OT: Moving from DSL to Cable - Game performance?
Bob Perez
offers IP and it's a lot cheaper than my DSL service. So, I'm considering
switching.
I currently enjoy 768 up and down speed and, as I understand my cable
service, I'll be getting double the bandwidth for downloads but only a third
of the bandwidth for uploads. My primary issue is online game performance
and I've always enjoyed the fact that my uploads back to the game servers
are just as fast as my downloads from them. So now I'm wondering what effect
a switch will have on this experience. My sense is that this will be not
only Ok, but probably very favorable to me, since most game client uploads
are probably small and tokenized triggers and not very bandwidth
constrained. Latency would be a bigger issue. On this front, I'm a little
concerned about the queuing up of packets that occurs when a cable hub gets
saturated with a lot of users, something I don't have to worry about with my
dedicated DSL circuit.
I posted some of these questions on alt.dcom.xdsl and alt.cable.ip, but got
only a couple of replies and they didn't sound like very experienced gamers.
I'm curious what other *gamers* have experienced on this topic. Not asking
for a DSL vs Cable flamewar here, just some opinions on the relative
tradeoffs of both for online gaming, and hoping that a discussion will flesh
out some good thoughts. Thanks.
--
Bob Perez
"Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they
quit playing."
- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
42
> I've been a DSL user forever but recently learned that my cable company
> offers IP and it's a lot cheaper than my DSL service. So, I'm considering
> switching.
>
> I currently enjoy 768 up and down speed and,
you have sdsl, which is comparatively unusual. Most dsl users are on
adsl.
> as I understand my cable
> service, I'll be getting double the bandwidth for downloads but only a third
> of the bandwidth for uploads. My primary issue is online game performance
> and I've always enjoyed the fact that my uploads back to the game servers
> are just as fast as my downloads from them. So now I'm wondering what effect
> a switch will have on this experience. My sense is that this will be not
> only Ok, but probably very favorable to me, since most game client uploads
> are probably small and tokenized triggers and not very bandwidth
> constrained. Latency would be a bigger issue. On this front, I'm a little
> concerned about the queuing up of packets that occurs when a cable hub gets
> saturated with a lot of users, something I don't have to worry about with my
> dedicated DSL circuit.
This "dedicated DSL circuit" feeds into the same internet as everything
else. You're just bumping into your neighbours a little farther down the
pipe.
Most of the dsl marketing about your 'dedicated dsl circuit' is just
marketing spin. Real performance differences between the two aren't
terribly dramatic, and the cable company wins latency tests as often as
not... it depends more on your home address than anything else.
> I posted some of these questions on alt.dcom.xdsl and alt.cable.ip, but got
> only a couple of replies and they didn't sound like very experienced gamers.
> I'm curious what other *gamers* have experienced on this topic. Not asking
> for a DSL vs Cable flamewar here, just some opinions on the relative
> tradeoffs of both for online gaming, and hoping that a discussion will flesh
> out some good thoughts. Thanks.
The best advice you'll get is try them both, and pick the better one.
Its entirely dependant on where you live. The exact infrastructure,
(capacity and performance) being used in your area has a much greater
impact than anything so generic as 'dsl vs cable' as competing
technologies.
Leo
blabbed:
>I've been a DSL user forever but recently learned that my cable company
>offers IP and it's a lot cheaper than my DSL service. So, I'm considering
>switching.
>
> snip
>
> and hoping that a discussion will flesh
>out some good thoughts. Thanks.
I live somewhat in your area, and have lived all around here,
and I've had both cable and DSL, so here's my take. I'm no expert and
I'm not trying to say what is or isn't definitively better, but just
what my personal experiences have been.
DSL wins out for me. It performs much better for games (for
me), and like you, that's what's important for me. If all I did was
surf the web, lurk the usenet, and send emails, I'd just get one of
those free dial up things and be happy w/that.
That being said, lots of people where I work claim their cable
modem has no probs whatsoever for them. But for all I know they went
from dial up to cable and never experienced DSL.
The problems I had w/cable: It would work fine and great for
web browsing, strategy game MP, that sort of thing. But the second ya
try and play any FPS online, where the tiniest bit of lag can kill ya,
it was awful. Why? Because its all over the map. Inconsistent. If
it ran consistently bad, that'd even be preferable because you'd get
used to it and adapt. But instead it'd run great for 5 minutes, then
suddenly ya'd get packet loss or a slow down and things would chug,
and of course, right at the worst possible time for it to happen in
your game too.
I ran ping plotter for 24 hours w/cable at 2 different places
I lived (once at each place, I do it once every time I move) and had
some no-returns, lots of spikes into the red, massive amounts into the
yello (in the report it gives ya that is). Have done the same w/my
DSL connection here and at my last place, and all green. But don't
let me mislead ya, the difference is *very* visible, ya don't have to
run a program like ping plotter to see it, especially when playing an
FPS. Maddening. Plus, w/cable, ya really have that 'peak hours'
thing going on where things are at their worst at peak hours and not
bad at all at say 3 a.m. So the time of day ya play online games will
probably have a giant impact on how much ya like it or not. I work
graveyard, so it wasn't too bad for me considering what my normal
hours are.
Newsgroups: W/cable, the provided news service sucked eggs,
so I had to pay for an outside one. Its been a couple years though
since I"ve had cable, so perhaps this has improved. But w/dsl, its
fast, they carry the groups I want, I can easily ask for more (I asked
for alt.fan.grrm and they added it, for instance), and there's no
monthly megabyte limit or anything. Not the case w/cable.
W/cable, at least up to about a year ago, they monitor your usage and
send you letters if you go over, it really annoys some people, luckily
I never had to deal w/it because I don't download much. But they got
letters sayin' they had exceeded their monthly limit or what is
considered 'average' or some such and they need to reduce it or they'd
be cancelled, and when they tried to ask by how much they needed to
reduce their usage, the cable company refused to give them any
figures, just said reduce it enough or we'll cancel ya, but we're not
gonna tell ya how much is enough. (they've talked about this on NPR
and that's my only source of knowledge that this happened, however,
since I never got such a letter when I was w/cable so didn't have to
deal w/it).
And by DSL, I mean verizon, I haven't used qwest DSL yet, so
can't give an opinion as to them. They are available in my area, but
verizon always had better deals every time I moved. By cable I mean
what is now comcast out here, at&t before that, tci before that. (it
had some cool features when tci ran it that were never brought back).
My advice would be, if you're not having a problem w/your DSL,
stick w/it, even if it costs more. Because w/cable, comes problems.
But if you're having problems w/your DSL, then it might be worth
giving it a try. And if any of your neighbors have cable, drag your
computer over to their place, hook it up, and play some of your games
for a while to see how it is (since you're very used to how it should
perform on your own computer), at the same time of day ya usually
play.
I do wish verizon had *naked* dsl, however, then I could get
rid of my phone line. Qwest has it I think.
Leo
Talon
"Bob Perez" <ab...@fcc.gov> wrote in message
news:10j792o...@news.supernews.com...
I do not have DSL nor have I ever used it anywhere, but have used cable for
at least 4 years and loved every minute of it.
Talon
"Leo" <Anon...@anonymous.com> wrote in message
news:0f97j0l6d8onsuojt...@4ax.com...
I'm connected 24 hours and download lots of music and videos and games.
Never once got told that I went over my usage though.
Faeandar
I went from dial-up to PacBell aDSL and have been quite happy. Cable
was not available at the time and I've had no reason to want to dump
my DSL.
A gating factor to leaving DSL is that I'm about 200 cable yards from
the switch. I don't see me dropping them unless that changes.
As for gaming, I've played at a friend who has cable and he's played
on my DSL. Neither of us noticed any difference in EQ.
~F
alexti
> I've been a DSL user forever but recently learned that my cable company
> offers IP and it's a lot cheaper than my DSL service. So, I'm
> considering switching.
>
> I currently enjoy 768 up and down speed and, as I understand my cable
> service, I'll be getting double the bandwidth for downloads but only a
> third of the bandwidth for uploads. My primary issue is online game
> performance and I've always enjoyed the fact that my uploads back to
> the game servers are just as fast as my downloads from them. So now I'm
> wondering what effect a switch will have on this experience. My sense
> is that this will be not only Ok, but probably very favorable to me,
> since most game client uploads are probably small and tokenized
> triggers and not very bandwidth constrained. Latency would be a bigger
> issue. On this front, I'm a little concerned about the queuing up of
> packets that occurs when a cable hub gets saturated with a lot of
> users, something I don't have to worry about with my dedicated DSL
> circuit.
If your DSL was using PPPoE, then switching to cable should certainly
improve latency (around 20-40ms). You should be able to get around 15ms
round-trip to another subscriber of your ISP. Further, it will depend on
the ISP infrastructure, their connection to the backbone etc...
"dedicated DSL circuit" is a marketing gimmick, you're on public network,
so the bottleneck can happen anywhere, in particular on your ISP's routers
and servers. Your home to ISP hop is probably least likely place for the
bottleneck to happen (unless there's a wiring or interference problem,
which is a separate story). Many ISPs are using "throttling", because
they're running out of their bandwidth quota, which illustrates where the
problem often is.
Overall, the quality of ISP is much more important than your connection
method (cable or DSL). Unfortunately, there's no way to tell what will work
better in your area. You can try to search for forums where people discuss
ISPs in your area, you may get some information there. If you can get a
trial you can try to traceroute few sites (for example www.microsoft.com)
and compare number of hops and latencies.
So, my advise is to compare ISP's rather than DSL vs cable, unless you
absolutely need the lowest possible latency, which is unlikely, because if
other player is 10000km away you're going to have latency in 0.1s (150ms+)
anyway.
Alex.
Leo
>
>I'm connected 24 hours and download lots of music and videos and games.
>Never once got told that I went over my usage though.
I suspect they're going after people who are doing things like
running servers and such, which most of us don't really have to worry
about.
Leo
Ben Sisson
name Leo <Anon...@anonymous.com>:
I suspect your experience is not typical.
--
Evil Goblin Cleric: "But using the goblins as guinea pigs is wreaking
havoc with goblin morale!"
Lich Overlord: "Hmm, well, I've got two words for goblin morale...
goblin zombies."
Evil Goblin Cleric: "Good point."
- Order of the Stick #96
Ben Sisson
>I've been a DSL user forever but recently learned that my cable company
>offers IP and it's a lot cheaper than my DSL service. So, I'm considering
>switching.
I have never had any trouble with cable, but here in western Canada it
has always been among the best in the world anyways (though the
companies selling it are way crooked).
Here's a site to test it out if you want:
http://www.broadbandreports.com
Bob Perez
"42" <4...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1b9d4ad42c379cdb9896fd@shawnews...
> you have sdsl, which is comparatively unusual. Most dsl users are on
> adsl.
Yep, I specifically went with SDSL instead of the more usual ADSL in order
to get optimized upload speeds for gaming purposes. Unlike most Internet
users who primarily download, I figured upload speed was more important to
my gaming experience. How important, however, is an open question. That's
why I'm looking for the reality behind the theory.
> This "dedicated DSL circuit" feeds into the same internet as everything
> else. You're just bumping into your neighbours a little farther down the
> pipe. Most of the dsl marketing about your 'dedicated dsl circuit' is just
> marketing spin.
I've heard both sides of this argued vehemently, it's one of those arguments
I don't know how to validate based on my own world experience, I have to
rely on outside expertise and opinions. The most recent account I read was
in Maximum PC, I believe, and their conclusion was that a dedicated DSL
circuit does have an advantage. Come to think of it, I don't ever hear DSL
users complain (and I myself have never complained) about erratic and wildly
fluctuating pings. My ping changes from game to game of course, but is
pretty uniform over time within any given game. I often wonder about people
who wipe in a raid or die in Diablo or whatever, and claim "lag", and all
this talk about lag spikes, while I'm looking around saying "Huh"? Maybe I'm
witnessing a cable/DSL difference in practice. I have had on occasion
temporary drops into yellow and red zones, but these are either so rare as
to be hardly noticable, or occur in connection with some kind of obviously
faltering -- and about to go down -- system, like a dying server that is
having trouble keeping people connected. And in those cases the "lag"
meter's actually probably reporting packet losses, not bad pings. And yet a
poor ping (latency) would seem intuitively to me to be one result of the
peak hour traffic phenomenon of the "shared" cable architecture. As a total
bandwidth noob, I'd be very open to hearing fact-based arguments why this
intuitive result isn't accurate. Seems to fit with my experience to date,
and definitely with Leo's.
> The best advice you'll get is try them both, and pick the better one.
Yeah, I decided to go ahead and sign up for the cable service and since
they're on completely different incoming pipes, I can leave my DSL up and
running and set up some fairly rapid A/B tests and compare results. I wanted
more input before eating the cable installation and modem charges, but, as
you say below ...
> Its entirely dependant on where you live. The exact infrastructure,
> (capacity and performance) being used in your area has a much greater
> impact than anything so generic as 'dsl vs cable' as competing
> technologies.
That makes sense. I'll do some tests and report my results later. There used
to be a site called DSLReports that I used to validate my relative up and
down speeds, if it's still around I'll run some tests there with both DSL
and cable, at different times of day, and see how they compare.
Ben Sisson
name "Bob Perez" <ab...@fcc.gov>:
>I often wonder about people
>who wipe in a raid or die in Diablo or whatever, and claim "lag"
They're using the other definition of lag.
You know: "I lagged" = "I fucked up and I can't admit I was beaten
cleanly"
Bob Perez
> DSL wins out for me. It performs much better for games (for
> me), and like you, that's what's important for me.
That's why I'm having this discussion here. Very few discussions I've seen
on the topic center on game performance and that's issue #1 for me by a
mile.
> That being said, lots of people where I work claim their cable
> modem has no probs whatsoever for them. But for all I know they went
> from dial up to cable and never experienced DSL.
Yeah, it's hard to evaluate how good you've got it if you haven't
experienced something better, particularly when either route is a
heaven-sent upgrade over dial-up. Your case is pretty rare, someone who's
experienced both. I decided to spring for the installation, which means that
I may wind up eating the installation charge if I cancel, but after they
install it I'll be another voice to add to the discussion. I picked up a
Motorola modem at CompUSA, but I can take it back if I cancel the service
later.
> But don't
> let me mislead ya, the difference is *very* visible, ya don't have to
> run a program like ping plotter to see it, especially when playing an
> FPS.
Ugh. I play a lot of UT online and D2 hardcore. I'm more worried about D2
because of the literally fatal consequences of latency.
> Plus, w/cable, ya really have that 'peak hours'
> thing going on where things are at their worst at peak hours and not
> bad at all at say 3 a.m. So the time of day ya play online games will
> probably have a giant impact on how much ya like it or not.
Not a good sign for me, as I play during the heavy West Coast traffic
periods, weekday evenings and weekends. Of course, I also keep playing well
into your time frame, too, but still ...
> Newsgroups: W/cable, the provided news service sucked eggs,
> so I had to pay for an outside one.
That was a factor for me and my old ISP so I've been using Supernews for a
while, but I'm not sure that's worth doing anymore, now that Google's
picking up all the groups. I made a mental note to check out Google groups
once my annual Supernews subscription runs out.
> W/cable, at least up to about a year ago, they monitor your usage
Yuk! One difference between your cable exposure and mine is that I live in
one of those rare areas where Comcast isn't the norm. I'm covered by the
smaller Millennium Digital, and I'm thinking this might be an advantage. The
sales rep on the phone told me they do not monitor downloads or impose any
kind of limit, which I found hard to believe, but the service agreement
doesn't cover any such charges and there's nothing on the website indicating
any limits or charges, even though many other fees and incidentals are
specified. So it looks like he was right. I get one static IP included in
the package too.
> And by DSL, I mean verizon
Yep, that's my current DSL provider for both my circuit and my ISP. As one
of the pioneer DSL users in this area, I went through hell and back with
ISPs since GTE did not offer ISP service when they first made DSL available
so even though they provided my circuit I had to go elsewhere for ISP
service. During the big boom 90's my little local ISP was purchased by a
bigger fish, who was in turn purchased by yet a bigger fish and it was crazy
keeping up with who my ISP actually was. And then of course, when the boom
busted, "support" became some abandoned website and banker's hours phone
service. Fortunately, I didn't need much support, but when the opportunity
came to consolidate my phone bill with my ISP bill and the terms looked
decent, I switched to Verizon. It's nice having 24/7 support and fairly
competent people at the other end of the line. Honestly, though, I haven't
needed much support and I don't really have any complaints about the
service, so the issue comes down to price and that nice upgrade to download
speed. Just having downloaded the WoW beta client (2.2g), I'm very receptive
to doubling my potential download throughput.
> And if any of your neighbors have cable, drag your
> computer over to their place, hook it up, and play some of your games
> for a while to see how it is (since you're very used to how it should
> perform on your own computer), at the same time of day ya usually
> play.
"Hey Rob, can I hook up to your cable and play some EQ tonight between 10pm
and 2am"? ;-) I don't actually know anyone in my neighborhood who is using
the cable internet service. That's another reason I thought I might have an
advantage with cable. Given the so-called "shared" architecture, if my
little community here doesn't have a lot of internet users on it (and I
don't think they do), I might be getting a little additional windfall here.
Maybe that's why they don't have a bandwidth limitation, nobody's
downloading. Just wait till I get involved lol!
> I do wish verizon had *naked* dsl, however, then I could get
> rid of my phone line.
Hmm, what's that? I have one phone line for voice and DSL combined, is that
what you mean?
Bob Perez
"Ben Sisson" <ilkhanik...@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:mko7j05mmtut8fns1...@4ax.com...
>>I often wonder about people
>>who wipe in a raid or die in Diablo or whatever, and claim "lag"
>
> They're using the other definition of lag.
>
> You know: "I lagged" = "I fucked up and I can't admit I was beaten
> cleanly"
Heh, yep, that one gets used a *lot*. I'm quite familiar with that
definition and the people who use it.
But ... I have to wonder if we're actually witnessing a difference between
some cable and DSL systems. Leo's experience is pretty interesting comparing
Comcast to Verizon. I'll get some data on Millennium Digital vs Verizon and
see how that shakes out.
That way, when I die I can have even more reasons to blame "lag"!
Talon
"Bob Perez" <ab...@fcc.gov> wrote in message
news:10j7nrp...@news.supernews.com...SNIP
> > The best advice you'll get is try them both, and pick the better one.
>
In the end, I really don't think there is much of a noticable difference and
would probably just go with whichever is cheapest.
Bob Perez
> Here's a site to test it out if you want:
>
> http://www.broadbandreports.com
Thanks, looks like this is the successor to the old DSLReports. I've already
starting reading reviews of my local cable provider. To give you some idea
of the local competition, check this out. Some guy reviewed his cable
service with Millienium Digital and gave it a very good review. A reply from
someone identifying themself as a Senior manager for the competition:
***************
Here is the thing...it is good that you are "happy" with your own little
fantasy world with the cable modem.
But why, for heavens sake, don't you just stop being in front of your
computer for all hours of the day, running "speed tests" to determine if
this is for you or not. If cablespeed was not the answer, then what? Dial
Up? If the DSL package was not suitable to your highnesses needs in the
area, then what were you going to do if you did not like cable speed. Stop
looking for something to whine about and go spend time with your family
before you look up and they are gone...
A thing about that, there are no such things as saturated lines in cable.
Each individual cable for internet service is run to YOUR home...not shared.
This prevents the saturation because of "overcrowding" similar to what
happens with DSL and regular DIAL UP service.
Next, the only wide-open security holes in cable service are all related to
the user. If you provide your computer with an adequate firewall, then you
will be able to surf and leave the modem connected at all times.
Think before you type, and just in case you want to try to "snap back"...I
am the Senior Internet Manager for Comcast Cablevision, a competitor to
Millenium Digital Media in several areas.
*************
Who says cable companies have a customer service problem? Omg, what am I
getting myself into lol ...
Augustus
>
> Who says cable companies have a customer service problem? Omg, what am I
> getting myself into lol ...
DSL vs Cable... Windows vs Mac vs *nix... Religion... Politics... these are
topics that always bring the fanatics out of the woodwork
alexti
> That makes sense. I'll do some tests and report my results later. There
> used to be a site called DSLReports that I used to validate my relative
> up and down speeds, if it's still around I'll run some tests there with
> both DSL and cable, at different times of day, and see how they
> compare.
If you have both connections running you can do very simple test:
- traceroute to your ISP's mail servers.
- write down the first ISP's host (first hop or second, if you use router)
- ping continuously to that first host (they will be different for each
connection method)
- compare results for DSL and cable. This will answer your question about
the link. However, the best link to ISP doesn't necessary mean best
connection to the world.
Alex.
Leo
blabbed:
>
>> I do wish verizon had *naked* dsl, however, then I could get
>> rid of my phone line.
>
>Hmm, what's that? I have one phone line for voice and DSL combined, is that
>what you mean?
Kinda, I'd just rather have no phone line at all. DSL, but no
voice phone charges. Just use a cell phone as my primary and only
phone. Its not too horrible to have a voice phone though so I don't
really mind, but since its not necessary it would be nice to save that
money, I rarely ever use it. And of course w/cable, ya don' have to
have phone service to have cable, so if ya don't want a voice phone,
that's even more money you're saving, making it cheaper. Although
now, w/qwest at least, ya don't have to have voice phone service w/DSL
either, though verizon has yet to offer naked dsl.
Leo
chainbreaker
> Heh, yep, that one gets used a *lot*. I'm quite familiar with that
> definition and the people who use it.
>
> But ... I have to wonder if we're actually witnessing a difference
> between some cable and DSL systems. Leo's experience is pretty
> interesting comparing Comcast to Verizon. I'll get some data on
> Millennium Digital vs Verizon and see how that shakes out.
>
> That way, when I die I can have even more reasons to blame "lag"!
On every occasion I've bothered to check out any "lag" regarding Diablo, the
problem has been something at their end.
I've never had DSL, but I've had Comcast cable for years. Most likely
you'll never notice the difference. Comcast is doing a really good job and
makes continual improvements/upgrades to their network, at least where I am.
I'm well pleased with cable in general and Comcast in particular.
--
chainbreaker
If you need to email, then chainbreaker (naturally) at comcast dot
net--that's "net" not "com"--should do it.
chainbreaker
> Yeah, it's hard to evaluate how good you've got it if you haven't
> experienced something better, particularly when either route is a
> heaven-sent upgrade over dial-up. Your case is pretty rare, someone
> who's experienced both. I decided to spring for the installation,
Give us a comparison, please, once you have enough info to give one. I'm
curious.
> Ugh. I play a lot of UT online and D2 hardcore. I'm more worried
> about D2 because of the literally fatal consequences of latency.
>
I've played D2 hard core exclusively for more than 3 years and have
experienced only one death that I *might* attribute to lag. There are
spikes, etc. on occasion, and at times I've had to bail out of a game
because of them, but you probably experience those with DSL, too, since
every time I've bothered to check, the problem has been somewhere on Bliz's
end.
IMO most "lag deaths" are synonyms for "I got my lame ass toasted and don't
want to admit it", as was mentioned above. :-)
Nathan Engle
> I'm curious what other *gamers* have experienced on this topic. Not asking
> for a DSL vs Cable flamewar here, just some opinions on the relative
> tradeoffs of both for online gaming, and hoping that a discussion will flesh
> out some good thoughts. Thanks.
For the specific purpose of gaming I'd stick with the DSL,
not just because your overall 768up/down would comes out
to slightly better than the overall cablemodem picture
(twice the up plus 1/3rd the down equals 5/6th overall),
but also because 1) cablemodem is a shared wire where the
download rate will vary depending on how much porn your
neighbor is downloading. And 2) (sort of related) the DSL
rates are better balanced (identical being as balanced as
you get) which means that you won't suffer the potential
cablemodem scenario of being able to see yourself getting
pummeled online with quick crisp clarity while being
hampered with a much slower upstream rate when you try
to send your commands to dodge or punch back.
It's probably also worth mentioning that DSL has better
"scale-ability". If you stumble across a new game that
really needs the upstream bandwidth (like, maybe, if you
were the one hosting a game for 3-4 other players) then
you can add bandwidth to DSL in a fairly flexible (even
asymmetric) way, but your cablemodem upstream rate is
pretty much carved in stone. I've also noticed that the
local cable company here in Bloomington has a specific
"no hosting" policy, partly because they know that it
would chew their shared bandwidth to the bone pretty
quickly. With DSL you get what you pay for (and vice
versa) - if you want to host a game the DSL folks are
happy to sell you just as much bandwidth as you feel you
need to make it fly, and the feed that's coming into your
home is guaranteed to be just your traffic (unless perhaps
you have an unsecured wireless hub that your neighbors use
surreptitiously for their own web surfing, but that's a
whole different problem).
--
Nathan Engle Computer Support, IUB Psych Dept
nen...@indiana.edu http://mypage.iu.edu/~nengle
"Some Assembly Required"
Hughie MacAngus
> I currently enjoy 768 up and down speed and, as I understand my cable
> service, I'll be getting double the bandwidth for downloads but only a third
> of the bandwidth for uploads. My primary issue is online game performance
> and I've always enjoyed the fact that my uploads back to the game servers
> are just as fast as my downloads from them. So now I'm wondering what effect
> a switch will have on this experience. My sense is that this will be not
> only Ok, but probably very favorable to me, since most game client uploads
> are probably small and tokenized triggers and not very bandwidth
> constrained.
Very true. Consider that unless you're running the game server, all your
connection has to "upload" is the details of what your client is doing,
but it has to "download" what all the other players (and anything
server-side) is doing, a far larger amount. That said, the amount of
bandwidth that games use is still small enough to fit comfortably down a
dialup in most cases, so it's all about the latency.
> Latency would be a bigger issue. On this front, I'm a little
> concerned about the queuing up of packets that occurs when a cable hub gets
> saturated with a lot of users, something I don't have to worry about with my
> dedicated DSL circuit.
Really, there's no such thing as a dedicated circuit of any kind, at
least in consumer-internet land. The only difference between cable,
dialup, and DSL is the point at which your traffic starts going over the
same pipes as other customer traffic, and even this can vary wildly
between different providers, depending on their network setup.
So I'd have to echo the advice of others here - try it, and stick with
what works for you. I switched from SDSL just like yours to cable just
last week, and I've noticed no real difference (I switched because my
DSL service didn't work all of the time - I was too far from the
exchange; it would work amazingly well, except of course any time it
didn't work at all, which was too often for my gaming habit).
Hughie
(who works for a network provider)
Justin H.
>
> Yep, that's my current DSL provider for both my circuit and my ISP. As one
> of the pioneer DSL users in this area, I went through hell and back with
> ISPs since GTE did not offer ISP service when they first made DSL available
> so even though they provided my circuit I had to go elsewhere for ISP
> service.
Oh god, I hope you didn't have to deal with USWe...er...QWest when they
rolled DSL out in this area. Blech.
> It's nice having 24/7 support and fairly competent people at the other end of the line.
Are you sure you're talking about the same Verizon?!
> Honestly, though, I haven't
> needed much support and I don't really have any complaints about the
> service, so the issue comes down to price and that nice upgrade to download
> speed. Just having downloaded the WoW beta client (2.2g), I'm very receptive
> to doubling my potential download throughput.
I have found with Verizon that you're fine as long as you don't ever
want to *change* anything. My worst problems with Verizon and my DSL
have come when I've needed to move, or change my package or something
similar. Other than that, I haven't had to call them for anything.
Comcast, on the other hand, I don't know much about. Since I work at a
local ISP up here, and don't actually live in a Comcast area, I haven't
really dealt with them much. The one time I did deal with them it was
because they needed my help setting up a Mac. Apparently their Mac
support is either non-existant, or so poor as to be non-existant.
Inyidd
--
Nyarlathotep casts a spell
42
says...
> Bob Perez wrote:
> > I'm curious what other *gamers* have experienced on this topic. Not asking
> > for a DSL vs Cable flamewar here, just some opinions on the relative
> > tradeoffs of both for online gaming, and hoping that a discussion will flesh
> > out some good thoughts. Thanks.
>
> For the specific purpose of gaming I'd stick with the DSL,
> not just because your overall 768up/down would comes out
> to slightly better than the overall cablemodem picture
> (twice the up plus 1/3rd the down equals 5/6th overall),
> but also because 1) cablemodem is a shared wire where the
> download rate will vary depending on how much porn your
> neighbor is downloading.
This is just as true with DSL.
> And 2) (sort of related) the DSL
> rates are better balanced (identical being as balanced as
> you get) which means that you won't suffer the potential
> cablemodem scenario of being able to see yourself getting
> pummeled online with quick crisp clarity while being
> hampered with a much slower upstream rate when you try
> to send your commands to dodge or punch back.
Just how many megabits do you need to send those commands to dodge and
punch? Think bout it. Then get a traffic monitor and -measure- it. Its
not much.
> It's probably also worth mentioning that DSL has better
> "scale-ability".
Around here cable has better scalability. In fact I can't get 1 mbps
upload from the local dsl providers, but I can with cable.
> If you stumble across a new game that
> really needs the upstream bandwidth (like, maybe, if you
> were the one hosting a game for 3-4 other players) then
> you can add bandwidth to DSL in a fairly flexible (even
> asymmetric) way, but your cablemodem upstream rate is
> pretty much carved in stone.
Carved in stone at 1mbps up, and 5 down at the moment. I can live with
that.
> I've also noticed that the
> local cable company here in Bloomington has a specific
> "no hosting" policy, partly because they know that it
> would chew their shared bandwidth to the bone pretty
> quickly.
Yeah you can't run the google server out of your basement, and if you
load kazaa and upload 24x7x365 at full tilt they'll cut you off. Guess
what, DSL is no different.
Neither company will blink if you host a game of unreal.
> With DSL you get what you pay for (and vice
> versa) - if you want to host a game the DSL folks are
> happy to sell you just as much bandwidth as you feel you
> need to make it fly, and the feed that's coming into your
> home is guaranteed to be just your traffic (unless perhaps
> you have an unsecured wireless hub that your neighbors use
> surreptitiously for their own web surfing, but that's a
> whole different problem).
Here's that old cable is a giant lan theory again. It was true 5 years
or more ago. Its not true anymore unless your ISP is running very
antique infrastructure.
Nathan Engle
> Here's that old cable is a giant lan theory again. It was true 5 years
> or more ago. Its not true anymore unless your ISP is running very
> antique infrastructure.
They are. In large metro areas I have no doubt that there
have been improvements in the cablemodem service being
offered, but most of the US is still suburban or rural.
Since Bob cited an upstream that's 1/3 of 768 (1/4 of the
1Mbit you mention) I'm betting that he falls in the latter
category.
Foxeye Vaeltaja
On Mon, 30 Aug 2004, Bob Perez wrote:
> I've been a DSL user forever but recently learned that my cable company
> offers IP and it's a lot cheaper than my DSL service. So, I'm considering
> switching.
<snip>
My personal story, fwiw...I originally played EQ on at&t@home cable. I
finally quit in disgust because the latencies were HORRIFIC. We had logs
of these random and sudden outages, we even got their tech support to
confirm the spikes while on the phone with us, but the end result was that
they felt it was acceptable.
Maybe so for someone browsing the internet, but not for an online game
player.
So my recommendation is that for anyone in Marin or Sonoma Counties of
california to steer clear of the local cable company (comcast I assume it
is now). Maybe they've improved their policies since then, and I'm fairly
certain that if we'd lived in some other part of town the problem wouldn't
have been there, but I personally will never take that risk again. The
broadband company a gamer goes with needs to be one that doesn't believe
that sporadic but constant terribly latencies are "acceptable".
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Foxeye Vaeltaja EQ: 65 Forest Stalker (Xev) - retired
http://www.foxeye-art.com Horizons: 10 Monk/Druid/Outfitter (Dawn)
http://www.the-luggage.com
john graesser
> Around here cable has better scalability. In fact I can't get 1 mbps
> upload from the local dsl providers, but I can with cable.
> Carved in stone at 1mbps up, and 5 down at the moment. I can live with
> that.
Where and how much is that sort of deal, here we are paying $60 a month for
128k up and 1 meg down. Are those rates guaranteed regardless of load?
Here we are gauranteed our full pitiful bandwidth, but I remember other
systems could offer 3-4 mbps peak only if the system wasn't loaded down with
users.
I could maybe host quake or duke3d, but even half life would choke at more
than 3 players on my connection. I don't have the bandwidth to host even one
player for a game like bf1942.
Foxeye Vaeltaja
On Mon, 30 Aug 2004, Bob Perez wrote:
> Come to think of it, I don't ever hear DSL
> users complain (and I myself have never complained) about erratic and wildly
> fluctuating pings. My ping changes from game to game of course, but is
> pretty uniform over time within any given game. I often wonder about people
> who wipe in a raid or die in Diablo or whatever, and claim "lag", and all
> this talk about lag spikes, while I'm looking around saying "Huh"? Maybe I'm
> witnessing a cable/DSL difference in practice.
That would certainly describe our experiences. While on cable it was a
regular hourly even to see the meter go yellow...red....bye-bye! on
us,though sometimes it would recover fast enough. With DSL that usually
meant that my connection was going DOWN and staying down for a bit. Which
happened rarely, I'm glad to report, since our past two ISPs have been
pretty good companies.
John Lewis
>
>A thing about that, there are no such things as saturated lines in cable.
>Each individual cable for internet service is run to YOUR home...not shared.
>This prevents the saturation because of "overcrowding" similar to what
>happens with DSL and regular DIAL UP service.
>
I have bridge to sell you.....
Substitute "DSL" instead of "cable" and vice-versa in the above
paragraph and you have the truth.
>
>Think before you type, and just in case you want to try to "snap back"...I
>am the Senior Internet Manager for Comcast Cablevision, a competitor to
>Millenium Digital Media in several areas.
>
Obviously a wel-paid bridge-seller with zero technical knowledge.
John Lewis
42
says...
>
> "42" <4...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:MPG.1b9e7c0a580cc20f989700@shawnews...
> > Around here cable has better scalability. In fact I can't get 1 mbps
> > upload from the local dsl providers, but I can with cable.
>
> > Carved in stone at 1mbps up, and 5 down at the moment. I can live with
> > that.
>
> Where and how much is that sort of deal, here we are paying $60 a month for
> 128k up and 1 meg down. Are those rates guaranteed regardless of load?
Those rates are gauranteed within reason. They were very supportive when
I first signed up and observed that I was getting the 1mbps up no
problem, but was only getting 3.5mbps down.
Naturally they are only gauranteeing any level of performance to their
own gateways, and can't gaurantee you anything beyond that.
And the service mentioned 5mbps down/ 1 up, is quite new even here.
(Canada)
http://www.shaw.ca/Tmplt.asp?pageID=771
The price is comparable to the 60.00 figure you quote. Its hard to say
exactly becuase internet pricing is somewhat dependant on your CATV
bundle.
My point wasn't to suggest that its like this everywhere (yet), but
really just to highlight that the cable service is not nearly as limited
and 'carved' in stone as some might think. Its -all- about the
infrastructure.
There is no such thing as a legitimate 'cable vs dsl debate' when it
comes to selecting the best service for oneself. Its far more honest to
stick with can really do is ISP vs ISP and even then it has to be on a
localized basis... sometimes right down to your own building.
> Here we are gauranteed our full pitiful bandwidth, but I remember other
> systems could offer 3-4 mbps peak only if the system wasn't loaded down with
> users.
>
> I could maybe host quake or duke3d, but even half life would choke at more
> than 3 players on my connection. I don't have the bandwidth to host even one
> player for a game like bf1942.
I routinely hosted 12 people in Rogue Spear without any significant
issues. And RS is particularly sensitive to lag issues. Both in terms of
not-so-hot coding, and then the nature of play itself (with precision
single shot kills being the norm).
16+ person servers of Counter Strike were common too, myself and several
friends routinely hosted lag free games with that many people.
And this was on cable, a couple years ago, long before the new
'extreme' service.
Andrew J. Weill
> news:
> > I'm curious what other *gamers* have experienced on this topic. Not asking
> > for a DSL vs Cable flamewar here, just some opinions on the relative
> > tradeoffs of both for online gaming, and hoping that a discussion will
> flesh out some good thoughts. Thanks.
I use DSL at the office for all business needs and cable at home.
Frankly, I haven't noticed any significant difference in performance.
My cable company, Comcast, has annoying outage problems from time to
time, which I haven't encountered with DSL.
Of course, I would NEVER use my office computer for online gaming, so
my comments about its performance are just, er, extrapolations.
Andy Weill
Bob Perez
"Justin H." <jus...@NOSPAM.whidbey.net> wrote in message
news:rvadnZCkvZN...@whidbeytel.com...
> On the calendar, in the box marked 8/30/2004 8:02 PM ^ Bob Perez
> scratched:
>> It's nice having 24/7 support and fairly competent people at the other
>> end of the line.
> Are you sure you're talking about the same Verizon?!
Heh. Hey, compared to the "support" I've had with some smaller ISPs (and
maybe I've just had bad luck), Verizon's has been exemplary. Moreover, it's
really comforting to know that my ISP is resourced sufficiently to be able
to take my calls 24/7. I can't tell you how disappointing it was to call
this cable company last night at 7:30pm and receive their "call back during
business hours" message. Bad sign already.
>> Honestly, though, I haven't needed much support
True, neither have I. One time I had a recurring dropped connection problem
that was driving me NUTS. It turned out that they had a bad circuit board at
the CO, but as soon as they determined this, they were on it and replaced
it. I was back in business before the evening was up. I don't know how my
cable company would handle this.
> I have found with Verizon that you're fine as long as you don't ever
> want to *change* anything. My worst problems with Verizon and my DSL
> have come when I've needed to move, or change my package or something
> similar.
BINGO, you hit on a real sore point there for me and remind me of a story
confirming your perspective. The one nightmare I had with Verizon was when I
changed one small thing in my account (I don't even remember what it was
now). I remember extracting promises from the guy taking the order on the
phone, that he would carefully put my order through so it wouldn't result in
a cancellation of my existing service, just the change requested. Of course,
my connectivity went down and when I called support they said "Yeah, shows
here that you cancelled your account". Sigh. "Well, turn it back ON".
"Sorry, we can't do that. You'll have to process a new application. Waiting
time shouldn't be more than a couple of weeks". Thus began my 2 week
adventure using dial-up. This is when I discovered that although it sucked
*unbelievably* for downloads, MMOG'ing with dial-up was virtually
indistinguishable from broadband. As luck would have it, this occurred just
as some huge SWG beta patch went live and I experienced firsthand a 12-hour
dial-up download. Lessons learned.
Bob Perez
"chainbreaker" <no...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:ch1o5...@news2.newsguy.com...
> Give us a comparison, please, once you have enough info to give one. I'm
> curious.
Will do. Cable is now in, and both IPs are up and running. I'll run some
tests once I have things properly configured for A/B testing. I have some
public DNS records to update to ensure that my incoming mail continues to be
captured (I think I can do this just by creating a new Host record for the
cable IP and adding that new Host as a lower priority mail server to my MX
record, so that when the server switches to a cable connection, mail routing
to the DSL IP will fail and rollover to the cable IP, and then when the
server is back on the DSL IP it will receive mail based on the higher
priority. Appreciate any suggestions from any DNS gurus out there).
Bob Perez
"Nathan Engle" <nen...@indiana.edu> wrote in message
news:ch20di$i3a$1...@hood.uits.indiana.edu...
> For the specific purpose of gaming I'd stick with the DSL,
> not just because your overall 768up/down would comes out
> to slightly better than the overall cablemodem picture
> (twice the up plus 1/3rd the down equals 5/6th overall),
Hmm, how do you figure that? 768 synchronous DSL = 1536 "total" theoretical
bandwidth, while cable = 1756 "total" theoretical bandwidth. These are
theoretical limits tho. Here are my actual numbers from a preliminary test
at BroadbandReports.com:
Cable:
1394 down
232 up
1626 "Total"
DSL:
550 down
682 up
1232 "Total"
> but also because 1) cablemodem is a shared wire
This seems to be a controversial topic, denied vehemently by cable operators
and by some in this thread. I don't know how to evaluate the claim because I
haven't seen any hard refutation or support of the idea, just a lot of
claims and counterclaims. The most authoritative word I've heard on this
(and it isn't very) was an article in Maximum PC in one of their "Debunking
myths" series, claiming that in fact cable is shared in some significant way
that DSL is not. But as I recall the article was just as conclusory as the
comments here and didn't really provide me with any hard evidence. I'd love
to see something more definitive on the topic.
sugarman
Whoa. Thanks for the link to broadbandreports. Just did the test
myself, in the middle of the night, and I pulled
295 down
419 up
with cable. Think I'm going to need to talk to them boys in the
morning.
--sugarman--
chainbreaker
> claiming that in fact cable is shared in some significant way that
> DSL is not. But as I recall the article was just as conclusory as the
> comments here and didn't really provide me with any hard evidence.
> I'd love to see something more definitive on the topic.
Although it's possible to see a difference in the peak/off time numbers for
cable, in practice whatever difference there is unnoticeable for all intent,
at least in my location. I've never been "bandwidth-deprived" at any time
for anything I've wanted to do. I have a feeling that that's the way it is
for most people who aren't infatuated with continually running speed tests,
etc. :-)
Of course for you, you'll just have to see what happens where *you* are.
Nathan Engle
> Nathan Engle wrote
> > but also because 1) cablemodem is a shared wire
> This seems to be a controversial topic, denied vehemently by cable operators
> and by some in this thread. I don't know how to evaluate the claim because I
> haven't seen any hard refutation or support of the idea, just a lot of
> claims and counterclaims.
The definitive test might we be the following - on each
connection launch a command prompt and issue the command:
C:\> ping -n 86400 groups.google.com >logfile.txt
That's a ping command that will run ping for exactly 24
hours and log the results to a text file. If you could
arrange for them both to be running at the same time
then that would be ideal, but even running them sequentially
would have some value because the main thing you're really
looking for isn't the specific number for any given instant
but rather a feel for how much the numbers bounce up and
down. For online gaming a steady stream that you can
count on will be the preferred service over one that
jerks and halts one minute and then races the next.
> The most authoritative word I've heard on this
> (and it isn't very) was an article in Maximum PC in one of their "Debunking
> myths" series, claiming that in fact cable is shared in some significant way
> that DSL is not. But as I recall the article was just as conclusory as the
> comments here and didn't really provide me with any hard evidence. I'd love
> to see something more definitive on the topic.
With both connections now installed you are in a position
to put this baby to rest. Please post the results!
Graeme Faelban
news:o0vdj0d80n06ias86...@4ax.com:
It's going to vary a lot depending on the load, you are sharing that same
cable with a lot of other customers after all.
--
On Erollisi Marr in <Sanctuary of Marr>
Elder Graeme Faelban, Barbarian Prophet of 65 seasons
Tainniel Fleabane, Halfling Warrior of 32 seasons
Giluven, Wood Elf Druid of 29 seasons
Graeniel, High Elf Enchanter of 25 seasons
Bob Perez
"sugarman" <suga...@scorched-earth.org> wrote in message
news:o0vdj0d80n06ias86...@4ax.com...
> Whoa. Thanks for the link to broadbandreports. Just did the test
> myself, in the middle of the night, and I pulled
> 295 down
> 419 up
> with cable. Think I'm going to need to talk to them boys in the
> morning.
Also, check the results page for a link that asks you if you've been
"Tweaked". Tweaking in this context means calibrating your computer
appropriately for broadband, and there are a couple of relevant registry
settings that affect this: MaxMTU and RWIN. These two values have to do with
the handling and fragmenting of IP packets your computer is sending and
receiving, and can have a significant impact on speed. I had to adjust both
values on my machine and after doing so, I saw dramatic improvements in my
throughput.
Bob Perez
> I have some public DNS records to update to ensure that my incoming mail
> continues to be captured (I think I can do this just by creating a new
> Host record for the cable IP and adding that new Host as a lower priority
> mail server to my MX record, so that when the server switches to a cable
> connection, mail routing to the DSL IP will fail and rollover to the cable
> IP, and then when the server is back on the DSL IP it will receive mail
> based on the higher priority.
For the record, this technique worked perfectly and within a few minutes
(like 10) I was able to verify that distant servers I could access remotely
were already recognizing the new host definitions and mail continued
arriving instantly at my server using either connection. Someone suggested
to me that I should adjust the TTL values on the MX records to 60 minutes to
force remote mail servers to flush any of my old records out of their cache
so that they would have to use the new definitions, but I don't think this
is necessary with my approach, since, whether they use the old definitions
or the new, they both deliver mail to a valid IP whose server is up and
running.
Now to configure an appropriate A/B test. I played some UT2004 online last
night on cable. Had a great game with most Internet game servers showing
pings from 40 to 150 at the highest. This might be one good portion of an
overal A/B suite, I'll be sure to include it.
Leo
blabbed:
>he definitive test might we be the following - on each
>connection launch a command prompt and issue the command:
>
>C:\> ping -n 86400 groups.google.com >logfile.txt
Can also use pingplotter, http://www.pingplotter.com for more
fancy shmancy features, but to basically do the same thing. There's a
freeware version, and even the full version has a 30 day free trial,
which is more than enough to compare these two services, one of which
bob is probably wanting to get rid of w/in 30 days anyhow.
Leo
chainbreaker
> Now to configure an appropriate A/B test. I played some UT2004 online
> last night on cable. Had a great game with most Internet game servers
> showing pings from 40 to 150 at the highest. This might be one good
> portion of an overal A/B suite, I'll be sure to include it.
My Battlenet pings are usually in the 40-50 range for east and the 75-85
range for west--Comcast Cable in East TN.
42
says...
> Bob Perez wrote:
> > Nathan Engle wrote
> > > but also because 1) cablemodem is a shared wire
>
> > This seems to be a controversial topic, denied vehemently by cable operators
> > and by some in this thread. I don't know how to evaluate the claim because I
> > haven't seen any hard refutation or support of the idea, just a lot of
> > claims and counterclaims.
>
> The definitive test might we be the following - on each
> connection launch a command prompt and issue the command:
>
> C:\> ping -n 86400 groups.google.com >logfile.txt
This is a typically -bad- test.
Its like selecting a condo to live in based on how long it takes you to
drive (on average, at different times of the day) to a -random- point in
the city. Concluding much of anything from that test is ridiculous. The
condo only has (limited!) control over the congestion in its own parking
lot, and the test clearly might be dominated by other factors.
Comparing isps (nevermind dsl to cable) on a randomly selected internet
host is meaningless. For all you know ISP A actually hosts google and
you're 4 hops away on the same ISP... vs 15 hops through an intermediate
badly congested router that is scheduled for upgrades, for ISP B... or
vice versa.
The only time ping tests to a host would be relevant is if the basis of
your isp selection is if its ping statistics -to that host- are a
deciding factor. (ie you only want to play eq, and you are selecting
your ISP beased on its 'closeness' to the EQ server you play on.)
> > The most authoritative word I've heard on this
> > (and it isn't very) was an article in Maximum PC in one of their "Debunking
> > myths" series, claiming that in fact cable is shared in some significant way
> > that DSL is not. But as I recall the article was just as conclusory as the
> > comments here and didn't really provide me with any hard evidence. I'd love
> > to see something more definitive on the topic.
I think the bottom line is that their isn't anything definitive that can
be said.
Some cable ISPs -do- overload their networks, and some don't. Or in some
cases there is regional overloading; presumably (hopefully) pending
upgrades... so it depends where you are and who you are with, and their
internal policies on what is acceptable overloading, and how
aggressively they are upgrading infrastructure to prevent it. In Canada
at least most cable providers are ahead of the curve expanding capacity
in advance of demand, while other ISPs in other countries may be running
behind the curve, playing catch up with demand for capacity.
This isn't unique to cable though. A DSL ISP can overload just as
easily. Sure the last leg of wire is dedicated to you... but those wires
just feed into concentrators where you are sharing the wire with all
your neighbours.
You may have heard them say they need to allocate ports, or heard them
talking about deploying a 'stinger'; this is the sort of device they are
talking about:
http://www.lucent.com/livelink/09009403800579be_Brochure_datasheet.pdf
In simplest terms its conceptually not much different from a typical
home Linksys router. (minus the NAT 'firewall') With x number of adsl
ports coming in from you and your neigbours, and an uplink connector
going out to the ISP.
I don't think there is any clearer evidence one can have that your DSL
bandwidth is ultimately shared with your neighbours. They stick one of
these boxes in a neighbourhood and connect everyone to it. When they run
out of ports they add another box. The boxes themselves can uplink with
as little as a single T1 line. (a piddly 1.5mbps... on a 72 port stinger
that means if -everyone- tried to max it at the same time there is only
capacity for 20kbps per port. You do the math...
Sure they -could- put in an OC3 uplink... or even 2... but theres a cost
associated with that. And ultimately just like cable, the degree of
congestion on DSL is primarily a matter of policy (ie how much
congestion they will tolerate before upgrading infrastructure) and not
significantly a matter of technology.
You have a dedicated connection from your house to the box. That is the
extent of your dedicated connection.
Nathan Engle
> This is a typically -bad- test.
Are you going to suggest a better one?
Justin H.
> "Justin H." <jus...@NOSPAM.whidbey.net> wrote in message
> news:rvadnZCkvZN...@whidbeytel.com...
>> On the calendar, in the box marked 8/30/2004 8:02 PM ^ Bob Perez
>> scratched:
>
>>> It's nice having 24/7 support and fairly competent people at the other
>>> end of the line.
>
>> Are you sure you're talking about the same Verizon?!
>
> Heh. Hey, compared to the "support" I've had with some smaller ISPs (and
> maybe I've just had bad luck), Verizon's has been exemplary. Moreover, it's
> really comforting to know that my ISP is resourced sufficiently to be able
> to take my calls 24/7. I can't tell you how disappointing it was to call
> this cable company last night at 7:30pm and receive their "call back during
> business hours" message. Bad sign already.
I'm with you on that one. Once they understand that I work for my ISP,
they're usually a little more responsive. I guess partly because they
feel they can skip most of the "are you SURE the cable is plugged
*directly* into the wall?" questions.
>> I have found with Verizon that you're fine as long as you don't ever
>> want to *change* anything. My worst problems with Verizon and my DSL
>> have come when I've needed to move, or change my package or something
>> similar.
>
> BINGO, you hit on a real sore point there for me and remind me of a story
> confirming your perspective. The one nightmare I had with Verizon was when I
> changed one small thing in my account (I don't even remember what it was
> now). I remember extracting promises from the guy taking the order on the
> phone, that he would carefully put my order through so it wouldn't result in
> a cancellation of my existing service, just the change requested. Of course,
> my connectivity went down and when I called support they said "Yeah, shows
> here that you cancelled your account". Sigh. "Well, turn it back ON".
> "Sorry, we can't do that. You'll have to process a new application. Waiting
> time shouldn't be more than a couple of weeks". Thus began my 2 week
> adventure using dial-up. This is when I discovered that although it sucked
> *unbelievably* for downloads, MMOG'ing with dial-up was virtually
> indistinguishable from broadband. As luck would have it, this occurred just
> as some huge SWG beta patch went live and I experienced firsthand a 12-hour
> dial-up download. Lessons learned.
>
My worst nightmare with them happened when there were large changes in
structure due to a change in regulations. I moved about 4 houses down
the road. All they had to do was move the service. They were changing
their paperwork procedures. In the end, it took ~3 months for them to
get my service moved. On the up side, I was credited ~6 months in the
process as I called each month to tell them they were charging me for a
service I wasn't being provided.
Oh, and on a side note, have you seen this?
http://news.com.com/2100-1034_3-5275171.html
Just in Texas right now, as I understand, but hopefully Western
Washington isn't far down the list!
Darkensolo
wrote:
>42 wrote:
>> Nathan Engle wrote:
>> > C:\> ping -n 86400 groups.google.com >logfile.txt
>
>> This is a typically -bad- test.
>
>Are you going to suggest a better one?
Ping your game server instead of google?
--
Elder Lizsolo Spiritmaster - 65 Beastlord
Baron Darkensolo - 65 Cleric
Jester Rachsolo - 45 Bardling
Rodcet Nife
Bob Perez
> Oh, and on a side note, have you seen this?
>
> http://news.com.com/2100-1034_3-5275171.html
Wow! That's incredible news, I look forward to tracking that story. I'm
particularly interested because the community that I live in (which was
basically carved out of the woods up here on a plateau overlooking Lake
Sammamish) specifically had fiber infrastructure laid down when they built
it, even though it's never been fully exploited. Maybe Verizon will see this
fiber-ready, Microsoft-heavy population as a key test market ...
42
technology.killthis.com says...
> On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 09:02:47 -0500, Nathan Engle <nen...@indiana.edu>
> wrote:
>
> >42 wrote:
> >> Nathan Engle wrote:
> >> > C:\> ping -n 86400 groups.google.com >logfile.txt
> >
> >> This is a typically -bad- test.
> >
> >Are you going to suggest a better one?
>
> Ping your game server instead of google?
At least the results of that one might actually be relevant, as the
service to the EQ server is actually important to the end user.
Depending how much he plays EQ, and what else he plays there may be more
relevant tests.
Actually playing EQ for a week on each connection would probably be even
more valuable.
Kilgaard
>
> "Nathan Engle" <nen...@indiana.edu> wrote in message
> news:ch20di$i3a$1...@hood.uits.indiana.edu...
>
> > For the specific purpose of gaming I'd stick with the DSL,
> > not just because your overall 768up/down would comes out
> > to slightly better than the overall cablemodem picture
> > (twice the up plus 1/3rd the down equals 5/6th overall),
>
> Hmm, how do you figure that? 768 synchronous DSL = 1536 "total"
theoretical
> bandwidth, while cable = 1756 "total" theoretical bandwidth. These are
> theoretical limits tho. Here are my actual numbers from a preliminary test
> at BroadbandReports.com:
>
> Cable:
> 1394 down
> 232 up
> 1626 "Total"
>
> DSL:
> 550 down
> 682 up
> 1232 "Total"
Having used a variety of ADSL connections in different countries one thing
that I have noticed is that in order to get full speed download, you need
about 1/4 the bandwidth in upload, just to get the ACK packets back to the
source. Any time you have worse than 1:4 up/down ratio your download speed
will suffer because of the piss-poor upload speed.
More importantly, if you saturate your upload link, then your lag will go
all to hell.
Now, 1:4 is my personal limit ... and you are used to 1:1. Your new cable
service is 1:6, which I wouldn't touch, but as always YMMV.
42
Kilg...@hotmail.com says...
Your threory is good, your math is terrible. 1/4 bandwidth for ACK
traffic? If that's the case either your data packet payloads are -much-
too small. Or something else is out to lunch.
> More importantly, if you saturate your upload link, then your lag will go
> all to hell.
Yes. Saturate either and this is true.
> Now, 1:4 is my personal limit ... and you are used to 1:1. Your new cable
> service is 1:6, which I wouldn't touch, but as always YMMV.
Just to throw another monkey into the mix, my cable connection is 5:1
(5mbps down, 1mbps up... but its also full duplex. This means an ack tx
doesn't require downstream rx to pause... which changes things
considerably.