While I never actually ran any performance tests on my cable line, according to comcast, I should have been getting about 1.5Mbps downstream and 128Kbps upstream. This is what they (claim to) throttle it to.

According to Earthlink, my speed is limited only by my distance from the CO. The speeds are not throttled back.

Having studied network theory, I know that there are a number of ways to get a true bandwidth measurement. I'm not a scientist though, so I just hit some webpages instead. So these results might be a little off. :)

The downstream varied from around 300Kbps to 1.2Mbps averaging around 750Kbps. That means the connection I get has dropped a hundred K or two.

But the real eye-popper was the upstream rate. It ranged from 130Kbps to _325Kbps_, averaging somewhere probably around _200Kbps_. That means that the connection you get should be about 56% faster on average (though you will probably only see it if you are on broadband yourself).

That's quite an increase, and worth braving dynamic IP numbers for. (Course, that huge pile of treasure might make it worth braving the red dragon's lair, but he might still have you for lunch.) Hopefully, it will all work out nicely.

---Michael Springer