Even Faster High Speed Internet! Things non-techies should know. (tech talk, can cause drowsiness)

Cablevision today announced it would be releasing super-fast internet, with 101mb download, 15mb upload capability.

Whoopdefuckingdoo.

Some people will be thrilled to death, and spend the 100 bucks a month to get this speed. Okay, now here's the next question, and all of you who think this new 100 megs a second is a boon to your existence, let me clue you in on a little secret that the broadband companies don't want you to know:

Your internet is only as fast as the site you're accessing.

That's right. If you go to Google, you'll get 300kbps. That's KILO, not MEGA. If you go to most web sites, the amount of speed you'll get is usually waaaaaay less than 1mb/sec. Unless the pipe, from every switch from that website to your computer, is processing at 100mb/sec, you're only getting whatever speed is the weakest link, and most of the time it's way less than 1meg a second.

So, before spending the 100 bucks a month for the fastest of the fast, just do yourself a favor. Go run some speed tests (testmy.net, dslreports.com) to find out how much of the bandwidth you're paying for you're actually getting. I can't tell you the amount of times I've heard, "Well, I'm getting 6 megs from Comcast, why is my service so slow?" Because the system is only as fast as the weakest link, and most of the time, the weak link is the providers themselves.

Think of it like this: If everybody has a size 100 pipe, and the website has a 10000 pipe, that means only 100 people can be accessing the site at the same time for 100 megs a second. 1000 people? 10 megs. 10000? 1 meg. And to top it off, most web sites limit the amount of bandwidth you can receive, which is usually around 300kbps.

All I'm saying is, if your service sucks now, it's 99.99% of the time because the provider you have sucks, not the amount of bandwidth you're paying for. I've fought with Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, Verizon FiOS, Clearwire, Hughes satellite, Embarq, and a whole lot of rinky-dink internet providers, so believe me when I tell you it's all about service, not size.