What a great start to the week, for those of you that attended the Unsion Fibre Launches in Napier and Hastings this week. Good breakfast, great presentations and heaps of chatter about the possibilities in the cloud.
Thought I would Start blogging about what you can do with it , Unison Fibre (or a big phat pipe of data & speed).
With out reinventing the wheel I found this on the net , after a search with Google i found this:
from: http://www.broadband.co.uk/guides/beginners/page3/ in the UK so actual speed may well be different.
When we're talking about Internet connection speeds, things can be really confusing! For a start, Internet transfer speeds are measured in kilobits per second and megabits per second, and those are not the same as the kilobytes and megabytes we use when we're talking about hard disks and files.
Let's not worry about the numbers. What matters is how they apply to the kinds of things you'll do on the Internet. Here's a table to make it simple:
So you can see that an entry level 512K broadband Internet connection is around ten times faster than a 56K dial-up Internet connection, , allowing you to view web pages with barely any noticeable delay, whereas with an 8Mb broadband connection, you could watch TV quality video over the web!
Any of the broadband speeds will be perfectly good for viewing the majority of web pages - having to wait a second or two for a page to load is perfectly acceptable - unless you're going for a world speed-reading record, that is!
But the Internet is so much more than just pages of text and a few images: what about music, video, animations, games and all the other stuff that makes the Internet so much fun?
Consider the download time for a typical 5-minute pop song - around one and a half minutes with a 512K connection. The time it takes to download is less than the time it takes the song to play. What this means in practice is that your computer will be able to play the song while it downloads. We call this streaming - the sound 'streams' to your computer fast enough that it can be played as it arrives, without all that waiting around.
Streaming also applies to video. You'll find that many web sites allow you to watch video, even live video, without having to wait around for more than a few seconds for it to start. In many cases video is offered in two or more different sizes or at different qualities - so that you can choose the one that plays best with your connection speed. Having a faster connection means you can watch the video at a larger size and better quality.
And what about gaming? Well, it depends on the type of game. For those of us who want to play a little backgammon or a card game on a wet afternoon, any kind of broadband connection will work fine.
If however you're one of those people who want to take on the world at Counter-Strike or Doom 3, or connect your XBox to the Internet, you may want to consider going for the fastest connection you can practically afford: playing first-person shooters is one of the most demanding ways to use a broadband internet connection. But don't worry too much - most providers will allow you to upgrade to a faster connection at any time (you'll just pay a higher monthly charge).
Rule of Thumb: Here is a summary of our recommendations:
Thought I would Start blogging about what you can do with it , Unison Fibre (or a big phat pipe of data & speed).
With out reinventing the wheel I found this on the net , after a search with Google i found this:
from: http://www.broadband.co.uk/guides/beginners/page3/ in the UK so actual speed may well be different.
How fast is a big phat pipe compared to 256k Telecom ADSL?
Broadband Speeds
256K? 1.5Mb? What do the numbers mean? What speed do I need?When we're talking about Internet connection speeds, things can be really confusing! For a start, Internet transfer speeds are measured in kilobits per second and megabits per second, and those are not the same as the kilobytes and megabytes we use when we're talking about hard disks and files.
Let's not worry about the numbers. What matters is how they apply to the kinds of things you'll do on the Internet. Here's a table to make it simple:
| Internet Connection Speed | Time to load a typical web page* | Time to download a typical 5-minute song** | Streaming Video Quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| 56K dial-up modem | 14 sec | 12 min 30 sec | |
| 256K ADSL1 Telecom Wholesale | 3 sec | 3 min | Low Quality |
| 512K broadband | 1.6 sec | 1 min 30 sec | |
| 1Mb broadband | 0.8 sec | 41 sec | |
| 2Mb broadband | 0.4 sec | 20 sec | Medium Quality |
| 4Mb broadband | 0.1 sec | 5 sec | |
| 6Mb broadband | Instantaneous | 3.5 sec | |
| 8Mb broadband | Instantaneous | 2.5 sec | TV Quality |
| Note: all figures are approximate and represent best-case download speeds. Actually speeds will generally be lower. * Assumes a typical web page is 100 kilobytes of data. ** Assuming a typical song is a 5 megabyte MP3 file. | |||
Any of the broadband speeds will be perfectly good for viewing the majority of web pages - having to wait a second or two for a page to load is perfectly acceptable - unless you're going for a world speed-reading record, that is!
But the Internet is so much more than just pages of text and a few images: what about music, video, animations, games and all the other stuff that makes the Internet so much fun?
Consider the download time for a typical 5-minute pop song - around one and a half minutes with a 512K connection. The time it takes to download is less than the time it takes the song to play. What this means in practice is that your computer will be able to play the song while it downloads. We call this streaming - the sound 'streams' to your computer fast enough that it can be played as it arrives, without all that waiting around.
Streaming also applies to video. You'll find that many web sites allow you to watch video, even live video, without having to wait around for more than a few seconds for it to start. In many cases video is offered in two or more different sizes or at different qualities - so that you can choose the one that plays best with your connection speed. Having a faster connection means you can watch the video at a larger size and better quality.
And what about gaming? Well, it depends on the type of game. For those of us who want to play a little backgammon or a card game on a wet afternoon, any kind of broadband connection will work fine.
If however you're one of those people who want to take on the world at Counter-Strike or Doom 3, or connect your XBox to the Internet, you may want to consider going for the fastest connection you can practically afford: playing first-person shooters is one of the most demanding ways to use a broadband internet connection. But don't worry too much - most providers will allow you to upgrade to a faster connection at any time (you'll just pay a higher monthly charge).
Rule of Thumb: Here is a summary of our recommendations:
- The Best All-Rounder - For the majority of Internet users, a 1Mb deal will offer the best balance between price and performance.
- Entry-Level - (256K or 512K) doesn't offer the performance you'll need to be able to get the best out of streaming audio and video. Of course, if you only use the Internet to read web pages and send email, a slower connection may be adequate.
- Heavy or Shared Usage - A faster connection (2Mb or faster) is probably worth considering if you intend to play a lot of games, or if you intend to share the Internet connection between more than two or three computers at home or in the office. A connection at the higher end of the scale (4Mb upward) will allow you to take advantage of newer trends - such as video and music on demand or Digital Broadband Internet TV.
