Download speed
Seriously, I remember having 56k Modem roughly 10-12 years back, downloading with 5-10 kbyte/s. Now rates of 2-4 MByte/s have become normal for me. The IT industry is amazing.
(No particular reason for this topic, just got LAN over house-power network yesterday. I didn't even know that was possible, but it works like a charm - stick network adapter thingy into socket, stick LAN-cable into adapter, done).
(No particular reason for this topic, just got LAN over house-power network yesterday. I didn't even know that was possible, but it works like a charm - stick network adapter thingy into socket, stick LAN-cable into adapter, done).
... however many web sites still require you to wait for loading them. Isn't it amazing? :D
Yep, apparently the bottleneck isn't just pure download/upload speed - but I really don't know very much about networking and stuff (about time I did something about that, actually), so I don't know what it is. Server processing power? For something like youtube maybe, but for smaller websites, especially ones with mostly static content? Well, I guess establishing the connection itself isn't something that happens immediately either...
It seems like the complexity of websites increases disproportionately to the increase in download speed for the average person.
I think one of the major bottlenecks in web browsing is resolving the address ("finding" the server). There's quite a few signals that have to travel a serious distance for that.
Popular websites have their locations cached at your provider, making them load much faster.
Popular websites have their locations cached at your provider, making them load much faster.
But there's also a local DNS cache stored on the computer itself, so the lookup isn't as expensive as it would be otherwise. Caching on the ISP's side just speeds up the first lookup, while subsequent calls are referenced from the cache.
... at least, I think this is the case. Otherwise, the Windows command
... at least, I think this is the case. Otherwise, the Windows command
ipconfig /flushdns wouldn't make any sense.
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I disagree with all hanst99 because I have a BT Home Hub2, and it's shit, the wireless connection breaks 10 times a day and I have to wait for most websites to load
I don't think your connection being bad has anything to do with what you're disagreeing with.
If the DNS lookup is a bottleneck, you should check out namebench http://code.google.com/p/namebench/ It will allow you to benchmark a list of different DNS servers, and then you can choose the one that has the quickest response time. Greatly speeds up browsing in some situations.
| but for smaller websites, especially ones with mostly static content? |
One contributing factor could be the use of a hosting provider that has oversold their space or is just plain slow. Another thing could be stuff like images that haven't been properly compressed.
For bigger websites, stuff like loading Flash and other plug-ins contribute to slow loading as well.
@hanst99's thread starter
yes I know but it still has a long way go to. One thing I can't believe is that internet providers can't get the upload speed they provide to match the download speed they provide. I await the day when we'll have Gigabits/sec to Tetrabits/sec of both download and upload speed or when a movie can be downloaded or uploaded in literally a second.
yes I know but it still has a long way go to. One thing I can't believe is that internet providers can't get the upload speed they provide to match the download speed they provide. I await the day when we'll have Gigabits/sec to Tetrabits/sec of both download and upload speed or when a movie can be downloaded or uploaded in literally a second.
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Until you can copy locally a movie in a second there is no way that you can do it trough network, hard disks are just too slow.
@science man: internet for regular users is optimized for receiving, because that's 99% of their traffic. By sacrificing upload speed, download speed is improved.
Also, I don't think we'll have Terabit/sec downloads any time soon, mostly because it's not really that useful at this point. I think the future of "downloading movies" is streaming, and with current BluRay quality you only need a few MB/sec.
Secondly, internet speed still has a fixed overhead caused by the distance between the sender and the receiver. Even with the best hardware imaginable, you're still limited by the speed of light. Since every type of traffic needs a few signals back and forth, this fixed cost can ramp up easily.
And, obviously, internet speed is not the only possible bottleneck. Current SSD drives don't even reach 1GB/sec copying, as far as I know.
Also, I don't think we'll have Terabit/sec downloads any time soon, mostly because it's not really that useful at this point. I think the future of "downloading movies" is streaming, and with current BluRay quality you only need a few MB/sec.
Secondly, internet speed still has a fixed overhead caused by the distance between the sender and the receiver. Even with the best hardware imaginable, you're still limited by the speed of light. Since every type of traffic needs a few signals back and forth, this fixed cost can ramp up easily.
And, obviously, internet speed is not the only possible bottleneck. Current SSD drives don't even reach 1GB/sec copying, as far as I know.
@Gaminic
That's right I forgot about the speed of light. lol But even then it's just a matter of how much can be transmitted at the speed of light at once. And about the transfer rate of SSD drives. I know what you mean. I've been for USB 4.0 to come out ever since I heard about it which was from a few months ago to a year ago. (can't really remember) As far as what I think there goal should be, well let put it this way. If I agree that USB transfer rate should be much faster than internet download speed (which is the way it currently is) and think internet download speed should be at least a terabit, that give you an idea of how fast I think USB transfer rate should be. Also about upload speed, I figured you say that because that was the reason. (that it's more common to download than upload) Yeah ok, you got me there, but what do you mean by it needs to be scrificed? Why?
That's right I forgot about the speed of light. lol But even then it's just a matter of how much can be transmitted at the speed of light at once. And about the transfer rate of SSD drives. I know what you mean. I've been for USB 4.0 to come out ever since I heard about it which was from a few months ago to a year ago. (can't really remember) As far as what I think there goal should be, well let put it this way. If I agree that USB transfer rate should be much faster than internet download speed (which is the way it currently is) and think internet download speed should be at least a terabit, that give you an idea of how fast I think USB transfer rate should be. Also about upload speed, I figured you say that because that was the reason. (that it's more common to download than upload) Yeah ok, you got me there, but what do you mean by it needs to be scrificed? Why?
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