5 ms·

Now, let’s put these numbers into perspective. According to Ookla’s Net Index, the average speed for a country in Europe is around 12 Mb/second. That's partly

Now, let’s put these numbers into perspective. According to Ookla’s Net Index, the average speed for a country in Europe is around 12 Mb/second. That's partly because most people are happy with such speeds (or at least the speed/price ratio). At home I have a subscription with 120MBit/s downstream. Speed tests usually give 130MBit/s during daytime and 140MBit/s at night. Given that, 500MBit/s downstream is the very minimum one would expect from one of the leading Internet companies, probably located closely to one of speedtest.net's nodes.

retube 16y ago
Yeah. I was expecting multi-deca-gigabits at the very least.
- sorbus 16y ago
  The bandwidth each computer has access to is almost certainly not the entire bandwidth that Google gives its employees access to - if so, the per person bandwidth would be quite low. Of course, not being a Google employee, I wouldn't know for sure.
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    Why, exactly, would a consumer NIC be faster than 1Gbps? I'm sure the MV campus bandwidth consists of a ton of fiber directly to the core. They probably give everyone all the bandwidth they can stomach--no one could generate that much traffic, even if they wanted to.
  - dholowiski 16y ago
    Of course, the bandwidth is limited to gigabit (probably) to the desktop, or less if the OS/Hardware can't handle it. And I'm sure they limit bandwidth for users... imagine a PC infected with a virus, or bit torrent left running, if everyone had full gigabit upload speeds.
DufusM 16y ago
I suspect too that there just might have been a fast link between the google and speedtest datacenters, maybe because google earlier rented part of the other dc. A 3 ms ping looks like it must be from a bay area dc to SFO. They should really do an avg of times/bw to other speedtest nodes in US.
- tdmackey 16y ago
  It's not from a dc to the speedtest node; its from the campus. It wouldn't matter anyway. I work at Cisco and I have gigabit link to the core from my laptop. Problem is the speedtest nodes can't push the traffic fast enough to fill the pipe which is something I regularly do when working with campuses in MA and NC.
  - DufusM 16y ago
    Yeah, sounds possible. So do you see similar numbers from your campus to speedtest SFO as well?
kin 16y ago
that sounds like an awesome investment, what are you subscribed too?
- crocowhile 16y ago
  He must be from Northern Europe. Scandinavian countries have the best deals with internet connections. As for the numbers, I think 12Mbs is quite an overestimation of reality: http://www.speedtests.net/world/europe/ http://www.speedtests.net/world/europe/ In the UK the fastest one can go is with Virgin 50MB. Too bad then they force you to use their own cable modem which is a piece of shit.
  - patrickk 16y ago
    According to this, Virgin offer 100MB : http://www.broadband-tv-phone.com/virgin-media-cable-broadband.php http://www.broadband-tv-phone.com/virgin-media-cable-broadba... 100MB is also available in Ireland, through UPC: http://www.upc.ie/broadband/hundred/ http://www.upc.ie/broadband/hundred/ (monthly cost here is roughly double the UK price. Typical! Despite the recession, it's still rip-off republic.)
    - kin 16y ago
      big difference between MB and Mb but in any case I guess being in America I'm shafted when it comes to internet speeds.
      - patrickk 16y ago
        Oops, should have proof-read that... Here's something interesting - Hong Kong's got 1000Mbps, because the company is question is willing to swallow large losses for years to gain market share. Also mentioned is what it would require for the same to happen in the US - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/business/06digi.html?_r=2&ref=technology http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/business/06digi.html?_r=2&...
    - ZoFreX 16y ago
      Virgin 100mb is coming to my area soon :D The schedule for roll-outs across the UK is available here: http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf/100Mb-rollout-30111.pdf http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf/100Mb-r... BT are also bringing 100mb broadband in, at which speed I'm sure you'll be able to hit their ridiculously stingy monthly caps in mere minutes.
Locke1689 16y ago
More importantly, Google is one of the world's largest ISPs (practically Tier 1) and maybe the world's largest CDN. The speed of their Internet is quite obviously limited by Speedtest or some artificial limiting, not their lines.
- wmf 16y ago
  Google's offices wouldn't necessarily have as much bandwidth as their data centers. The real surprise here is that Google gives their offices massive connections (presumably to the GBone).
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    It's not that unlikely. Consider that the offices may have to push significant amounts of code/data back and forth between their offices and their data centers. You probably want to minimize the amount of developer time wasted.
    - GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
      Consider this question: Let us say the cost of an infrastructure at google HQ is X. X is the cost regardless of internet. Now let us say you have Y which is the price of an average inernet connection for google offices. Or you pay 4 * Y to get that connection. Ok lets make it 10 * Y. Whatever. The point is that if it makes your workers a bit more productive (5000 people?) lets say 3%. I think that 3% productivity on developers translates to WAY above the price of that connection.

retube 16y ago

Yeah. I was expecting multi-deca-gigabits at the very least.

sorbus 16y ago
The bandwidth each computer has access to is almost certainly not the entire bandwidth that Google gives its employees access to - if so, the per person bandwidth would be quite low. Of course, not being a Google employee, I wouldn't know for sure.
- Locke1689 16y ago
  Why, exactly, would a consumer NIC be faster than 1Gbps? I'm sure the MV campus bandwidth consists of a ton of fiber directly to the core. They probably give everyone all the bandwidth they can stomach--no one could generate that much traffic, even if they wanted to.
- dholowiski 16y ago
  Of course, the bandwidth is limited to gigabit (probably) to the desktop, or less if the OS/Hardware can't handle it. And I'm sure they limit bandwidth for users... imagine a PC infected with a virus, or bit torrent left running, if everyone had full gigabit upload speeds.

DufusM 16y ago

I suspect too that there just might have been a fast link between the google and speedtest datacenters, maybe because google earlier rented part of the other dc. A 3 ms ping looks like it must be from a bay area dc to SFO. They should really do an avg of times/bw to other speedtest nodes in US.

tdmackey 16y ago
It's not from a dc to the speedtest node; its from the campus. It wouldn't matter anyway. I work at Cisco and I have gigabit link to the core from my laptop. Problem is the speedtest nodes can't push the traffic fast enough to fill the pipe which is something I regularly do when working with campuses in MA and NC.
- DufusM 16y ago
  Yeah, sounds possible. So do you see similar numbers from your campus to speedtest SFO as well?

kin 16y ago

that sounds like an awesome investment, what are you subscribed too?

crocowhile 16y ago
He must be from Northern Europe. Scandinavian countries have the best deals with internet connections. As for the numbers, I think 12Mbs is quite an overestimation of reality: http://www.speedtests.net/world/europe/ http://www.speedtests.net/world/europe/ In the UK the fastest one can go is with Virgin 50MB. Too bad then they force you to use their own cable modem which is a piece of shit.
- patrickk 16y ago
  According to this, Virgin offer 100MB : http://www.broadband-tv-phone.com/virgin-media-cable-broadband.php http://www.broadband-tv-phone.com/virgin-media-cable-broadba... 100MB is also available in Ireland, through UPC: http://www.upc.ie/broadband/hundred/ http://www.upc.ie/broadband/hundred/ (monthly cost here is roughly double the UK price. Typical! Despite the recession, it's still rip-off republic.)
  - kin 16y ago
    big difference between MB and Mb but in any case I guess being in America I'm shafted when it comes to internet speeds.
    - patrickk 16y ago
      Oops, should have proof-read that... Here's something interesting - Hong Kong's got 1000Mbps, because the company is question is willing to swallow large losses for years to gain market share. Also mentioned is what it would require for the same to happen in the US - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/business/06digi.html?_r=2&ref=technology http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/business/06digi.html?_r=2&...
  - ZoFreX 16y ago
    Virgin 100mb is coming to my area soon :D The schedule for roll-outs across the UK is available here: http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf/100Mb-rollout-30111.pdf http://shop.virginmedia.com/content/dam/allyours/pdf/100Mb-r... BT are also bringing 100mb broadband in, at which speed I'm sure you'll be able to hit their ridiculously stingy monthly caps in mere minutes.

Locke1689 16y ago

More importantly, Google is one of the world's largest ISPs (practically Tier 1) and maybe the world's largest CDN. The speed of their Internet is quite obviously limited by Speedtest or some artificial limiting, not their lines.

wmf 16y ago
Google's offices wouldn't necessarily have as much bandwidth as their data centers. The real surprise here is that Google gives their offices massive connections (presumably to the GBone).
- Locke1689 16y ago
  It's not that unlikely. Consider that the offices may have to push significant amounts of code/data back and forth between their offices and their data centers. You probably want to minimize the amount of developer time wasted.
  - GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
    Consider this question: Let us say the cost of an infrastructure at google HQ is X. X is the cost regardless of internet. Now let us say you have Y which is the price of an average inernet connection for google offices. Or you pay 4 * Y to get that connection. Ok lets make it 10 * Y. Whatever. The point is that if it makes your workers a bit more productive (5000 people?) lets say 3%. I think that 3% productivity on developers translates to WAY above the price of that connection.