What kind of speed differance is there between 6Mb internet and 5Mb internet?

coolred

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 2001
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Time warner just stopped by and offered me a slightly better deal on cable and internet then I am currently getting with WOW. Wows cable was originally 4Mb's, but they recently upgraded it to 6Mb. Apparently time warner doesn't know this yet as they still think thier 5Mb internet is faster.

I can't say I noticed a big differance going from the 4 to 6 upgrade WOW gave me, so I doubt I will ntoice a hit going back to 5 with TW. Just wondering what others think?
 

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
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anything above 3 is all icing on the cake.
for getting pages and things, it is imperceptible. For downloading, it may be a little different, but only if you can find a server out there that can push a ton. Most times your connection will not be the bottleneck.
 

coolred

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 2001
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Thats what I figured. I download quite a bit, but like I said, I didn't see a huge jump when they upgraded from 4-6.


Now just gotta figure out if Noggin is one of thier digital channels. I think it is. Its my sons favorite cartoon channel, and if its digital then I need to get back to them and let them know I need another box. Any idea what time warner charges for a second cable box?
 

JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
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In regular use I do not notice any thing.

My Download jumped from 300KB/sec. to 600KB/sec.

:sun:
 

OmegaXero

Senior member
Apr 11, 2001
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I have TW with their 5 meg speed bump, with newsgroups I can max my connection all night long with ~590k/sec downloads. If you're getting more speed than that from WOW 6 meg then I'd stick with them unless TW offers a better deal, you can never have too much bandwidth.
 

coolred

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 2001
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Yeah time warner is gonna be about 9 bucks cheaper, well maybe less then that, since with them I will need 2 boxes instead of one. Where are you guys connecting to with those speeds? Is that just what you see during download. I did some speed tests, but got all kinds of differant results. Will try a download from somewhere.
 

coolred

Diamond Member
Nov 12, 2001
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Just did a 3.7MB download from download.com, peaked at 303KB/sec, pretty much was closer to 270 though, so not great compared to you guys, looks like the switch should be fine.
 

Hossenfeffer

Diamond Member
Jul 16, 2000
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$9/mo is definitely worth thinking about. That adds up quickly. Unless you do a ton of downloading and are maxing your connection, the added speed isn't going to mean as much to you as $108/yr.
 

jbritt1234

Senior member
Aug 20, 2002
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Ok, on the difference between 5 and 6 Meg Cable...

For example if you were downloading a 1 Gig file it would take roughly 27 minutes at full speed on a 5 Mbps line. If you moved to 6 Mbps, it would take about 22 minutes.

That's a pretty good speed increase, but it's not like it's a night and day difference.
 

OmegaXero

Senior member
Apr 11, 2001
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Depending on your location these two places offer some highly accurate speed test results:
chi.speakeasy.net
lax.speakeasy.net

The speeds I am referring to were achieved with the two links listed above and from newsgroup downloads (which will easily max just about any connection).