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Technology Stocks : InfoSpace (INSP): Where GNET went! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: yzfool who wrote (12626)	10/5/1999 1:44:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28311

With IQCharts running and about a dozen browser windows open, it shows that my line speed at the moment is 352.1 Kbps or 43.2 kbytes/sec. Like most of these tests, this one is close to accurate only when everything else that uses the line is shut down, and I don't want to do that right now. An even better test (subject to the same single-connection limitations) is available here: dslreports.com If you check the results, you'll often see cable modems in the list, so it's a good comparison of one-time speed tests. (This site has a number of other great features, by the way.) For a more meaningful number, I can turn to a nifty program called NetMedic. It tells me that the average speed of accessing a page on siliconinvestor.com is 98 kbps. The best-case speed is about 256 kbps after about 3500 hits. SI has a high worst-case delay among various sites I visit. The average delay is 1 second. The worst case is 6. (Which means either that my ISP has a poor connection or InterNAP isn't quite as nifty a technology as they claim.) I pay for a 256/256 up/down connection, but actually get 640/256 for various odd reasons. Because cable in its best case is faster than that, I still might switch when @home is finally available in my neighborhood. But cable is rarely in its best case. Although there's a possiblity of slowdown on both, cable modems are more likely to suffer performance degradation because of sharing. A friend who lives nearby in a neighborhood has been wired for @home tells me that his speed in the evening is about the same as mine. He can get optimum speeds that are much better than mine, but doesn't always get speeds that are even as good as what I get all the time. I've never seen a sharing slowdown, so that's one of the things I'll consider once I have the ability to choose one or the other. (I should also note that since I don't currently have a cable TV subscription, getting cable modem service would actually cost more than my current DSL connection.)

To: yzfool who wrote (12626)	10/6/1999 4:24:00 AM
From: RTev	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 28311

Speaking of the DSL-cable modem issues, Jesse Burst weighs in with this: Why DSL Will Win the Fast-Access Fight zdnet.com New advances in technology and availability are pushing DSL ahead. Dataquest predicts DSL sales will top 1 million units this year and will shoot up to 9.8 million by 2003, compared to the projected 5.3 million cable modem sales that year. -- In another thread I often read, many would say that a Burst prediction is an excellent contrarian indicator. The article does at least crystallize the issues we've already mentioned here.