rebrecs

Either somebody hardcoded a field somewhere - (hah hah) or the relationship between the new and the old is .... complicated<?>

Out with Suddenlink and in with Optimum. So far, so good. But can they keep it up? I surely hope so. I first found out Optimum was my new ISP ( was Suddenlink) when charges from somebody I did not recognize started hitting my bank. I told the bank that I had never heard of Optimum and please stop paying them until I can figure it out. Fortunately I did figure it out before my internet was cut off -- Has anyone other than myself noticed any improvement ? I certainly have. I have TestMy results dating back to 2019 that show the network speeds are still about the same. But, my experiences dealing with them- the service and support departments created when the companies merged have been remarkably improved. I had planned to cut and run when the first viable alternative became available. Now, I'm gonna stay, and give these new guys a chance.

I'm preparing to do something, but I'm not sure what, just yet. Until the fog lifts, I'm just asking questions. I would prefer to ask well formed questions, but I'm a long way from there. Apologies in advance. When SpeedTest is doing the "partial Logo thing," what is it doing ? I guess the better question is , what does Speed test put on my system, and where does it put it ? Does speedtest put any code on the Machine under test? Or just data chunks ? And the motivation fo all of that is - does the test data ever wind up on a disk (on the system under test) I wish I were a PHP expert, and an HTTP expert - so time consuming.... I admire those who are such experts.

This is a first for me - until now I had not heard of paying $$ for a place in line. At least not in the business world. I have seen it at ticketed events with long lines. That is to say, offering someone money for their place in line. It would be cool if Space X published the waiting list so we could know who to try to bribe. I was thinking about satellite network access recently so I'm glad to see you posted this. I want it for my truck and my camper trailer. I'm heading over to the Space X site now to get me a place in line. I'm really hoping someone wants to bribe me for it. $99 you say? I suppose when I get to like number three of four it could worth as much as ......

Background - for the last 3 years I have gotten what I'm paying for in terms of bandwidth from the ISP. During 2021 I have not. I need to do something about it. There are few things in life more distasteful than talking to Suddenlink. I will only do that as a last resort. Historically, 3 out of the 4 times I have started showing a slowdown, it has been my fault. Only once was it an actual suddenlink issue. I'm revealing that to make myself feel better about continuing to troubleshoot my computer instead of calling them. I have changed several things in this box and some of them have added heavyweight processes that can't be terminated. Microsoft has changed some things to. For years I never even heard of a program called SearchApp. I don't know exactly when it showed up but it is very heavy, and opens a lot of network connections. I suspect there is a correlation between that and low testMy results, but that is still to be proven. What I ^think I would like to do is measure what is coming out of my computer (Mbps or MBps) between my computer and the modem. I had a couple of ideas but that really is not my area, so - I thought I would post this here and chat with the heavies ! How would you do it ?

Naturally we cannot tell any big business not to do something. In fact, suggesting that some time be taken to think it through is characterized as unreasonable delays, not in keeping with the speed of business, etc. I'm sure you have heard it. I imagine somebody had to talk to somebody to get 4G off the ground. I would love to have the transcripts of those conversations. I suspect poking around on some .gov sites, I could probably find the "fit for the public's eyes" accounting of it. I can imagine myself as a government official facing a room full of lawyers representing Cell carriers wanting to do 4G. I believe I would say, "aren't you the same guys who were in here a month ago crying and screaming with contorted faces saying if you didn't get more bandwidth you couldn't keep the phones working? Well, you got it - but now you want to do what ? Compete with the ISPs for internet traffic?" So, why is 4G a good idea?

Hi, Microsoft Windows 10 on a fairly vanilla Desktop PC with all the usual suspects present. Mouse, keyboard, screen, several game controllers, huge speakers and that sort of thing. I would like to know how to work around the issue I described, BUT the problem sort of took care of itself, so my interest evaporated. Soon after I posted, I added a second display to the system. I put the automatic test over there where it can remain open, focused, and happy. And so can I. (using the other display) Although I am no longer concerned about it, I would like to sincerely thank you for trying to assist. Have a good'n. --John

Hi, It may seem I am requesting a primer on how windowing software works - and maybe that is true Automatic testing is a cool feature. But I cannot always maintain an open focused window for the browser. My system's window management provides for being able to "minimize" a window (as they call it). That leaves the window running, but tucks it away off the screen. But what else might it do? I don't have a clue, but I suspect a minimized window does not have focus. What is the truth of it? And what about screen savers? How do they affect the state of a window w.r.t "focus."

Hi CA3LE, Got my attention. More modern methods of communication I would not ask this of just anybody --but I believe it is in your interest to maintain hyper-awareness of web evolution. So, I will ask you. Where is it going CA3LE? What is the new "modern?" Without revealing any trade secrets, what sort of ideas and directions are you considering? Forums died They did? Again, you are in the web business. I am not. Thus, your opinion on that is interesting to me. Since I don't know that forums died, in fact, I consider them very useful, I suspect we are looking at it from opposite ends. Myself, as a consumer, and you, as a forum provider. Forums are still prolific. Can I assume your message, as a provider, is the return on your investment has faded ? Or you are getting the band back together and no longer have time for this stuff? These are positively motivated serious questions. I genuinely would like to know how you see business evolving/. --John

Hi, thanks for the links! I will definitely have a look. Also, I understand your unspoken guidance. (like, get out of the weeds dude :-)) All I really have to do is reveal that I thought about it and took a cursory look. I won't let it become a lifestyle. I promise.

Thank you! The only "knob" i can find to turn on "packet size" in the switch gear is "allow/ don't allow Jumbo Packets." I have not found any "settings" to influence packet size in the TV interfaces. I suspect there are knobs to turn on the boxes with full blown Operating Systems but they are not really the devices that concern me at the moment.

Hi, Looking for a good reference book on networking but, There are lots of networking books for sale, and mountains of research papers - all of which concentrate on some part of networking. I am not sure what part of networking might hold the answers to the questions I have. I'm hoping to limit my search by first asking here. Looking for - anything published that looks at bits and bytes in terms of 'work?' Perhaps some characterization of work versus overhead? I checked my test data csv file and our conversion here at TMN is pretty much a straight "divide by 8," which makes perfect sense; a byte is 8 bits all day long. Got it. I'm just going to ramble for a paragraph or so, and maybe someone will make sense of what I think I am asking; How much of the bit-stream on the wire constitutes a byte of actual data in the way a customer would think of their data? I believe that is a question about overhead. In my view, (as a customer) if I am going to move a 200 MB file, then in the simplest terms, and using networking byte representation, [200,000,000 bytes x 8 = 1,600,000,000 bits]. Without asking any more questions - I go away with the understanding that it takes 1.6 Gbits to move my 200 MBytes. But is that true ? (ignoring the silliness that networking byte math introduced) For discussion, and with no basis whatsoever for choosing the numbers, if in reality it takes 2 Gbits to move my 200 MBytes, then the overhead is introduced by what? I am going to guess it would come from the protocols, handshakes, CRCs, fields left blank -- I don't know, whatever protocols do. Since any bits or bytes that are purely overhead still consume bit cells, then they use time. So, do they get measured in a Mbps measurement? Or discarded/factored out? How do it all work? So that is the play pen I am going to jump into for a little while. In case there are any recommendations, thank you in advance. As well as recommendations to reference material, anyone "in-the-know" who can lay it out for me - please by all means - let me hold it.

I'm interested in this. And, no need to apologize. As far as one party screwing up what what the other one does, that is what they do. The people who elect them count on them to do that. I would love to talk about personal freedom and human rights but at the moment I really would like to hear about the open internet. I am actually writing something about that, so please - how is the open internet being taken away? (Sincere question) I can definitely use some ammo. thanks, --John

Got it. Equinix, naturally. As it turns out, there is a difference in both upload and download speed when selecting different mirrors. I had to run a LOT of tests to see it, but I withdraw my question.

Thanks SpenceTeeth. And I noticed CA3LE hit the "LIKE" button so I'm assuming ca3LE agrees with you. But dude(s), "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain?" (Wizard of Oz) Really? 23-3/4 hours per day I totally agree with "not to worry." The devices on this local net are all running well. But for the 15 minutes per day that I'm thinking about this stuff-- the result is either 1) erroneous, or 2) it reveals an upload limitation beyond what I currently know about. I suppose you could say, that's what I do "out of boredom." :-) But, that would not quite be true. That also raises several interesting questions. Beginning with, "what is the speed toll (if any) for packets handed off from one ISP to another?"

As part of today's testing, I ventured out into new territory by changing the mirror location. Until today, all single path testing has been done with the Dallas mirror server. After selecting all the various US based mirrors, an unexpected and perplexing story unfolded. Download: I get the same speed test results using any mirror in the US on download speed tests. Upload: On Upload speed tests, I get my ISP capped limit (40Mbps) from Houston to Dallas, and I get approximately 15Mbps consistently from Houston to any other mirror in the US. I have not tried the mirrors outside of the US. So, what's going on with that? There is the obvious factor-- latency, but why would latency only affect uploads? For completeness, I will ask the following questions as well; 1) "could I be operating the tests incorrectly?" 2) Is there something special about the Dallas mirror server? 3) Has this been seen before? Every day is a fun day ! Thanks in advance to anyone able to assist.

Having more experience now with TestMy, I realize the significance of the ISP is not as I had believed earlier. The ISP rank is formed by the tests the TestMy members (and guests) are running. My connection to suddenlink, for example, (aka suddenrage) is pretty fast so I can drive the Suddenlink rank up by running a bunch of download tests. I can watch it change because it updates very quickly, unlike the member rank tab on the suddenlink page which updates, seemingly, only by special request. Again, the ISP rank is a result of whatever people are doing at the moment. Thus the results should be treated that way.

Hi @mudmanc4, I would have to read a couple of books or go take a course just to understand what you just asked me. So, no. Time permitting, I may. I have often read manuals where Port Forwarding settings are identified. They tell me what do do, were I to desire to forward a port. However, I have yet to find anything that tells me why I would want to do such a thing, or what the typical (or intended) use of it is. Just curious, sidebar: off topic, what do you have on your head in that picture?

400 down, 40 up

Alternatively, run my switches in L3 mode

I don't know. I'm not certain that is going to reveal what I'm looking for, but it could still be interesting. I think it depends on what the so called router does with the traffic. If all of the traffic is sent to the ISP's routers to determine what to do with it, then the test result may be of interest. All of the hardwired ports on that box are bridged. It has one port named the modem port which is an actual gateway port. It should send local traffic to the local bridge but that is not a guarantee. I'm no routing expert, but the 192 addresses are assigned the local bridge interface, but the 129 address gateway is 0.0.0.0 which points to a suddenlink server. Which one wins ? I have been in situations before when suddenlink was down and things on the local net could not see each other. Other times they could. I might pitch this thing and get a real router. Who knows. Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt Iface 47.219.80.1 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0 eth0 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 br0 47.219.80.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.252.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo 0.0.0.0 47.219.80.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

Ultimately, my purpose for testing, and the original reason I got involved with TestMy was/is in preparation for self-hosting one of my domains. My facility is combined residence/business. I pay the ISP the residential non-commercial rate. The domains are currently hosted at BlueHost. After reading about NAT, it seems that it may cause issues for my self hosted domain, Rather than try to itemize all the ways NAT would interfere, I decided to that getting on IPv6 would be a good idea. My ISP, which is Suddenlink/Altice, is silent about IPv6 on their site. I am (time permitting, and it takes a LOT of time) attempting to contact a human being at Suddenlink to ask them about it. Some time ago I asked them about getting a static IPv4 address from them - they won't do it. When I am able to ask my question regarding IPv6 support, I anticipate their response to be - we don't have it. If they cannot support IPv6 connections, I could get an IPv4 address some other way, and just start using it. (whether they like it or not) What would their NAT machinery do if a packet came in with an IPv4 address outside of the 192, 10 , 100 etc range of NAT-able addresses? It would have to honor it (forward it) .. right ?

I spent a lot of time getting Upload tests to run at the full ISP speed. Until I figured a out correction that got rid of the mid-var, my Uploads had terrible speed (5Mbps). This caused me to associate mid-var with bad speed. But look at this download test result graph. This time the mid-var works in my favor. I am referring to the upward bump in the middle.This test was run on a connection limited to 400 Mbps (ISP tiered cap). Although it is preceded by a downward bump, the downward bump never went under 400.

I have not yet been able to read anything about NAT without getting a foul taste in my mouth. Thanks for the info.