What Internet provider do you use and what speed?

[djs7685]

(11-09-2015, 04:17 PM)Au165 Wrote: speed is much more than bandwidth. 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.

I've taken basic networking courses. It's somewhat interesting, somewhat boring stuff. You're far too caught up in the word "speed" to understand my entire point.

If someone is shopping around for internet and they know absolutely nothing about technology, telling them "oh, there's no real difference in speed between 3 Mb/s and 25 Mb/s service!" is just as misleading as Comcast trying to sell their silly 150 Mb/s packages to the average Joe.

You're way caught up in the term "speed" in this, but what else do you want to call it for you to not blow a gasket over this? If you have 3 Mb/s service, there's no possible way you'll ever have the capability of downloading a large patch for a video game at a faster rate. You can be as upset as you like about referring to this as "speed", but maybe just understand what I'm saying while claiming that I'm ignorant to the subject due to your obsession with semantics.

[Au165]

Your assumption you will always download that file faster than your friend because of bandwidth is false. The server could theoretically push 100mb/s And he still download it quicker. The connection between a user and a server effects speed as well which is once again why bandwidth is not speed.

[Au165]

(11-09-2015, 04:24 PM)djs7685 Wrote: I've taken basic networking courses. It's somewhat interesting, somewhat boring stuff. You're far too caught up in the word "speed" to understand my entire point.

If someone is shopping around for internet and they know absolutely nothing about technology, telling them "oh, there's no real difference in speed between 3 Mb/s and 25 Mb/s service!" is just as misleading as Comcast trying to sell their silly 150 Mb/s packages to the average Joe.

You're way caught up in the term "speed" in this, but what else do you want to call it for you to not blow a gasket over this? If you have 3 Mb/s service, there's no possible way you'll ever have the capability of downloading a large patch for a video game at a faster rate. You can be as upset as you like about referring to this as "speed", but maybe just understand what I'm saying while claiming that I'm ignorant to the subject due to your obsession with semantics.

Call it capacity because that's what it is. They aren't selling you a speed they are selling you a max capacity of all data moved between you and servers at any given time.

[djs7685]

(11-09-2015, 04:30 PM)Au165 Wrote: Call it capacity because that's what it is. They aren't selling you a speed they are selling you a max capacity of all data moved between you and servers at any given time.

Which I've acknowledged while mentioned the fact that it's commonly perceived as "speed" because of the difference in things such as download times.

99.999999% of the time, you will download a movie in a shorter amount of time on 25 Mb/s service than someone on 3 Mb/s service assuming everything else in the hypothetical is equal.

That is perceived "speed" because it's being done faster, whether you like that or not. Have a great day, I'm done with the semantics debate.

[Au165]

(11-09-2015, 04:34 PM)djs7685 Wrote: Which I've acknowledged while mentioned the fact that it's commonly perceived as "speed" because of the difference in things such as download times.

99.999999% of the time, you will download a movie in a shorter amount of time on 25 Mb/s service than someone on 3 Mb/s service assuming everything else in the hypothetical is equal.

That is perceived "speed" because it's being done faster, whether you like that or not. Have a great day, I'm done with the semantics debate.

But you can't make that assumption in a vacuum because of latency which is the whole reason why bandwidth is not speed. I'm sorry you consider it semantics, but it's not. In fact there is a petition in front of the FCC right now to force carriers to change the term because it is false and misleading.

[Stonyhands]

I had a 250 MB/s download service out of Anchorage, AK and the lag when playing Call of Duty on Xbox one or 360 basically made the game unplayable. It was just impossible to be competitive. Had a 100 MB/s download service in Central Florida right before moving to Alaska. I'd take the connection in Florida every day of the week over the faster speed here in Alaska. Same ISP here in Alaska is now offering 1GB/s internet but I still think the issue with online/console gaming has more to do with location than what one's internet download speed. Plus here in Alaska GCI is the ISP and they pretty much have a monopoly on Cable and Internet and they have caps on how much you can download each month.

I once asked them why their internet was so expensive and they said it was because they had the same costs as ISP's in the lower 48 but less people to help pay for them so therefore each customer has to pay more. I said if this is this case than what exactly is our bandwidth issue? Why exactly are we capped if we are running the same capability as ISPs in the lower 48 with the same costs and less people? Hmmmmmmm...

[Au165]

(11-09-2015, 10:52 PM)Stonyhands Wrote: I had a 250 MB/s download service out of Anchorage, AK and the lag when playing Call of Duty on Xbox one or 360 basically made the game unplayable.  It was just impossible to be competitive.  Had a 100 MB/s download service in Central Florida right before moving to Alaska.  I'd take the connection in Florida every day of the week over the faster speed here in Alaska.  Same ISP here in Alaska is now offering 1GB/s internet but I still think the issue with online/console gaming has more to do with location than what one's internet download speed.  Plus here in Alaska GCI is the ISP and they pretty much have a monopoly on Cable and Internet and they have caps on how much you can download each month.  

I once asked them why their internet was so expensive and they said it was because they had the same costs as ISP's in the lower 48 but less people to help pay for them so therefore each customer has to pay more.  I said if this is this case than what exactly is our bandwidth issue?  Why exactly are we capped if we are running the same capability as ISPs in the lower 48 with the same costs and less people?  Hmmmmmmm...

In gaming latency is far more important than bandwidth. Latency would be more realistically compared to speed, as it is the time it takes for a packet to get from one point to another (technically it's the time of the whole round trip).

[Stonyhands]

(11-10-2015, 09:39 AM)Au165 Wrote: In gaming latency is far more important than bandwidth. Latency would be more realistically compared to speed, as it is the time it takes for a packet to get from one point to another (technically it's the time of the whole round trip).

So in theory can you improve latency by increasing bandwidth?  Or am I busted doomed to die a lag filled death over and over again until I move back to society?

[djs7685]

(11-10-2015, 12:39 PM)Stonyhands Wrote: So in theory can you improve latency by increasing bandwidth?  Or am I busted doomed to die a lag filled death over and over again until I move back to society?

No, increasing your bandwidth won't change much, if anything at all, when it comes to online gaming.

There are different things that can cause perceived "lag" in video gaming. One of them could be server location. Take League of Legends for example, my ping got significantly better when they moved from the west coast to a more centralized location in the U.S. I changed nothing on my end, but they moved their servers and now people in the middle and eastern side of the country have more steady and low ping. Does this affect most of us very much? Not quite, but if you're super serious about gaming, every millisecond counts.

Another thing that you could check out is input lag on your monitor/TV. There are tons of articles out there that discuss the topic, and some television sets are noticeably terrible for gaming even by a casual gamer's eyes.

That's about my general knowledge of latency and video game lag. More bandwidth isn't going to change anything, server location can be a big deal, and input lag on some TV sets is a very real drawback. I'm sure Au165 can shed some light on this, he read some book that I haven't, so hopefully he can help out here too.

[Au165]

(11-10-2015, 12:39 PM)Stonyhands Wrote: So in theory can you improve latency by increasing bandwidth?  Or am I busted doomed to die a lag filled death over and over again until I move back to society?

You can't improve latency, it really is based of the network you are taking to the server. As explained earlier the longer the distance to the server the more latency there will be, but sometimes two service providers connecting the same two points can offer different latency based on better routing. Maybe look into a hot spot through Verizon or something along those lines.

Here is a good article laying out the whole interaction between bandwidth and latency.

http://www.plugthingsin.com/internet/speed/latency/