My Internet is faster than yours!

This is a geek post... if you're not a geek, stop reading (you won't be wowed like us geeks).

I've just thought of another good reason my job is amazing. I decided to download a 4GB linux iso today (OpenSuse 10.1 for those who care) and thought I'd use a Bit Torrent client. So I fired up Azureus and was very dissappointed for the first few minutes when my speed stayed at zero kbps. I walked away and cursed the Dalhousie packet shaper.

Then I came back. I was getting about 800KBps down and roughly 300KBps up! That's Kilobytes per second (not kilobits)! That's 1.5 hours for 4GB of data! Not bad for a torrent download.

Now I realize that isn't even 10Mbps (megabits this time), but it gets better with http downloads. I can get about 1500KBps (kilobytes per second) average from a good download site. The Eastlink speedtest reports about 77,000kbps (that's 75 megabit). It's almost like the Internet is my own personal LAN :)

I'd be interested in hearing how fast some of my friends' connections are who work for telcos (e.g. Aliant). Are they as fast? Maybe MBAs don't need as much bandwidth as us geeks :)

I better enjoy my speed for now.... I have to go home soon to Eastlink where speeds are capped at 10megabit :(