What Is Considered "high Speed" Broadband

[yochana]

I am a medical transcriptionist and many job offers require "high speed internet only." So how fast would this be? I only have wireless in my area by Blueb ird Broadband Service and I run anywhere from 1600 kbps to 512 kbps. This would not really be considered "high speed" would it?

[zalternate]

Well the FCC has made the new official number of 4Mbps for high speed.

You could consider 1.5Mbps to be the basement of new age high speed(Canadas high speed description. And Europe is looking at 2Mbps as the bottom), and video's should 'hopefully' run without buffering.

But if you are transferring files back and forth, part of the high speed would be your upload speeds. Many wireline ISP's have about 800Kbps as the top upload speed. But some ISP's keep uploads around 300Kbps.

The other thing to note is if the data transfer is 'encrypted', meaning the need to use a secure connection to transfer the data(this may not be the case for you). VPN(virtual private network) is the secure method and you need to make sure your ISP supports it, as it can slow down your connection a bit. And some ISP's will majorly slow down encrypted transfers, thinking they are filesharing.

Satellite Internet users find VPN to be really slow(if it works at all). I have read that people on Satellite doing transcription and getting upset when the something with the ISP fails and they lose their connection for a few days. And uploads on satellite are abouts 200Kbps and downloads are about's 1.2Mbps(on a good satellite).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_transcription

So the main thing is how many times does the ISP connection go down and for how long. And are there certain times that data transfer would be really slow, due to users on line. And making sure that the amount of data you are transferring is not over the CAP(gigabyte's allowed per month) of the system. Reliability is probably more what some of the companies are looking for.

[yochana]

Many thanks for such a thorough answer. The main problem is that transcription companies have transitioned to such huge software platforms it can even bog down an internet speed of 4 Mbps. Satellite and wireless usually cannot handle these big programs and the software will bog down and will not run. That's why I always try to hire on with a smaller company whose software is more compatible with slower internet speeds. My wireless cannot handle VPN either. I was on EZnet wireless owned by a local guy who really didnt have the means to keep the latest and best equipment. He just recently sold out to Bluebird. However, Bluebird gives us only 1 plan and that is their slowest one and they only guarantee 512 kbps download, 256 kbps upload, and 768 surf speed. I have been running tests and it runs anywhere from 2685 kbps but over the weekend it has been as slow as 443, 350, 174.

I think if one has telephone service they should be provided with DSL. BellSouth says because we are rural it is not profitable for them and they arent going to provide it. Cable will not provide service for the same reason.

I really appreciate your answer.

[savana]

Many thanks for such a thorough answer. The main problem is that transcription companies have transitioned to such huge software platforms it can even bog down an internet speed of 4 Mbps. Satellite and wireless usually cannot handle these big programs and the software will bog down and will not run. That's why I always try to hire on with a smaller company whose software is more compatible with slower internet speeds. My wireless cannot handle VPN either. I was on EZnet wireless owned by a local guy who really didnt have the means to keep the latest and best equipment. He just recently sold out to Bluebird. However, Bluebird gives us only 1 plan and that is their slowest one and they only guarantee 512 kbps download, 256 kbps upload, and 768 surf speed. I have been running tests and it runs anywhere from 2685 kbps but over the weekend it has been as slow as 443, 350, 174.

I think if one has telephone service they should be provided with DSL. BellSouth says because we are rural it is not profitable for them and they arent going to provide it. Cable will not provide service for the same reason.

I really appreciate your answer.

This is something which is really worth and this will be really helpful in getting more approach. But, you have really posted an information which is really helpful to understand.

[WeeHawky]

Many thanks for such a thorough answer. The main problem is that transcription companies have transitioned to such huge software platforms it can even bog down an internet speed of 4 Mbps. Satellite and wireless usually cannot handle these big programs and the software will bog down and will not run. That's why I always try to hire on with a smaller company whose software is more compatible with slower internet speeds. My wireless cannot handle VPN either. I was on EZnet wireless owned by a local guy who really didnt have the means to keep the latest and best equipment. He just recently sold out to Bluebird. However, Bluebird gives us only 1 plan and that is their slowest one and they only guarantee 512 kbps download, 256 kbps upload, and 768 surf speed. I have been running tests and it runs anywhere from 2685 kbps but over the weekend it has been as slow as 443, 350, 174.

I think if one has telephone service they should be provided with DSL. BellSouth says because we are rural it is not profitable for them and they arent going to provide it. Cable will not provide service for the same reason.

I really appreciate your answer.

I got a letter today saying Bluebird is available in my area now in the lower part of Camp County in Texas.

Is it really that bad to go as slow as 174 kbps ? Or is that KB/sec ? (Such as the conversion of 512 to about 63 KB/sec).