Cable modem & speed (Cox in No. VA)

[daverme]

I had a cable modem installed last week and I used it to access these SysOpt forums a couple of times, just to see how it "felt". It was surprised at the speed ... not nearly as fast as I expected. I was expecting speeds like I get when I go into my office (I work from home most of the time). While it is MUCH FASTER than my clunky 28.8 Kbs modem, it doesn't come anywhere near the speed I see at the office. Are my expectations unrealistic?

The doc DOES SAY I can expect speeds upwards of 1Mbs, which is only 1/10th the speed of 10Mbs Ethernet and 1/100th the speed of 100Mbs Ethernet, so maybe what I'm experiencing IS normal. Any opinions?

[Bsdboy]

Welcome to the wonderfull world of cable!
When I got my cable modem 2 years ago (I was
one of the fist in my area) my speeds were
crazy fast now that there are more poeple
sharing bandwidth my speeds are 800k to 1.5m
still not bad!
What is your speed? You can check here and
find some tweaks: http://msn.zdnet.com/partners/msn/bandwidth/speedtest.htm http://www.dslreports.com/tools http://www.speed411.com/updateisp3.asp http://www.speedtest.net/ http://www.computers4sure.com//speed.asp? http://webservices.cnet.com/bandwidth/ http://www.2wire.com/services/bandwidth.asp http://www.pctuneup.com/

And for more tweaks: http://www.speedcorp.net/ http://www.speedguide.net/index.shtml http://www.cable-modems.org/ http://cable-dsl.home.att.net/
For security: http://grc.com/default.htm http://www.hackerwhacker.com/
https://onlinescanner.iss.net/ http://www.sdesign.com/securitytest/index.html
Hope you find these links usefull
Bsdboy

[daverme]

Thanks a mil, Bsdboy !!!

[Ironforge]

Also... there are some tweaks you can do to the registry that are mentioned on the sites he gave you..

One to look out for is the Internet Exploer tweak..

This will allow you to increase the amount of simultanious connections the browser can make..

I noticed some speed up when loading web pages because it downloads more of the text/images concurrently..

(tweak @ http://www.speedguide.net/index.shtml)

[daverme]

OK. Thanks.

[daverme]

I ran a coupla tests and the best I got was 287 Kbps, and that was direct from Cox to my PC. Bsdboy, where R U located? I'm in Fairfax County, VA, hard by Washington DC. I'm wondering if the population density here is overwhelming the Cox network. There was another post a coupla days ago from another guy in this area complaining of the service going into the tank. I'm gonna research tweaking and, if things don't improve, give Cox some grief. My plan was to put from three to five PCs through this one modem but if we can't get better than we're getting today, I'll have to rethink that.

[Bsdboy]

I'm in CT. on optonline (Cablevision).
What test gave you that speed?
Try this test http://www.dslreports.com/stest
Then you can check your results against
others in your area.Look for Speed test result archive near the bottom of the page
I hope it's just high
traffic causing your speed,just keep trying
at different times. I've seen speeds that
low at times.If a lot of people in your area
have cable you might be screwed until or if
your cable company increases capacity.
But hang in there these are peak hours here
on the east coast.

Best of luck!
Bsdboy




[This message has been edited by Bsdboy (edited 02-19-2001).]