Lounge

I arrived back from NZ to find that my ISP was offering an upgrade from my 1.5Mbs (which was the fastest ADSL possible around here) to 8Mbs at the same price! Within a hour my line was upgraded and I was running.

The extra speed is really really nice, especially for things like opening large IMAP mailboxes, or watching really high-quality streaming video, or doing 5 big-bandwidth things at once. Video conferencing is smoother, web pages are snappier etc.

I'm probably a bit more of an internetaholic than most ... perhaps most people wouldn't notice the difference.

I have SBC (formerly Ameritech) DSL service here in Champaign-Urbana, and it's been rock solid. There's been only one major outage of about half a day in approximately three years, although it does occasionally go out for a couple of minutes late at night (system maintenance, most likely).

I gather that's not the case everywhere, however. You might want to check http://dslreports.com to see what SBC's record is like in Chicagoland.

I started out with their 768 kbps service, which they upgraded to the "384-1.5 Mbps" service for free a while back. I usually get well above 1 Mbps, so it's an honest description.

I didn't realize the price for the "1.5-3.0 Mbps" service had dropped that much. Now I want to upgrade.

If it were me, I'd definitely get the 3.0 Mbps service.

Usually the main difference among offers such as "pro" and "express" is the number of people who shares the same bandwidth. The higher the price, the lower should be the people allowed to use the bandwith, the most likely the possibility to get higher connection speed during high traffic working hours. 

Try to ask your provider this parameter then select the offer. Most probably the "pro" will become more appealing to you.

When I moved to Canada from the States, I found it best to ask around, particularly anyone who might be in your new neighborhood or condo/apartment complex. I was going to go with DSL but heard all sorts of negatives about DSL in the area and went with cable.  However, colleagues who live in another part of the city have just the opposite issues.

Once nice thing about cable is the ability to usually get a bundle deal with the cable TV service. Also, I don't know about other areas, but around here the DSL provider wants you to register the MAC address of your system or router while the cable company doesn't care. So it makes it easier to switch around systems and routers without constantly making phone calls or logging in to cancel one MAC and add the second MAC to your profile.

As to speed, I'm ready to go with the "Extreme" (Pro) as I have my Moodle server on my home so when I try to "download" from the server, I'm actually "uploading" at the slower speed.

Cheers,

Bob

It has been interesting to see the varying replies to an open-ended question. One must ask one's self what is the purpose of this connection. 

Is it for general / personal use where downloading is the criteria?
Is it for testing connection and speed response from given sources?
Are you hosting your server in tis environment?
Are you developing and uploading files continually to your server?

We all want the latest and greatest in terms of download.  Hey time is money, however if your role is for testing and evaluating resources and the speed in which students experience, then you really need to consider a lowest common denominator. If you are serious about the work you are doing, then you may also need two options / alternatives. I run both a Dial-up and an ADSL here - one for testing and the other for general work. 

Yes there is a cost involved, however it does ensure that the materials deployed are functional within the environment. In the end - if you have a slow delivery for the many that will connect using dialup, then you have a high probability that you will loose that student base.  On the flip side - those that have low speed ADSL will be served well and those with a high-speed connection, will consider your program the best thing since sliced bread.

I would be interested to know how many Moodle sites have surveyed their student base to see what their connection is.  Maybe this could be a part of the user registration page, as it is an indicator for the type of program delivery and the level of resources one will make available for the student base.  This is one area where I would consider those in say a dial-up area, creating a course where the resources are supplied on CD/DVD (CD preferred as this is the lowest common denominator at the moment) but in time this will change.

In reality we should be targeting our connection speed predominantly used by our student base, that way we are continually reminded of their experiences.

For developers - well as fast as you can get and for those hosting their server at home  - a synchronous connection 512Kbps min, otherwise your student base will soon get bored and move elsewhere. 

Just two more bits worth -

Cj