Lately I’ve been very unhappy with my cable modem provider, formerly Comcast and now Time Warner. I constantly have intermittent problems and I’m certain that my service is not running as fast as it should.
Thanks to a little software application by PC Magazine, I’m now certain that my hunch is actually correct.
To find out whether suspicions about slow browsing speeds are true and to report which ISP provides the best surfing bandwidth, PC Magazine created SurfSpeed, a free utility that tests actual page download speeds for ten of the most popular sites on the Web.
I highly recommend that you download and install this little app to see how your surfing compares to everyone else. It might also serve useful when complaining to your own provider about their crappy service.
I live in Australia and my ISP charges $64.95AU for a supposed 512/256 connection (the fastest I can get in my area) and I’m lucky to pull 12kb/s. This doesn’t seem so bad, but wait there’s more. My ISP is forever doing ‘maintenance’ which often leaves me with no internet for days. And then there’s the classic ‘bandwidth limit’ which is a whopping 5GB per month! I’ll have to buy some new hard drives so cause I’m filling them so fast… NOT! My friend was on a supposed cheaper plan with the same ISP and he had a colossal 500mb bandwidth, plus we was charged AND shaped for additional usage!
I hate my ISP . . .
well if you think your ISP is rubbish i have BT broardband and pay for a 8MB/s connection i am getting less that 10kb/s at the best of times THATS 8000x SLOWER THAN IT SOULD BE!!!
never ever have BT as your ISP
when i enquired to see why it was so slow it got a indian man in Calcutta Moaning on about nothing so i just HATE BT
I hate my internet provider. I pay the same ammount for a suckish 2MBPS connection when i can pay the same for a good 30MBPS connection. I AM SWITCHING TODAY! AS I AM TYPING THIS!
MY old provider gets overloaded in the evening and keeps DCing me from WOW. I cant host without MEGA LAGG in Warcraft 3 TFT and now I am DONE taking their sh%t.
AVOID HYPERNET AT ALL COSTS!
I definitely agree that my ISP sucks. I just moved from Norman, Oklahoma to a small town near my parents called Warren, Arkansas; and yes, it is in the freaking sticks. The only service I could get around here was dialup, so I bought a cheap little computer since I wanted something cheap & easy for a server once I found a better internet service. I definitely wasn’t going to install a dial-up modem on my gaming pc. It would be a shame!
So anywho; I went from a speed of around 15mb/s with Cox Digital to 26.4kb/s to at highest 28.8kb/s. Even with a new 56k modem with upgraded bios & turned settings, 28.8k is the highest even though the number is rated for 56k.
At this point, I’m considering just getting rid of everything and turning my attention to collecting stamps or something.. because I surely can’t do online gaming any more.