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<\/a>Hauling Packets Through the Kestle Run<\/p><\/div>\n
See those numbers there?\u00a0 Yes, that’s about 5 megabit.\u00a0 That means around<\/em> 500 kilobytes per second.\u00a0 That means AROUND 10 minutes to download a CD image (and I do a fair amount of that, in my travels as a Linux-boot-CD loony).\u00a0 The only thing that’d been keeping me with Telus was the whole “They guarantee the speed you pay for” argument, which is all fine and good, unless the speed I PAY <\/em>for keeps being lowered<\/em>, with more and more restrictions about what I can and can’t do.<\/p>\n For comparison, here’s our Telus numbers. \nTwo or so years ago, without warning, and allegedly <\/em>for my own protection, Telus flipped a bit in their firewall that meant I could no longer run a mail or web server on their services without “going pro,” which meant suddenly paying double ($108\/mo) for highspeed at 2.5mbit per second.\u00a0 So that meant Telus was now literally TWICE as expensive for HALF the speed.\u00a0 That, and the whole Telus blocking the union<\/a> that serves them.\u00a0 Seriously people, th’hell?\u00a0 Won’t block kiddie porn or hate speech, but when a site shows photos and videos of people breaking the picket lines?\u00a0 Oh, suddenly Telus is The Deciderer about what I can and can’t get to on the internet.<\/p>\n After I moved the server up to the fabulous and freakishly service-oriented Fused Network folks, we backed off the Pro package and went back to “standard,” which was only $45\/mo again.\u00a0 Fair enough, we’re back where we started.\u00a0 Whatever, I’m not running a server any more.\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 Except that now, instead of the 200K\/sec I was used to, we seemed to be getting somewhere around 150K\/sec.\u00a0 Actually, it was consistently 159K\/s.\u00a0 Works out to about 1600 in the numbers show in the graphic up there.<\/p>\n Yeah, 1.6MBit.\u00a0 It was consistent, but consistently crappy.<\/p>\n After a few visits at homes in the area, and doing some testing of THEIR speeds, I found that people on Shaw were getting somewhere between 4500kbit and 7000kbit without paying any more than I was.\u00a0 And those numbers are all after the “honeymoon” phase with things like free first months, and free super-uber-duper speeds before they put you back to normal.<\/p>\n They lost me as a cel customer after six years because I got a “bare minimum” deal for Arwen and I to have two cel phones, and ended up having a $20\/mo deal that actually<\/em> cost $45, once I added the “extra features” that I suspect most users would consider standard.\u00a0 (Caller ID, Voicemail, and forwarding TO VOICEMAIL).\u00a0 I’m sorry, do you know ANYONE who has a cel phone, but only plans on calling OUT?\u00a0 If I had missed a call during that time (I was unemployed, and needed a cel so I could get out of the house instead of sit at home trying to come up with new ways to NOT <\/em><\/strong>just sleep all day), I probably wouldn’t be working where I am now.<\/p>\n And DAMN do I love working where I am now<\/a>.<\/p>\n and now, for our friends with highspeed and speakers, some music that makes me smile when I’m fighting the proverbial man.
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