alright so i just moved off campus and am here for the summer. i've been testing connection speeds for my cable connection provided through fidelity and i'm getting like 400+ kbits up. now for what we pay for (~$30) we are supposed to be getting 256 so that seems like a good deal. however, after talking with a friend from STL, he is getting 1.2+ mbits for about the same price through SBC. but SBC is not available in my area. i was wondering what you ppl off campus were getting as far as internet connections and prices and with which provider. thanks.

I was paying 40 for 512Kbit DSL through Sprint...but that also gets us a local phone. It was okay.

yeah i just stumbled on that, what kinda connection speeds were you actually getting though?

downloads would start pretty high...100KB/s..but then quickly go down to about 50 - 40 KB/s and stay there...sometimes going up to 60KB/s.

sorry, that's not what i meant. you ever do a broadband test? to see if you actually did get 512?

Do you actually trust those things? If you want to find out what speeds you're getting, just download something large from a fast site and check the rate after the download is about halfway through. This way your results won't be greatly influenced by large initial peaks, like most of the broadband tests I've seen.

Oh, and 512 kbps is 64 KBps. Remember 8 bits (b) per Byte (B).

right right, thx for the help. i am just wondering if i can expect more than 512 like i am currently getting more than 256 from fidelity.

Not normally. Aside from the initial spikes, my connection only exceeds the magic number every once and a while. They do offer a 1mb service if you really need more...

hmmmm, so that 512 they advertise......is that guaranteed or an average number?

It's a maximum sustained. They don't guarantee anything, but they will allow you to download upto 64 KBps...

The past few days I've been able to pull 60KB/s pretty consistantly on a 512kbps from Fidelity. I'm sure that will drastically go down when the semester starts up again though.

I had fidelity's 512 cable for about a year and a half (just moved out of my place this past friday), and I was able to get sustained dl speeds of about 60KB/sec even during the school year, so I don't think it will drop much if at all from what you are getting now.

Very good to hear. Thanks!

Just this week I went from fidelity dialup ($19.99) to sprint dsl 512k for a mere 5 dollars more per month

how are you getting that for $25?