D***Z:
Jason,

Let me know if you have a few minutes to check out my notebook (I brought it in). I’m continuing to have issues when with my softphone, email and SSA. The phone cuts in and out, Outlook will load my emails about 1 in 10 times (the other times it tries to load for about 10 min then asks for a password) and SSA is excruciatingly slow… then crashes.

Here is the info I have figured out so far:
-using a bandwidth test I am getting between 700-800 Kbps on this notebook (either plugged in or wireless, same range comes up). I unplugged my router and plugged it directly into my apartment’s source (I thought there might be signal degradation) and got the same results.
-I have a second notebook and doing the same bandwidth test I am getting results of 105-110 Mbps.

I’m not sure why I am getting tests that are 125x faster, but I’m guessing that could be the problem. Of course, I’m not very smart, so it could be a totally different issue as well.

Thanks

D***Z

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Jason:

How much are you paying for your internet access?

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D***Z:

$30 or $40 from RCN

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Jason:

wow. 40 a month for a 100 meg connection?

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D***Z:

Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either. Initially I thought the issue was I just needed to pay another $10 a month for their upgraded service. But that same personal notebook keeps giving me 100+Meg results. The meter is on 2Wire’s site and has been pretty good in the past.

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Jason:
Sorry let me put this in our terms:
You currently cannot get a 105-110mb connection in this country (Some places in Europe and East Asia have it good though). The fastest I’ve seen is FTTH or FIOS at a screaming 50mb (so they can download a file at a theoretical 6400KB/sec).
Downloading at 800kb/sec means you can grab a file at a theoretical 100KB/sec which is plenty fast to work from home.
You should be more worried about latency. Think of the internet as a highway:
Bandwidth is how many lanes the road has – the more lanes there are the more cars can fit on the road
Latency is how fast the cars can drive – if the “speed limit” is 50mph and there are 50 lanes of traffic, it’ll still take you an hour to travel 50miles

You may be still connecting over a wireless interface. I suggest disabling the wireless and testing again. Ethernet *should* take precedence over wireless, but that’s not always the case. As far as the other system reading such high numbers – I’m not quite sure what to make of that. Although, if I could find some 100mb/sec internet for $50 a month, I’d definitely jump all over that.

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D***Z:

Thanks for braking that down.

So I’m guessing the results on the 100 Mbps notebook are terribly tainted and full of poop. That works (and gives me a probable solution).

My notebook has a wireless button that I used when I did my wired and wireless checks, so the 700 Kbps speed should be OK. If latency is the issue, do I have any solutions (besides get a new notebook, I hate that option)?