dont tempt me so much ED. :D i have one hell of a slow internet connection most would cry. :( ... comes with prepaid dial up ..

My connection is a 10 Mbit/s optic fiber. And it's all mine, no neighbours to share it with. Also, the download/upload ratios aren't fixed: I can download at 999 kb/s and upload at 1 kb/sec or vice versa, as long at the sum is 10 mbit (which is actually a bit more than 1000 kb/sec).


However it seems to me that there is a bit of confusion here: it doesn't matter how fast your connection is, if your data gets through a slow node, it will be slowed down. Hence it's perfectly normal that:

Originally posted by Earthdog

Quote:

there are the sites that wont let me download at anything faster than 40kps but line conditions and the number of users downloading from a site must be taken into consideration.

If the site has been allocated only a small amount of bandwidth, you won't get anything more than what it can spare.

And also:
Originally posted by Crimsomblade

Quote:

with T1 through my phone line 725 mbps, from off to Ironworks forum main page takes about 15 seconds then from forum page to page another 5-6 seconds...

As Ziroc (bow to the King) pointed out, there is something wrong: your data must be passing through too many internet nodes before getting to you. To get to ironworks I must get through at least 30 nodes, and I can get my pages in 3-4 secs. Maybe the route of the data isn't your only problem. Do you experience such slowdowns on other sites as well?

When trying to connect to ironworks, my ping times out. Still IW works as fast as any other site.

I have ISDN shared with big number of people, but as the students are moving out for summer download speeds have rocketed up. While 10kps has been a standard rate through winter, you can see rates over 70kps now.