Check your upload speed first

You might want to double check your upload speed before placing an order for the new Meetinghouse Webcast hardware. The upload speed for many Comcast cable customers is only 384K and I'm sure there are other providers in this range as well. For example, DSL customers can only get their true advertised speeds if they are within a certain range of a Central Office, or a neighborhood DSL Gateway. Those outside that range may get considerably less. Unfortunately (in my case), it appears 384K will not be acceptable for the advised minimum meetinghouse upload streaming quality.

If you are unsure, you can check your upload speed using one of the many speed testing tools available on the Internet. Since most of our meetinghouse PC's have Java installed, I recommend using one of THESE Java based testers found on the DSLReports website.

(Hummm... I haven't checked yet if these tools are available using the different access levels of the Cisco firewall.)

I agree testing should be conducted, but the criteria needs to be clear.

It is definitely not clear whether the Meetinghouse Webcast bandwidth guidelines are in bits or bytes (usually designated by a lower or upper case "b", respectively). Your statement regarding Comcast upstream is also similarly unclear. The speakeasy speed test you referenced reports both ways if you look for the details. My home Comcast connection tested at 2Mbps (megabits/second) upstream. If your Comcast tested at 384K Bytes / second and the guidlines were in bits / second, then you would have plenty of bandwidth.

msdeason wrote:It is definitely not clear whether the Meetinghouse Webcast bandwidth guidelines are in bits or bytes (usually designated by a lower or upper case "b", respectively). Your statement regarding Comcast upstream is also similarly unclear. The speakeasy speed test you referenced reports both ways if you look for the details. My home Comcast connection tested at 2Mbps (megabits/second) upstream. If your Comcast tested at 384K Bytes / second and the guidlines were in bits / second, then you would have plenty of bandwidth.

I am pretty certain Mikerowaved is speaking in Kbps, or kilobits per second, since our CCN DSL upstream spead is 384 Kbps through AT&T. The downstream speed is 1536 Kpbs. And as he points out these are the maximum speeds available under ideal conditions. The actual speeds are significantly less.

msdeason wrote:I agree testing should be conducted, but the criteria needs to be clear.

It is definitely not clear whether the Meetinghouse Webcast bandwidth guidelines are in bits or bytes (usually designated by a lower or upper case "b", respectively). Your statement regarding Comcast upstream is also similarly unclear. The speakeasy speed test you referenced reports both ways if you look for the details. My home Comcast connection tested at 2Mbps (megabits/second) upstream. If your Comcast tested at 384K Bytes / second and the guidlines were in bits / second, then you would have plenty of bandwidth.

Yes, yes, I probably should have been more precise, and yes, you're also correct, the recommended speeds for the Meetinghouse Webcast project were similarly not explicitly defined in their table as either bps or Bps (although the FAQ is very clear its in bits per second), however, when dealing with Internet Service Providers, their throughput is always (AFAIK) advertised in raw terms, which is bits per second. Because of that, I've never seen any web devices requiring bandwidth that are rated in anything except bps.

Your UL speed of 2Mbps is marvelous. I know Comcast offers higher speeds as a premium in some areas. I've also heard of similar speeds at the base price in areas where FiOS may be a strong competitor, but this is probably not the case with many meethouse connections where 4M or 6M download and 384K upload is the norm for Comcast.

Mikerowaved wrote:Your UL speed of 2Mbps is marvelous. I know Comcast offers higher speeds as a premium in some areas. I've also heard of similar speeds at the base price in areas where FiOS may be a strong competitor, but this is probably not the case with many meethouse connections where 4M or 6M download and 384K upload is the norm for Comcast.

I've never heard of a Comcast "norm" that is as slow as 384kbps. My home connection just tested at 6717kbps down and 2567kbps up. However, we didn't go with Comcast for our meetinghouses because of the expensive installation costs, as well as higher monthly costs. So we went with the 1.5mbps down / 896kbps up DSL (those are rated speeds -- I still need to test the actual speeds).

Alan_Brown wrote:I've never heard of a Comcast "norm" that is as slow as 384kbps.

http://www.comcast.com/customers/faq/Fa ... hx?ID=2580

Alan_Brown wrote:My home connection just tested at 6717kbps down and 2567kbps up.

For the past 5 years I've been with Comcast, it's always been 384Kbps upload. I've uploaded over a TeraByte of stuff to my web and FTP server and I was painfully aware of it during each UL. (Some taking nearly a week to finish.) With that said, I also know that for the past couple of years, Comcast has been systematically increasing their UL / DL speeds throughout their customer base, starting in areas where FiOS has been strongly competing.

I just checked my speed this morning and saw it was approx 8M/1M. I know last Oct. it was still at 6M/384K, so sometime between then and now my area got bumped. Searching through Google, I see some as high as 16M/2M and others still at 6M/384K, so I guess it all comes down to your location.

Mikerowaved wrote:http://www.comcast.com/customers/faq/Fa ... hx?ID=2580


For the past 5 years I've been with Comcast, it's always been 384Kbps upload. I've uploaded over a TeraByte of stuff to my web and FTP server and I was painfully aware of it during each UL. (Some taking nearly a week to finish.) With that said, I also know that for the past couple of years, Comcast has been systematically increasing their UL / DL speeds throughout their customer base, starting in areas where FiOS has been strongly competing.

I just checked my speed this morning and saw it was approx 8M/1M. I know last Oct. it was still at 6M/384K, so sometime between then and now my area got bumped. Searching through Google, I see some as high as 16M/2M and others still at 6M/384K, so I guess it all comes down to your location.

My provider at home is also Comcast. I happened to glance at their news letter that arrived yesterday which announced improved download speeds and said...

Power-cycle your modem or reset your eMTA to receive double the download speeds!

My modem hadn't been power-cycled since early January. After doing so, I'm seeing 10.7Mbps/2.7Mbps.

I have found this site to be useful. It will keep a log of your tests in the past. It will also give you comparisons with other users in your area. http://www.speedtest.net/. After completing the test, it will show you your results. Scroll down a bit and look for the red "Close" in the Share column. Now you will begin to build your test log.