Does Having Fast UK Broadband Mean You Lose More Sleep?

[eidairaman1]

True for any conductor. But I note most phone companies use CAT5e (or even CAT-6 in brand new facilities) anyway when pulling new cable.

The lines here are pretty old for outside plant

 

[qubit]

After a certain distance cat 3 utp is affected by attenuation.

AFAIK it's guaranteed up to 100 meters, after that it's flakey.

Being the tech nerd that I am, I wanna buy a 100 meter CAT cable and try it.

 

[eidairaman1]

AFAIK it's guaranteed up to 100 meters, after that it's flakey.

Being the tech nerd that I am, I wanna buy a 100 meter CAT cable and try it.

I just know after 10000 feet you would be lucky to get 1.5Mbps, otherwise 768Kbps.

 

[qubit]

I just know after 10000 feet you would be lucky to get 1.5Mbps, otherwise 768Kbps.

10000 feet is 3048 meters, 30 times over the guaranteed limit, so yeah, no wonder! It's probably doing very well to still be working at that range.

 

[eidairaman1]

10000 feet is 3048 meters, 30 times over the guaranteed limit, so yeah, no wonder! It's probably doing very well to still be working at that range.

That's only if there are no bridge taps, corrosion, metallic faults, shorting or load coils from the Central office to the modem

 

[qubit]

That's only if there are no bridge taps, corrosion, metallic faults, shorting or load coils from the Central office to the modem

Yeah, that's right, I'm thinking of a single 100m cable in good condition. Stick in all those other things in the way and I'm sure it will affect it.

 

[MrGenius]

You cannot use a definition from decades ago to define "fast". The Pony Express was fast - until the Railroad came along. A 56K modem was fast until broadband came along. Copper cable was fast until fiber came along.

And it is not just about how fast the chunks of data moves through the conductors and network, but how big those chunks are too, and the distance they have to travel, not to mention the number of hops.

"Fast" is a constantly moving target.

That said, I agree and educate yourself. Use your friend Bing Google. Just make sure you check timestamps and put everything into perspective.

"Fast Ethernet" is just a marketing term. It makes as much sense as "Rated #1" or "wireless router", or "best in class".

Ok. Then try this perspective on for size.

The global average speeds are:

Fixed Broadband
46.41 Mb/s download
22.48 Mb/s upload

Mobile
22.81 Mb/s download
9.13 Mb/s upload

According to http://www.speedtest.net/global-index

So "Fast Ethernet"(100 Mb/s) is still more than 2x as "fast" as the global average speeds. If that's not "fast" in your book, that's all well and good. But most folks "on average" would likely disagree with you. Since it's "faster" than what they have.

 

[eidairaman1]

Yeah, that's right, I'm thinking of a single 100m cable in good condition. Stick in all those other things in the way and I'm sure it will affect it.

Trust me I know it affects it, that's the only reason why I know how far bandwidth profiles go, I worked for AT&T for a short stint.

Bridgetaps cause an echo effect that can knock the modem out of sync with the RT card or CO card under demanding tasks such as Games.

 

[R-T-B]

Yes, any activity that engages and thus requires being awake prevents sleep.

To increase sleep level, I reccomend sleeping.

 

[hat]

Yes, any activity that engages and thus requires being awake prevents sleep.

To increase sleep level, I reccomend sleeping.

Pure gold.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Ok. Then try this perspective on for size.

Same difference. Tomorrow it may be different. Remember Highspeed USB? Now that is slow and they had to come out with "Superspeed" USB.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I lost more sleep renting games way back when. Gotta finish it before the weekend is over, right?

 

[bbmarley]

I'm on Virginmedia Vivid 200 (200Mbps down 10Mbps up). I think at a certain point maybe 20Mbps, that's way before the speed I have content become instant on the internet. When a user has instant access to everything I doubt they would lose sleep. The user will only consume more content in a shorter period of time. My network has many things connected 3 PC, 2 laptop, 5 google home, 3 tablets, 2 mobile phones. 3 games consoles. The only way I could see my household losing sleep is waiting for content to load. Heck, I remember waiting around 8 hours for steam to download on my 56k connection over a decade ago to play counterstrike. I sat and waited while watching bullshit tv to kill time.

 

[StrayKAT]

If anything, broadband let me leave the computer for long periods, so I could download large as hell archives.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

This is the kind of bullshit "research" that makes people lose braincells...

It's blatantly obvious that lots of devices with screens around cuts into people's sleep, but no let's make a random causal connection with "high speed broadband"

I wouldn't mind betting this stupidity is being funded by the idiots in companies like comcast and BT who would rather leave their rotting copper wire around and keep their countries forever (or at least until they get their massive retirement paycheck) in the 20th century instead of even coming close to matching the connectivity available in both first and second world countries...

 

[hat]

Heh, still don't see the issue with copper. I pay for 100/10 and get a little more than that actually... by copper. There's a lower package for 12/1 I think that I would even be fine with. I used to get by with less than half the upstream I have now... and the general performance of the internet is the same now as it was then. Things just download faster... which is handy if I want to download a new AAA game in 10 minutes, but I can live without that. Many of us are beginning to go above and beyond what local networking was capable of less than 10 years ago for many of us (I've had Gigabit ethernet for less than 5). Remember how FAST that 100mb ethernet used to be?

 

[Brusfantomet]

Heh, still don't see the issue with copper. I pay for 100/10 and get a little more than that actually... by copper. There's a lower package for 12/1 I think that I would even be fine with. I used to get by with less than half the upstream I have now... and the general performance of the internet is the same now as it was then. Things just download faster... which is handy if I want to download a new AAA game in 10 minutes, but I can live without that. Many of us are beginning to go above and beyond what local networking was capable of less than 10 years ago for many of us (I've had Gigabit ethernet for less than 5). Remember how FAST that 100mb ethernet used to be?

Sure, if you get 100/10 over copper, that is not a bad speed, but the possible speed over a POTS line depends on the quality and distance of the cable. If you are situated 1000 meters or more from the exchange with some older cables then you are lucky to get 10/1. Add to the fact that this often cost the same as a fibre connection at 200/200, and then the copper lines leave something to be desired.

I also remember that my first self-built computer with a Pentium 4 chip in it felt blazingly fast compared to an older Pentium 3 computer, that does not mean that its fast now.

Modern web pages are becoming more content heavy, a connection that worked fine some years ago might not do as good a job nowadays.

I also remember that copying things to a USB drive and then copying that from the drive to the destination computer was faster than 100 mbit.