The need, the need for speed
Category None
It's been about 6 months since we switched from a T-1 line to a 10/10 fiber channel. Our hosting customers and websites are now limited mostly by disk I/O and SSL encoding/decoding and not bandwidth:
Note the time - 1:15 PM Central time, when a lot of the business world in this time zone checks email and starts surfing again.
The the same test from home, where I have RoadRunner Cable with the speed booster package du jour. As you can see the download speed is comparable but uploads are (predictably) throttled:
Now I ask - why is it that a company of my size has a fiber channel and major hotels and even some mid-sized businesses still limp by on T-1 or ASDL? I'll tell you why - on the corporate side, broadband contracts are notoriously penalizing, even while broadband technology expands every 6 months. The average length T-1 service contract is 3 years. And hotel IT departments with a few exceptions are notorious for providing the absolute minimum bandwidth and making massive profits on geeks who pay $10 US to $30 us for 24 hours of access. I have 7 times the capacity of most hotels I've stayed in - and could actually provide service to all six buildings in my complex if I so desired - for the same as I was paying for a T-1 just 5 years ago. And that's what I was paying for 128kbps ISDN when I started SNAPPS.
Times change - hotels and mid-sized companies need to make sure they keep up by pressuring broadband companies to provide expandable bandwidth. I can temporarily (for a month at a time, with 1 day's notice) burst to 100 or even !GB fiber if I want. You should be building that kind of flexibility into your connections.
It's been about 6 months since we switched from a T-1 line to a 10/10 fiber channel. Our hosting customers and websites are now limited mostly by disk I/O and SSL encoding/decoding and not bandwidth:
Note the time - 1:15 PM Central time, when a lot of the business world in this time zone checks email and starts surfing again.
The the same test from home, where I have RoadRunner Cable with the speed booster package du jour. As you can see the download speed is comparable but uploads are (predictably) throttled:
Now I ask - why is it that a company of my size has a fiber channel and major hotels and even some mid-sized businesses still limp by on T-1 or ASDL? I'll tell you why - on the corporate side, broadband contracts are notoriously penalizing, even while broadband technology expands every 6 months. The average length T-1 service contract is 3 years. And hotel IT departments with a few exceptions are notorious for providing the absolute minimum bandwidth and making massive profits on geeks who pay $10 US to $30 us for 24 hours of access. I have 7 times the capacity of most hotels I've stayed in - and could actually provide service to all six buildings in my complex if I so desired - for the same as I was paying for a T-1 just 5 years ago. And that's what I was paying for 128kbps ISDN when I started SNAPPS.
Times change - hotels and mid-sized companies need to make sure they keep up by pressuring broadband companies to provide expandable bandwidth. I can temporarily (for a month at a time, with 1 day's notice) burst to 100 or even !GB fiber if I want. You should be building that kind of flexibility into your connections.
Comments
Warren lives on top of a phone exchange, and gets 24mb...
Sigh.
Time to move to an urban area, methinks.
---* Bill
Posted by Wild Bill At 08:07:48 AM On 02/15/2008 | - Website - |
You jammy B*****D 2.5Mb !!!! You should try Donegal !!!
We still use carrier donkeys ... cos the An Post pigeons are too expensive that and they keep getting ate by Sparrrowhawks over Cardonagh.
Steve
Posted by Steve McDonagh At 08:50:23 AM On 02/15/2008 | - Website - |
Did this speed boost help external customers access Quickr?
Posted by Eric L At 11:42:32 AM On 02/18/2008 | - Website - |