Is That Fast?

TechBlog contributor and daring-stuntman Jim Thompson recently did a speed test of his TimeWarner Comcast cable-broadband service.

Faster Internet at the Pine Gulch Data Center - jimthompson.org

Luckily for Jim, he is enrolled via Earthlink so he doesn't have to deal with email address switching.

We received notice back on July 20th via email that we would soon be getting another email advising us it was time to convert email from the houston.rr.com domain to the Comcast one. We are still waiting for that one. I'm not too worried as I can't imagine too many folks are enrolled in Comcast broadband with our "real" Germanic surname. It remains pretty rare.

Anyway, earlier this week just past dinnertime, Alvis was on the couch firing up the laptop to do a final check of her social-networking sites. However the laptop was failing to grab an IP address for network connectivity. I did a quick refresh/renew and nothing. I checked the wiring and home router and saw that no WAN connectivity was flowing. So I checked downstream and looked at the cable modem. Only two lights were fluttering instead of the usual five to six. I reset it a few times but nothing.

Since the cable itself was working, I figured the Comcast network upgrade in our East Harris County area had began. (Or maybe it was just a storm-related interruption.) We eschewed technology for the rest of the night and just did some family reading time.

Next day the Tubes were flowing again and I thought nothing of it; until Jim's post that is.

Testing, Testing...

Jim posted his speed-test results yesterday:

Via Speedtest.net: 6317 kb/s download and 240 kb/s upload

Via Speakeasy: 6240 kb/s download and 241 kb/s upload

Jim seemed pretty happy with the results...although they seemed close to what we were getting here before.

TechBlog Captain Dwight Silverman got quite better results: (Note Jim and I are testing against the Dallas servers...Dwight journeyed to Oklahoma for his.)

Via Speedtest.net: 6675 kb/s download and 1790 kb/s upload

Via Speakeasy: 9514 kb/s download and 1742 kb/s upload

So I decided to check things out here at the Valca nodal point:

Last Night:

Via Speedtest.net: 8306 kb/s download and 1439 kb/s upload

Via Speakeasy: 15455 kb/s download and 2048 kb/s upload

I had to run the speakeasy one several times to be sure, but yep. That's what it consistently hit.

This Morning

So in composing this post I ran it again this morning.

Via Speedtest.net: 19168 kb/s download and 1519 kb/s upload

Via Speakeasy: 21828 kb/s download and 1959 kb/s upload

Great Green Gorilla Goop, Batman! The Joker must have dumped a ton of grease from the fry vat into the tubes out here near the Batcave!

I don't know if these speeds will hold up in the long-run or not...but this seems quite incredible to me. I can't help but keep running the test over and over again just to see the numbers come up. I've never been a gambler but is this what Slots players feel?

Might the Modem Model Help?

I also don't know if Jim has an "older" TimeWarner Comcast modem. If anyone doesn't, I would highly recommend taking the time and trouble to exchange the older ones out for a new one.

Our modem is just over a year old and was new out of the replacement box. At that time I was getting about 13344 kb/s download speed at peak with averages around the 5000-8000 kb/s range. So even though that was high, the new speed is significantly better.

I'm sure there are other factors at work as well here.

Simply amazing.

• SpeedTest.Net

• Speakeasy - Speed Test

And the crazy thing is I feel a bit guilty for it being that much higher over my respected friends' speeds.

--Claus