I just switched from Time Warner to Fi-Optics. Same speed 30mb - 10mb @ half the cost. When I went to change was offered 50 @ the same price fioptics was going to charge. Just couldn't agree to accept since I've been getting screwed for years.

I have a question.

Does using a wireless system slow down the speed? That is what my internet provider told me. They said I needed a direct wire to get the full speed instead of wifi.

(11-03-2015, 01:56 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I have a question.

Does using a wireless system slow down the speed?  That is what my internet provider told me.  They said I needed a direct wire to get the full speed instead of wifi.

Unless it's a crappy wireless router, there wouldn't be a noticeable difference at all. I'd say look into getting a wireless router especially if you have a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

if your router is in the attic and you're in the basement...then ya, wifi will degrade your signal....this isn't 1999....you don't need to hardwire that shit anymore.

I use a mom and pop wisp (point to point) and get 29/5.

I'd prefer something real but the only thing i qualify for in my neighborhood is DSL.

I use Zoomtown and out where I live I can only get 5mb Down and 1mb up. It stinks because I really need faster speed but it's not available out here.

Hope soon though

(11-03-2015, 01:56 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I have a question.

Does using a wireless system slow down the speed?  That is what my internet provider told me.  They said I needed a direct wire to get the full speed instead of wifi.

In general, not significantly.  But slightly, yes.  If you do a speed test while on wifi, ie on speedtest.net, the speed being measured is between your laptop per say and your router.  If you do a speed test connected by CAT5, that is the speed at the modem.  You really should test both to see the difference.  The provider would be responsible if the speed at the modem is below what you ordered. Cuz everything starts from there.

But wifi will register slightly less.  If you are ordering 20 meg per say, 18 meg on wifi is probably acceptable.   



 

(11-04-2015, 07:47 AM)Goalpost Wrote: In general, not significantly.  But slightly, yes.  If you do a speed test while on wifi, ie on speedtest.net, the speed being measured is between your laptop per say and your router.  If you do a speed test connected by CAT5, that is the speed at the modem.  You really should test both to see the difference.  The provider would be responsible if the speed at the modem is below what you ordered. Cuz everything starts from there.

But wifi will register slightly less.  If you are ordering 20 meg per say, 18 meg on wifi is probably acceptable.   



 

Here is what happened.  I checked my speed using the wireless and was not getting what I paid for,  when I called m y provider they said it was because I was wireless.  I never went back and tested at the modem.  Don't know why I didn't think to try that.

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Bandwidth is not speed! This is one of the biggest scams that ISPs have pulled on consumers in our lifetime and it has somehow completely confused most people as to what Bandwidth really is.

Bandwidth is not how fast data moves, but rather how much data can be transferred in a given time. Think of your bandwidth (i.e. 30MB/s) as a pipe with water flowing through it. If you have this massive pipe (bandwidth) and yet you only need to a trickle of water (Data) does it flow any faster? The answer is no. Netflix on high definition uses roughly 7MB/s, if you were watching a movie on Netflix and browsing the internet at the same time your experience would not be any better at 10MB/s than at 30MB/s. The value would be if you had multiple devices streaming and doing data intensive tasks. Most people don't need more than 10MB/s or 20MB/s down. Much more than that is just a scam the ISPs sell you to try and get you to pay for something you won't use under a false promise of faster speeds. If you notice lag in streams or gaming and you aren't using all your bandwidth the issue could be in the network latency. This could be caused by a number of things, but in home networks it is often a router issue.

(11-04-2015, 12:38 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Here is what happened.  I checked my speed using the wireless and was not getting what I paid for,  when I called m y provider they said it was because I was wireless.  I never went back and tested at the modem.  Don't know why I didn't think to try that.

Wireless can be a less quality experience for a couple reasons. One could be your wireless card in the device, the other could be the router itself. Every time you add another node in the chain it does take time, however a properly configured router should give you close to the same performance (negligible difference) of wiring into the modem if your device's wireless can handle it.

If you are not getting the bandwidth at the modem they could be screwing you. Remember when you sign up there is an asterisk next to the speed that says "Up to". Some places can't even get the speeds they pay for due to the ISP infrastructure not being able to handle it, but often times they won't tell you this when you sign up. I'd suggest testing it at the modem.

(11-02-2015, 11:39 PM)Cure4CF Wrote: I just switched from Time Warner to Fi-Optics.  Same speed 30mb -  10mb @ half the cost.  When I went to change was offered 50 @ the same price fioptics was going to charge.  Just couldn't agree to accept since I've been getting screwed for years.

Same. FiOp 30/10.

(11-03-2015, 01:56 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I have a question.

Does using a wireless system slow down the speed?  That is what my internet provider told me.  They said I needed a direct wire to get the full speed instead of wifi.

I get the exact same speeds on wireless that i do on wired.

(11-04-2015, 01:12 PM)Au165 Wrote: This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Bandwidth is not speed! This is one of the biggest scams that ISPs have pulled on consumers in our lifetime and it has somehow completely confused most people as to what Bandwidth really is.

Bandwidth is not how fast data moves, but rather how much data can be transferred in a given time. Think of your bandwidth (i.e. 30MB/s) as a pipe with water flowing through it. If you have this massive pipe (bandwidth) and yet you only need to a trickle of water (Data) does it flow any faster? The answer is no. Netflix on high definition uses roughly 7MB/s, if you were watching a movie on Netflix and browsing the internet at the same time your experience would not be any better at 10MB/s than at 30MB/s. The value would be if you had multiple devices streaming and doing data intensive tasks. Most people don't need more than 10MB/s or 20MB/s down. Much more than that is just a scam the ISPs sell you to try and get you to pay for something you won't use under a false promise of faster speeds. If you notice lag in streams or gaming and you aren't using all your bandwidth the issue could be in the network latency. This could be caused by a number of things, but in home networks it is often a router issue.

Yeah. Most people don't know that 30 Megabytes isn't 30 Megabytes. Your speed, 30 Megabits is actually, like, 3.75 Megabytes a second. They don't bother to tell you that because, believe it or not, a lot of the people that are trying to sell you their stuff, doesn't know it. 

It takes 8 Megabits to "move" 1 Megabyte (per second).

One other thing. MB is Megabyte; data/storage. Mb is Megabit; speed.

As a side note, with my 30/10 i have 2 PCs, 2 to 3 laptops, 2 Xbox's and 3-4 phones using bandwidth at any given time. My previous 10/1 Zoomtown did just fine as well, as Au165 stated. The difference is, i wanted to be able to stream live TV and or videos/GamePass/Pandora as well as editing/creating graphics as well as surfing the interwebs, all at once, without any worry of lag or diminished video quality.

(11-04-2015, 01:12 PM)Au165 Wrote: This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Bandwidth is not speed! This is one of the biggest scams that ISPs have pulled on consumers in our lifetime and it has somehow completely confused most people as to what Bandwidth really is.

Bandwidth is not how fast data moves, but rather how much data can be transferred in a given time. Think of your bandwidth (i.e. 30MB/s) as a pipe with water flowing through it. If you have this massive pipe (bandwidth) and yet you only need to a trickle of water (Data) does it flow any faster? The answer is no. Netflix on high definition uses roughly 7MB/s, if you were watching a movie on Netflix and browsing the internet at the same time your experience would not be any better at 10MB/s than at 30MB/s. The value would be if you had multiple devices streaming and doing data intensive tasks. Most people don't need more than 10MB/s or 20MB/s down. Much more than that is just a scam the ISPs sell you to try and get you to pay for something you won't use under a false promise of faster speeds. If you notice lag in streams or gaming and you aren't using all your bandwidth the issue could be in the network latency. This could be caused by a number of things, but in home networks it is often a router issue.

It is "speed" in a sense though if your primary goal is transferring large amounts of data in a short period of time.

I don't know if I could actually deal with anything less than 25 Mbps after being so used to it. Would it affect my Netflix viewing? Nope. Would it affect my game, movie, music, update, patch, etc. etc. downloads? Absolutely. I'm far too impatient for my huge game patches to take hours to finish and to get my movies at a slower rate.

I'm no networking wizard, but I do know a few things. A pet peeve of mine is when people act like they're IT techs and keep using MB/s instead of Mb/s

(11-03-2015, 01:56 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I have a question.

Does using a wireless system slow down the speed?  That is what my internet provider told me.  They said I needed a direct wire to get the full speed instead of wifi.

Do you pay your ISP a monthly fee for their shitty modem/router combo? That's the first place I always tell people to start when having any issues. Most companies charge $7-$12 for their POS combos, and you can go out and find a Newegg deal for a Moto Surfboard/Archer C5 or C7 router for just over $100, they do the sales more frequently than you'd expect. I use the Motorola 6141 and C5 combo, and it's overkill for my current setup but I'm basically future proof'd and it's essentially paid for itself already if you consider Comcast tries to get me to use their garbage for $12 per month. My stuff paid for itself in less than 10 months. Better quality, better range on the WiFi, and dual band so I can get on the 5 GHZ band with my wireless devices when I'm in the same room as my gear and then use the 2.4 in the rest of the house.

Another thing to do is to see what channels your WiFi is on. You can use a scanner and you may be surprised when you realize you're sharing a channel with 10 of your neighbors, and the 2.4 GHZ band is entirely open during the evening hours on another reliable channel. A lot of people don't realize that they can manually change their channels to clear up their signal. Now, that's only for those living in the city, if you don't have a neighbor within a mile from your home, obviously this doesn't apply.

(11-09-2015, 01:51 PM)djs7685 Wrote: It is "speed" in a sense though if your primary goal is transferring large amounts of data in a short period of time.

I don't know if I could actually deal with anything less than 25 Mbps after being so used to it. Would it affect my Netflix viewing? Nope. Would it affect my game, movie, music, update, patch, etc. etc. downloads? Absolutely. I'm far too impatient for my huge game patches to take hours to finish and to get my movies at a slower rate.

I'm no networking wizard, but I do know a few things. A pet peeve of mine is when people act like they're IT techs and keep using MB/s instead of Mb/s

Unfortunately, you are still wrong even trying to explain it away. Bandwidth is capacity, not speed no matter how bad you want it to be. While it is funny that I mislabeled MB/s and Mb/s you are still trying to incorrectly label what bandwidth is. If the server you are downloading from can only give you 10Mb/s then your 100Mb/s makes no difference whatsoever in the time it takes to download something. Many servers intentionally throttle back the rate at which they send data to each user in order to serve the max amount of people in the most efficient way, this often time leaves servers sending data well below these large capacity internet packages sold to the general public.

(11-09-2015, 02:03 PM)Au165 Wrote: Unfortunately, you are still wrong even trying to explain it away. Bandwidth is capacity, not speed no matter how bad you want it to be. While it is funny that I mislabeled MB/s and Mb/s you are still trying to incorrectly label what bandwidth is. If the server you are downloading from can only give you 10Mb/s then your 100Mb/s makes no difference whatsoever in the time it takes to download something. Many servers intentionally throttle back the rate at which they send data to each user in order to serve the max amount of people in the most efficient way, this often time leaves servers sending data well below these large capacity internet packages sold to the general public.

No, not wrong at all, I just didn't mention any throttling or maximum values.

It is absolutely "speed" in some cases whether you will admit it or not. Note that I never said that it's always the case, but it certainly can be.

A friend of mine only has access to 3 Mb/s in his area, I currently have 25 Mb/s. I download large updates to the games we both play in a much shorter length of time. By definition of the words in the English language, I download the updates "faster" than my friend, hence....speed.

It's generically labeled as "download speed" for a reason. I don't always download at 3 MB/s, but my friend doesn't even have the chance at downloading at 3 MB/s, instead he's stuck at 3 Mb/s. When speaking of downloading and uploading, using the term "speed" is fair, and not really the ISPs just being out to get you. You can mention throttling and max speeds on certain servers, but you can't pretend that it's the case for every user in every scenario. I hate Time Warner and the other big bad bullies as much as the next guy, but I see no reason to not be realistic about the conversation instead of making everything us against them.

(11-09-2015, 02:26 PM)djs7685 Wrote: A friend of mine only has access to 3 Mb/s in his area, I currently have 25 Mb/s. I download large updates to the games we both play in a much shorter length of time. By definition of the words in the English language, I download the updates "faster" than my friend, hence....speed.

No, you have a larger capacity to handle the data transfer rate, which allows you to move data at whatever rate the server is willing to send it. The very definition of bandwidth is around capacity. The rate at which it actually moves is the speed, however what the ISP is selling you isn't the speed of the data transfer (as that is a two sided affair) rather the ability to move a larger capacity of data if available. The reason it is misleading is because they have no control of the data transfer rate of the serve,r only the rate it enters your home, so they are giving you the ability to hand the larger capacity. They can not stake a claim to what rate it will really enter the home, hence the asterisk next to it and the fine print.

This isn't even debatable really, it is commonly understood and accepted by those in the networking community. I only did IS as a minor in college, and it was explained to us very early on the fallacy that is "internet speeds".

(11-09-2015, 04:03 PM)Au165 Wrote: No, you have a larger capacity to handle the data transfer rate, which allows you to move data at whatever rate the server is willing to send it. The very definition of bandwidth is around capacity. The rate at which it actually moves is the speed, however what the ISP is selling you isn't the speed of the data transfer (as that is a two sided affair) rather the ability to move a larger capacity of data if available. The reason it is misleading is because they have no control of the data transfer rate of the serve,r only the rate it enters your home, so they are giving you the ability to hand the larger capacity. They can not stake a claim to what rate it will really enter the home, hence the asterisk next to it and the fine print.

This isn't even debatable really, it is commonly understood and accepted by those in the networking community. I only did IS as a minor in college, and it was explained to us very early on the fallacy that is "internet speeds".

Which is exactly why I provided the example that I did.

If you're doing something that allows for up to 100 Mb/s, my download is going to be "faster" at 25 Mb/s than my buddies at 3 Mb/s. The data will be able to be sent on mine at a higher rate, ala perceived as "speed".

There's really no debate that I'm not saying anything that isn't the truth here. You're stuck on throttling while I'm merely stating examples based on an average consumer's needs.

You can enjoy sticking it to the man with your "slower" speeds, I'll enjoy my downloads where I can have an entire discography within minutes

While you see an end result you don't understand why at all. Speed is much more than bandwidth, but ignorance is bliss I guess. It really isn't about throttling I used it as an example, but you don't want to learn. I suggest you go read a book on it though it is interesting understanding how it works.