itself )

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts = Superior to AdBlock (by a longshot - for details, see the link above), & shores up DNS' faults

    ... apk

  68. Incredibly INEFFICIENT's more like it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    DNS servers = MORE complexity & set "recursive mode" (for updates) exposes the Kaminsky bug (- patch) & DNS = WEAK vs. "fastflux" botnets!

    AdBlock doesn't DO 1/12th as much as hosts files for users in added speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity (to an extent only on the latter vs. DNS request logs)

    A BETTER SOLUTION:

    Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ a faster level (ring 0) vs redundant browser addons (slowing up slower ring 3 browsers) via filtering 4 the IP stack (coded in C, loads w/ OS, & 1st net resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization):

    ---

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    (Details of hosts' benefits enumerated in link)

    Summary:

    ---

    A. ) Hosts do more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse", or Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4127345&cid=44701775

    B. ) Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" complexity + room 4 breakdown,

    C. ) Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish), reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).

    ---

    * Addons are more complex + slowup browsers in message passing (use a few concurrently - you'll see): I work w/ what you have in kernelmode, via hosts ( A tightly integrated PART of the IP stack itself )

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts = Superior to AdBlock (by a longshot - for details, see the link above), & shores up DNS' faults

    ... apk

  69. The source article site = BOGUS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Totally full of shit - So: How can I state that? Count the # of posts there (51 listed currently)!

    Then, how come you end up with ONLY 50??

    I'll TELL YOU WHY:

    They suppressed the post I am replying to there (since I posted its general points there vs. AdBlock &/or DNS especially - & yet they do NOT SHOW UP there - explain that), & subassy (a poster there) LATER asked WHY hosts are not noted over AdBlock???

    Oh, I'll tell ANYONE the answer to that query - geocrasher the article author "so-called 'expert'" KNOWS my points FLOOR HIS on DNS &/or Adblock - totally... & since he's resorting to that? He's weak & full of it... prove otherwise.

    * Go figure - I had to post this for "posterities' sake", just to show others how DIRTY some "experts" are (especially when shown their 'expertise' is NOT that 'expert' @ all).

    APK

    P.S.=> THIS is exactly HOW I KNOW I am winning on hosts vs. AdBlock, DNS' shortcomings, RequestPolicy etc. - otherwise, these wannabe expert DOLTS would debate my points & tear them up... funny, they can't, eh? Not... lol!

    ... apk