Thursday, December 15

speedy DSL? not necessarily

There's probably a word for the sound made when tapping my fingers atop a desk, waiting. My thumb is stationary, but the finger strumming becomes faster and faster as my impatience rises. I'm about to place a copy of "War and Peace" next to the computer, so that I'll have something to read while waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

As William-Bob said, network speed is dependent on a pantload* of factors (well, actually he didn't say "pantload" - that's my interpretation).
* Blogger's Spell Checker suggested the correct spelling of "pantload" is "ventilator".
My DSL connection - once speedy - gets slower and slower every day. I'm supposedly on the "DSL Pro Package" (1.5 to 3.0 Mbps down and 384 to 512 Kbps up), but when I tested this morning it clocked at:

74.3 kbps (08:45) CNet's Bandwidth Meter speed test
54.2 kbps (09:45)
35.3 KB/sec down and 53.1 KB/sec up (09:30) DSL Reports

Slower than dialup? - sadly, yes. Sure, I could call DSL support and complain, but there are problems:

1- it'll require that I be on the phone for at least 30 minutes (probably to an ESL operator named Bambi - reading from a prepared script, somewhere in India);

2- odds are they'll then tell me that they'll have to order another - local - test, which will (undoubtedly) show there's nothing wrong, and that it's all in my head. Oy, veh!

2 comments:

Jill said...

My wireless connection has been pretty slow lately, too, nevermind that whoever their backbone connection is didn't have spare parts for a couple days which made throughput 0 Kbps.

Today: 68.2 Kbps

Supposed to be 500-750 Kbps.

Maybe it's just all those holiday shoppers chewing up all the bandwidth.

William Bob said...

It's Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). As the days get shorter we get less exposure to light and it affects our moods. It may be having a similar effect on the network.

Or maybe all the SAD people are using internet porn to cheer them up, and that is overwhelming a network link in your chain.

(This comment brought to you by the word "wutlsouk".)