It's a bit different here but basically, there isn't anything else. There are what's called exchanges or hubs in most suburbs but sometimes one hub will supply multiple suburbs. These exchanges are usually jointly setup two big ISP's, Telstra or Optus but sometimes only one of them. The biggest ISP, Telstra, which used to be the government run telco oversee the lines, so no matter who you go with they have to come out whenever there is a change in the line or testing the line. Then whatever ISP you are with (or the provider's service they are reselling) will come out and actually enable your line and test your connection. Problem is that most of the good ISP's (not the two big ones) don't have a lot of their own infrastructure so in place re-sell one of the big two ISP's connections. In my area the exchange is in a neighboring suburb and only Optus have available ports. So my ISP is selling me a plan that is really a re-bundled optus connection. This means that any work on the line itself is done by Telstra, who then let Optus know to test my actual connection, who then report back to Internode, my provider. It's a head fuck. There is Telstra cable available nearby but not close enough and the deals aren't that great anyway. The other option is Telstra 4G, which is new, but the plans only go up to 20GB a month and are fairly expensive for that. Telstra never offer decent plans until they are forced to by competition. Not to mention the poor ping that comes with wireless. Fun story isn't it? Haha if you actually read that then congrats. Basically, I'm waiting for fiber, or hopefully move somewhere closer to an exchange soon.
I will have a 4g plan available, or metro wifi or whatever... but all those low orbit thingys are SO far away from their main server that the ping is just gonna be ATROCIOUS. At least that's how I think it works... that's how it works with satellite and when you tether phones anyway... (I think)
I think that's how it still works, if you're too far away your ping is really shitty while your bandwidth is still fairly good. Ping is never as good as wired but in certain locations with 4G I think it might be acceptable for gaming now. It should really only be a consideration if you have no other high speed option, like me. It's not an option though as I use at least 80GB a month currently, with more of top of that being unmetred with my current ISP that would then be counted with the new ISP (steam downloads and traffic, ITV viewing).
I ran the ping test and it automatically switched me to a Dallas TX server even though it's 150 miles farther away than Bixby OK. So I ran my speed test again with the Dallas server and the ping did improve without any adverse affects to my download speed. Apparently, Bixby OK has a crapy infrastructure.
If I had some of the pathetic internet connections I see here, I'd jump out a window and slit my throat on the way down. This is mine on Wifi, I usually hit about 50-100% more wired depending on the time of day.
My download and latency are better. And latency is the most important thing for gaming. Just like girth is more important than length when it comes to your junk. Comcast has the 105Mbit available in my area, so the connection is pretty damn fast even on the lower tiers. I agree with Supersonic though. If I had some of your internet connections, I would probably climb in the bathtub with a toaster. Not to sound like a snob, but 4Mbit was awesome...in 2002.
In 2002 I upgraded from 56k that couldn't even get me 4KB/s downloads to 512Kb which got me up to 58KB/s. Damn was I happy. It's all relative... although today's internet is pretty much impossible to even use on those sorts of speeds.
My dad got DSL in 2000 when he built his house. His whole house is wired for ethernet with jacks in every room, which is pretty damn nice. My mom finally got it in 2002. Bellsouth was slow to get DSL working in PGA National for some reason. Not sure why. Back then 1.5Mbit was fast. Modern internet is pretty much unusable on anything below 3Mbit.
With adblock it's not so bad. But more and more site's are purposely "excluding" those with slower connections. I noticed recently that Game Trailers has a buffer limit where it only buffers 15 seconds worth and then states the buffer is full. When I'm sharing the net with someone else this means I have to pause to re-buffer every 1min or so with 720p videos. Before I'd just open it and pause to let the whole thing download or at least get far enough to know it will keep up. I can't see the reasoning behind this... well, I guess they're trying to stop people who just view the page for comments or quit the video shortly after starting it wasting their BW on downloading the entire video.
Hmm... not sure when I started using DSL but it musta' been somewhere around 2001. It musta' been around 2mb-4mb I just know I pioneered FIOS in like 2007... but 2009 I was banished to my current digs in the boonies at (at first) 768k, upgraded to 3mb a few years ago. I'm waiting for the paperwork for the new hose and will (eventually) get either 16mb DSL or 20mb Xfinity. I had trouble streeming HD content at 768k (400k throughput) but otherwise it wasn't bad. I didn't frequent any flash heavy sites though. This was actually my black period when talking about internet lol I hardly used it. Maybe looked up a FAQ or two for my current game on gamefaqs or streamed an anime on Hulu (SD OFC) let me tell you SD was quite sufficient for that. I upgraded when I got up the 'pride' to sub to Netflix and my first STEAM SALE!!! (Seriously that was a disaster I am STILL paying for! Actually about $1500 should buy you everything in their big sales! Just FYI). I never figured adblock out just always used Google and 400k is really alright barring large d/ls (say over 50mb if you got LOTS of patience) and you'll have to skip on HD streaming (and one SD stream, mlb.com, that I found...). 1.5mb may be with HD content and I really didn't frequent any sluggish forums with slow code. The pvc.com site was always awsome with that. When I went to MLB.com I always used the old school design. That site could choke a bleemin' donkey! PHPBB sites tested my patience but I got TONS of that seeing I'm mostly at home not working anyway. Not even getting INTO the default mlb forum code, I still don't use it, it's GHASTLY
I ended up going with Comcast, basically Xfinity but seriously doubt it's fiber (fibrous??) it doesn't use an external box like my fios did (damnit I coulda saved the instalation fee too...). Anyway the tech left it on speakeasy where they gave me 13/ 4... I never trust the Tech :3. Went to Speedtest and using my trusty LA server got this horrendous mark I than tried a closer server (same city as the star that marks my isp!!) and got a WILDLY different answer, when I started I accidently clicked this one this is why I HATE Cable it's so inconsistant. and I guess testing in LA is out of the question :/ at least it's equal or better than my old connection, at pretty much all times
Xfinity is fiber to the node, not fiber to the premises like FIOs. Different servers will give you different results. There's nothing unusual about that. The LA server is probably overloaded, hence the poor result. I could test my connection using a server in New York City or LA and probably get an equally poor result. It doesn't mean my connection is slow. I get 30 to 35 Mbit in torrents and when I download from Steam. Also, 20Mbit is much better and more useful than 3Mbit. I don't understand why you're complaining. You now have a modern internet connection where you were previously stuck in the dark ages.
I just picked up the prepaid Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE hotspot. I'm planning on using it for vacation. Anyway, here's my test with it. It's a crying shame that they cap the data at 10gb.