Sweedish woman has the fastest residential internet in the world?

[jaredogden]

I read that there is a 75 year old woman in Sweden who has a 40 Gbps internet connection... How is this possible? I read that her son set it up for her and is "an internet legend" in Sweden and set it up using fiber optics and some new modulation technique. I know that the explanation is probably very coplex but I am not too familiar with how information is transmitted through the internet and ISPs and what not.

Can anyone point me in the direction of where I could read about how it all works? I just find it fascinating and incredible to have such a blazing fast internet connection. I am at school right now and my download speed is 87 Mbps and upload is 71 Mbps according to speedtest.net and it's incredibly fast.. I wish I could have this connection at home... It's only about 25 Mbps there..

Will we have that kind of connection speeds in the US and will it be affordable for residents?

Thanks for your time

 

[JaredJames]

Possible to have those download speeds? Certainly.

Possible to utilise them? Not a chance.

You can have a connection as fast as you like, but it's the speed of the system you are taking off that determines what you get so far as downloads go along with the speed at which your hard drive can read / write data.

However, I am currently unaware of any residential technology that can provide those speeds.

You're going to need to post an article otherwise this is just another internet rumour.

 

[Futurama]

I do not believe that speed. Mostly because the fastest residential speed I have in my area is 6mbps download and 1mbps upload...

The United States, where I live, is so frustrating to me about internet speeds. Every major ISP I see sits on their *** and is not distributing faster speeds to consumers. I am a resident in Vermont and live in a suburban development. When only one ISP is able to reach my house and provide a decent speed, I feel angry.

There needs to be more competition at fairer speeds.
One solution I see is having a Broadband service provided right from the US government, with privacy rights to bear, that is able to provide to millions of citizens. The government has already spent vasts amount of cash on companies to reach broadband to every American @ 2mbps. What I have been seeing is many small towns with only dial-up suddenly being moved to fiber optic. So where do I stand? In a medium-small town with one ISP with no sign of improving speed?

 

[JaredJames]

I do not believe that speed. Mostly because the fastest residential speed I have in my area is 6mbps download and 1mbps upload...

As I understand it, UK and US speeds are quite low on average in comparison to other areas. I believe Asia has a lot of areas with exceptionally good private connection speeds averaging 50+mbps.

The UK is improving as they are now rolling out cable services giving up to 100mbps service.

There needs to be more competition at fairer speeds.

This is what spurred the UK on amongst other things - Virgin Media were the only ones providing the cable services and now BT and others are starting to set it up.

One solution I see is having a Broadband service provided right from the US government, with privacy rights to bear, that is able to provide to millions of citizens. The government has already spent vasts amount of cash on companies to reach broadband to every American @ 2mbps. What I have been seeing is many small towns with only dial-up suddenly being moved to fiber optic. So where do I stand? In a medium-small town with one ISP with no sign of improving speed?

Don't confuse providing ADSL - which is relatively simple if you have a phone line already installed - to cable services which give dedicated lines. Depending where you are, it can vary which is more cost effective.

 

[jaredogden]

Hey guys here is one if the websites that talks about the connection

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2007-07-19-swedish-woman-fast-internet_N.htm

 

[JaredJames]

Interesting, but still pointless.

These speeds aren't unrealistic and are certainly achievable (as I state above), the problem is that if no one else has the capability then it's pointless.

She may be able to get a full movie in 2 seconds, but if the place she's taking it from can only supply it in 30 minutes then all the other available 'power' is wasted and pointless.

This isn't to mention the other factors I brought up such as HD read/write etc.

EDIT: Could I get another pointless in there?

 

[jaredogden]

Yeah you're definitely right. I didn't even think about that. I guess for some reason I was thinking that information was already uploaded and waiting to be downloaded.

That makes perfect sense though. If you can download something at even 90 Gbps but its only being uploaded at 10 Mbps there is a ton of speed being wasted.

Is that what you were saying?

 

[JaredJames]

I didn't even think about that. I guess for some reason I was thinking that information was already uploaded and waiting to be downloaded.

Well strictly speaking, it generally is. It's only when you go to P2P connections that it isn't.

The majority is on a server somewhere and you download it from there. Between that servers upload speed and your download speed you get the maximum download speed (which ever is smaller).

That makes perfect sense though. If you can download something at even 90 Gbps but its only being uploaded at 10 Mbps there is a ton of speed being wasted.

Is that what you were saying?

Precisely.

Note that her effective download speed would be ~4gbps. As a general rule of thumb, whatever the line speed is you can download at 10% of that.

If you have a 10mbps line you can download a file at ~1mbps.

 

[jaredogden]

I guess that explains why the article says it would take ~2 seconds to download an HD movie I was wondering how that math worked out. That makes more sense now.

So what is the 40 Gbps representing?

Edit: I guess I could learn to quote my bad..

 

[caffenta]

Note that her effective download speed would be ~4gbps. As a general rule of thumb, whatever the line speed is you can download at 10% of that.

If you have a 10mbps line you can download a file at ~1mbps.

Are you sure you're not mixing bits and bytes? Obviously, if your speed is 40 gigabits per second, your download speed in bytes will be about 10% of that.

Fiber connection is not like ADSL where the quoted speed is not really realistic. I have fiber service quoted as 100Mbps up/down, and every time I test the speed, I get 94Mbps down, 85Mbps up. Download speeds from a good source are consistently in the 11-12 megabytes/sec range. It depends where I'm downloading from of course.

I actually had to buy a new router when I switched to fiber, because the old one couldn't handle the higher speed, even though it was technically a 10/100Mbps router.

 

[JaredJames]

Are you sure you're not mixing bits and bytes? Obviously, if your speed is 40 gigabits per second, your download speed in bytes will be about 10% of that.

So your download speed is ~10% of the number advertised. Bits and bytes, I wasn't aware of a distinction between the two in this case, but it explains things.

In fact, on checking I note a recent addition to the Virgin Media site to identify the difference (although sneaky if you ask me - they show Mb and MB but don't ID the difference in them).

Fiber connection is not like ADSL where the quoted speed is not really realistic. I have fiber service quoted as 100Mbps up/down, and every time I test the speed, I get 94Mbps down, 85Mbps up. Download speeds from a good source are consistently in the 11-12 megabytes/sec range. It depends where I'm downloading from of course.

I have a fibre optic cable line. So far as speed goes, whether fibre optic or ADSL, it's numbers are the same - you get 10% of what's advertised as download speed.

 

[thorium1010]

I have a fibre optic cable line. So far as speed goes, whether fibre optic or ADSL, it's numbers are the same - you get 10% of what's advertised as download speed.

I am not sure here but isn,t one BYTE = 8 bits, do not know if it applies to connection speed

The byte (pronounced /ˈbaɪt/), is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications, that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, a byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer[1][2] and it is for this reason the basic addressable element in many computer architectures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte"

 

[JaredJames]

I am not sure here but isn,t one BYTE = 8 bits, do not know if it applies to connection speed

See caffenta's post above. He's clarified this.

For the record, I'm well aware of what a bit and a byte is. It's just that I've never seen a company actively advertise them as both being used on line speeds.

In fact, only today have I noted virgin media have Mb and MB on their page and don't distinguish the difference.

Your average joe isn't going to flag this difference - false advertising?

 

[thorium1010]

See caffenta's post above. He's clarified this.

For the record, I'm well aware of what a bit and a byte is. It's just that I've never seen a company actively advertise them as both being used on line speeds.

In fact, only today have I noted virgin media have Mb and MB on their page and don't distinguish the difference.

Your average joe isn't going to flag this difference - false advertising?

well its true that companies do not put their actual speed on the page or do not distinguish between them. ITs always nice to advertise the bigger no. (Mb wise).so a 40 Mbps connection would actually be a 5 MBps .

 

[caffenta]

See caffenta's post above. He's clarified this.

For the record, I'm well aware of what a bit and a byte is. It's just that I've never seen a company actively advertise them as both being used on line speeds.

In fact, only today have I noted virgin media have Mb and MB on their page and don't distinguish the difference.

Your average joe isn't going to flag this difference - false advertising?

Download/upload speeds (bandwidth) are always given in bits per second. It would actually be wrong to give actual data download/upload speeds in bytes/sec. Data payload is not the only thing that comes through the line. Each layer in the network infrastructure adds its own overhead, from Ethernet frames, optional PPPoE/PPP authentification, IP packets, TCP/UDP packets, to HTTP/FTP/whatever protocol. Not to mention all the stuff that goes on in the background in parallel to the downloading of data. It's not just 8 bits/bytes of downloaded data, as illustrated here:

It's not false advertising at all. And since everybody advertises the same, it does not really make a difference. A 1Gbps pipe is more-or-less 10 times better than a 100Mbps pipe, whether in bits or bytes.

 

[caffenta]

I have a fibre optic cable line. So far as speed goes, whether fibre optic or ADSL, it's numbers are the same - you get 10% of what's advertised as download speed.

With ADSL, you usually don't even get the advertised speed in bits/sec because they advertise the maximum theoretical speed. But the actual speed depends on the distance from the station, quality of the line, etc. With fiber, you should get the advertised speed in bits/sec, unless the network is overloaded.

What's the speed of fiber in the UK? I'm just curious.

 

[JaredJames]

It's not false advertising at all.

Joe Public doesn't know the difference between Mb and MB. They only know what a MB is in most cases. So when they see 10Mbps, they take it as what they know (10MBps).

Under any other circumstances I'd say tough and that the public ignorance is no excuse. However, they are trying to sell something and in a way that I see as exploiting the misunderstanding.

What they are advertising may be ok, but the way they go about it is not.

And since everybody advertises the same, it does not really make a difference.

Everybody doing it the same does not make it ok. They should make it clear what you are getting (as VM have just done on their site).

A 1Gbps pipe is more-or-less 10 times better than a 100Mbps pipe, whether in bits or bytes.

Agreed, but those figures don't mean much when all people care about is download speed.

With ADSL, you usually don't even get the advertised speed in bits/sec because they advertise the maximum theoretical speed. But the actual speed depends on the distance from the station, quality of the line, etc. With fiber, you should get the advertised speed in bits/sec, unless the network is overloaded.

What's the speed of fiber in the UK? I'm just curious.

10 to 100Mbps.

Wrt ADSL, I meant you get 10% of the actual line speed, not the advertised.

 

[GatorTPK]

Thanks for the 10% Clarification

Wrt ADSL, I meant you get 10% of the actual line speed, not the advertised.

Thank you for clarifying that. I think that confused a lot of people. It brought up the discussion of Mbps and MB/s (Megabits/second and MegaBytes/second). For storage medium and RAM, we still use the 8 bit word. So this means 8 bits = 1 Byte. (Though modern computers use 64 bit words in the CPU).

Also, connection speed doesn't matter how it's represented, Mbps, MB/s, CDs per hour, etc. I've noticed that what ever connection I have, I usually get about 90% of the advertised connection speed. I have the unusual VDSL setup now, so my single twisted pair can handle about 37 Mbps at about 800 meters. And I seem to get that speed, with 3 HD channels, 1 SD channel and 18 Mbps Internet. That would suggest I've maxed out the line speed to 100%. I know this isn't the case. Originally the equipment testing the line three years ago tested it at 37 Mbps, and it has obviously been upgraded at the other end. Although, I'm quite sure I'm getting close to 50% of the theoretical line speed in this case of VDSL2 (which should be around 60-75 Mbps at 800 meters).

I've noticed that many other connections of all types (all serial though), whether it be USB, FireWire, Ethernet, I've noticed that the real world (max) speed generally tends to be about 50% of the theoretical max. Though, I've noticed with newer USB, I get 70% speed and with FireWire I get 75% speed. (Though once I saw 117 MB/s (936Mbps) sustained on FireWire 800!? It should only be 100 MB/s or 800Mbps at 100% theoretical speed.)

Is this, 10% of line speed being the actual real world speed, an old rule on Ethernet connections?

 

[benny61]

No expert on networking here, but do ISP's not throttle our internet connections?

I know they say up to 50mb/s etc but in reality you never get that, and even if you were in the data center they wouldn't allow you to pass their internet connection speed anyway, otherwise we'd all be abusing them!?