Archive for the 'bandwidth' Category

iPhone bandwidth: orders of magnitude

Published on November 17, 2009 in bandwidth. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

04112009175905[1]I did a bandwidth test the other day with the iPhone SpeedTest tool. I wanted to compare the speed using (standard) GPRS, using 3G and my own Wifi. The results were all a power of ten apart:

  • iPhone on Proximus GPRS: 35 kbps (download & upload)
  • iPhone on Proximus 3G: 350 kbps (download & upload)
  • iPhone via Wifi: 3500 kbps (download – upload is +- 300 kbps)

 

The real reason is that I wanted to see how fast I would wear out my Proximus data plan (200MB per month). The answer: with GPRS I would need more than 12 hours of continuous downloading, with 3G I could do it in less than 2 hours. So GPRS is pretty safe, it’s also easier on your battery, but you have to live with slow, pre-1996 modem-like performance. The latency – the time it takes to get your first byte after requesting a URL -  is easily 10 to 50 seconds. Not milliseconds, seconds!

As a side note: do not take a time-based data subscription, certainly not with the iPhone. My first post-iPhone Proximus invoice was 800,- euro, which is more than the price of my iPhone! When I contacted them about that, they immediately offered to reimburse it and advised me to switch to a size-based plan. I guess I was not the first one …

Seth’s bandwidth vs synchronicity graph: it’s a start

Published on August 5, 2009 in bandwidth, technology and Web2.0. Closed Tags: , , .

Seth Godin came up with a visualisation of ‘means of communication’: bandwidth vs sync(chronicity). He took a number of ‘old’ (postal mail, radio) and ‘new’ (blogs, Youtube and -of course- Twitter) technologies and ranked them on a 2D graph according to ‘quality’ (density or bandwidth) and ‘sync’ (speed of reaction).

Although it is an interesting way of visualizing things, and I consider Seth a very bright and creative guy, I am bothered by the fact that the graph is neither clear, correct nor complete.

Continue reading ‘Seth’s bandwidth vs synchronicity graph: it’s a start’

Don’t send me a video, send me a link

Published on January 29, 2009 in bandwidth, movie and Web2.0. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RgL2MKfWTo[/youtube]

I know, there are so many ‘funny’ videos you just have to share with your friends. So you send them an email. But for god’s sake, not with a 5MB movie in attachment! For all you know, he/she might not even be able to play that MOV/WMV/XVid movie anyway. Don’t send a movie, send a link!

WHY EMAILING VIDEOS IS BAD

  1. Email makes big files bigger
    Binary files (like videos) are encoded, or rather exploded, by your email program (Outlook/Hotmail/Gmail/…) as text-only Base64 MIME attachments. Your 5MB file is transformed into a 6.85MB text file before is sent. Email is a very inefficient way to share videos with several other people.
  2. You hurt the recipients
    Your email will have to be downloaded before the recipient can see it. If he is on a slow connection, this might mean 15 minutes of obnoxious delay before he can continue working, start receiving the emails that arrived after your ‘cute puppy’ movie. The movie, if it is not deleted, will add 5 MB of storage to the Inbox. If his Outlook/Exchange quota is 100MB (not uncommon on corporate email systems), you just ate 5% of all the place he has to store contracts, meeting reports and office gossip.
  3. You hurt yourself
    By sending a 5MB video, you force your email program to upload a 6.85 MB file to your mail server. If you’re on a basic DSL line, this will easily take up to 10 minutes, during which all your other Internet activity will go very slow. You also add a big chunk to your “Sent Items” folder, bringing you closer to your quota limit.
  4. You hurt the Internet
    All those forwarded videos make for a huge amount of unnecessary traffic that eats up bandwidth at ISPs and inspire them to keep prices high. Not that they needed the extra inspiration.
  5. It’s force-feeding-video, not video on demand
    You are forcing people to download the whole file before they can decide whether they want to see it now, or ever at all. Youtube and the other sites have a very easy-to-use ‘Send video link’ form that will give the receipient the link, with a screenshot and the description text. Then he/she can decide when, where, how and *IF* to watch the video.
    (Yes, this is less a problem with web-based mail like Gmail or Hotmail)

HOW TO FORWARD A VIDEO LINK

  1. public, popular movie
    Don’t think you’re the first one to have seen this movie. Chances are it’s featured on Youtube, Google Video, DailyMotion, Vimeo, in multiple versions (FR subtitles if that’s what you like), in a format everyone can view, available to send as just a link “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RgL2MKfWTo“. Less that 50 characters for a full 1:14 of hilarious time loss.
  2. private, ‘secret’ movie
    Even if you have a movie you recorded/made yourself and want to show only to a limited number of people (“OMG, Britney, you were, like, *so* drunk!!“), then upload it yourself to Youtube, Flickr or Vimeo, put a password on it and send link+ password to those recipients. It will be so much easier for everyone to forward that secret video that no one was supposed to see (“788 views just yesterday? How’s that possible?“).

We thank you.

Dag van de download

Published on December 18, 2007 in bandwidth and Belgium. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Dag Van De Download

Met deze actie willen wij een statement maken: stilstand is achteruitgang. De toestand op de Belgische markt dient te veranderen. De gebruikers willen van de datalimieten af, meer concurrentie en betere tarieven voor hun breedband-internet.
Dag van de download

Dit zijn de beste prijzen per GB in Belgie:
Breedband in Belgie: prijs per GB

En dit zijn de meest frappante gevallen van belachelijke data limieten:
Breedband in Belgie: volume rapst op