One of the issues with being a medical student is keeping your computer and Internet connection in good working order. During basic sciences, there are tons of streaming videos to watch. During clinics, there is online research that needs to be done from time to time (and occasional videos to watch on various medical procedures). Everyone has their provider of choice, and I'm using AT&T DSL here in Pearland. I have tried Comcast and AT&T U-Verse about a year ago and was less than satisfied. Comcast was slower because they throttled download speed of files, and U-Verse was unreliable (a new gateway was needed every couple of months because they kept failing).
Here in Pearland where I live, AT&T DSL has been the best up to now. However, I have been noticing more frequent outages (connection cycling) and decreased speed, particularly during the day. AT&T has a site: http://speedtest-hstntx.hstntx.sbcglobal.net/speedtest2/page3.html for Houston (for other cities, Google at&T speed test dsl) that theoretically tests the connection speed. For example, the results as I write this are ... your Throughput Download = 5.072 Mbps Upload = 598.26 kbps . When I actually download a file, I do not see anything remotely approaching 5 Mbps. The max download speed I have ever seen with DSL in Pearland over about 2 years is around 560 Kbps; the usual is more like 120 Kbps max.
Because today I was having a lot of issues browsing the Internet while studying (web pages not loading, loading very slowly, and download speeds of ~1.1 Kbps on files), I decided to contact AT&T tech support via chat. I did not have much luck at first. The techs on chat disconnected after their speed test web site reported good performance. Because I was experiencing Internet browsing and download problems with several sites, I decided I needed an application that tests actual download and browsing data speeds instead of providing a theoretical number. I obtained Cisco Speed Meter Pro and then called AT&T support over the phone. The tech stated that everything seems to be OK based on the speed test above, but referred me to higher level support after I stated that I had a network performance program that showed the throughput at various parts of the network and it showed an Internet connectivity problem after the router. I'm sure there are other programs out there, but this one seemted to have a lot of features and was not too expensive (~$40). So, I decided to compare the specifications for the service, the AT&T report results, and the results from Speed Meter Pro:
(Currently DSL appears to be operating normally)
AT&T Elite DSL Speed per the AT&T Web site advertisement as of today, 5/28/09
Downstream Up to 6.0 Mbps
Upstream Up to 768 Kbps
Per the AT&T speed test web site:
Download = 5.072 Mbps
Upload = 598.26 Kbps
Per the Cisco Speed Meter Pro v1.9052.0-Pure0:
Download = 551 Kbps
Upload = 73.5 Kbps
At the moment my Internet connectivity appears to be typical / normal. Earlier, when I was having problems (there was an outage issue, apparently), the download speed was reported in various downloads and other applications as ~400-1200 bytes / sec (yes, folks, "bytes") and this corresponded with Speed Meter Pro's results at the time of those problems. Upload speed was around 13.5 Kbps; I did not test upload the the time of the problems today.
The reason I went through this long explanation above is that until I obtained the Cisco Speed Meter Pro software, AT&T kept telling me that the problem was with my computer instead of their network (or just hanging up the chat conversations). It wasn't until I obtained the Speed Meter Pro software and told them what it was reporting what I actually observed in terms of download speed that they took me seriously enough to put me through to their 2nd tier of tech support in Los Angeles, etc., who finally confirmed that AT&T did indeed have a DSL outage in my area and that they were working to repair it. My connectivity is back, and thus I'm happy for the time being.
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