Thursday, December 07, 2006

Intel® Broadband Speed Test

Intel® Broadband Speed Test is fun to look at to see how fast things are moving on your internet pipe.

Mine is running at about 1.3 Mbps right now. That seems pretty fast to me, and it might be even faster if I wasn't using a wireless connection.

Fast is all relative though. I could be surfing the web in Japan, where they have DSL running between 8 and 12 Mbps, with some places getting up to 26 Mbps. Those guys can be doing stuff on the web 20 times faster than me.

Japan built up their infrastructure with more fiber optic cables and have shorter copper runs to the switches. Maybe someday us North Americans can get that done. It seems really wrong that we are lagging in that area (not to mention the other areas the U.S. has started to sluff off on...like education).

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That Intel® page has a "time to download a file" calculator too.

I calculated it would take 242 hours 43 minutes and 33 seconds to download the World of Warcraft :: 10-DAY FREE DEMO using a 28.8 Kbps modem. It shrinks to 13 hours 39 minutes and 12 seconds for a DSL 512 Kbps connection.

That WOW file is pretty big at just about 3 gigs. It's probably for the best that I gave up on downloading it, the last thing I need is something to keep me glued to a screen more hours of the day.

If you are a serious gamer you probably need to check out the new Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor Overview. The ad copy says the Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor (with quad core) has -

"Extreme dominance built-in. You've battled your enemies in this world and beyond, but never like this. With an Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor, you'll have the best desktop PC experiences for years to come. Bar none....

Let them challenge you and let the annihilation begin."
heh heh heh...Yeah - Take that my online foe. I will dominate and annihilate you, while I sit in my recliner eating delicious snacks and drinking sugary carbonated beverages. I just hope you aren't one of those lucky people in Japan who have the 20X internet speed advantage.

If you've been a good boy or girl you might want to see if Santa will bring you one of Intel's Holiday Special Offers on New PCs.