thinkn bout getting braudband

[Doom Machine]

never seen high speed before,only dialup available here but i'll be moving in a month to an area with cable.
i was thinking of getting comcast, $19 for 4 months "Comcast offers speed tiers of up to: 4.0 and 6.0 Mbps download speed (maximum upload speed of 384Kbps). "----is that good?

before i decide i wanted to get an idea if i would need it or not--about how long would it take to download a 50mb file with both 4 and 6Mps?....i assume download speeds arent actually that, like how 56k is actually only about 4 kps to download a file

also i saw a modem from D-link saying it has turbo-dox software bandwidth accelerator...how does that work? i assume its like one of those stupid compression programs or is it just a gimmick

 

[KarenMarie]

Are you sure that the price is not $19 per month for 4 months, then regular price? I have never seen that price offer before.

If I am correct, 4MB is consumer and 6MB is professional service. At least that is how comcast works in northern NJ. As far as the sppeds go, it is like anything else. depends on traffic, time of day and etc. I have never actually achieved 4MB down, but I am close enough to never quibble. Others I know get far above that on a regular basis. I have never gotten below 2.5MB though.

I don't know what tubro-dox is... probably a propriatary name for D-Link. If they are the same as the boosters on other brands, they will boost the speed between computers on the network, but not download speeds from the internet.

You should check out dslreports.com
they have a lot of info on all different types of speeds and have really nifty tools.

 

[Payton]

Umm, yes switch to broadband for a day or two and you'll never go back to dialup...

...and you'll hit yourself for not switching sooner

 

[Pulsar]

6MB isn't necessarily Business. Homeowners here in Michigan recently got upped to 6 down with no extra cost, and you can pay a bit extra and get even more than THAT.

Get the 4Mb, a 50 mega file will come down in a couple minutes and you'll be VERY happy.

 

[Crusty]

a few things

56k modem = 56 kbps = 56 kiloBITS per seconds
6mbps cable = 6 megaBITS per second

So when you say you can only download a file at around 4kBps, that's for kiloBYTES per second. There are 8 bits in a byte, so that is really 32 kiloBITS per second.

This applies to cable services too, a 6mbps connection really means that you can download on average a max of 750 kiloBYTES per second. If you get your maximum speeds you will be able to download a 50MB file in ~66seconds.