Hi TallPockets,

There's an important difference between response time and bandwidth. Imagine this: a sports car is much faster in getting you from Atlanta to Boston than a 18-wheeler. But to carry over 10,000 boxes of chocolate, you'd have to travel the distance many times using that sports car, while the 18 wheeler can do it in one haul.
The sports car has the fastest response time, the 18-wheeler has the largest bandwidth. It may take the 18 wheeler more time to get from Atlanta to Boston, but when it arrives, it arrives with a tremendous payload.

When talking about Internet speeds, most people are talking about bandwidth, and forget about the response time. For downloading large files, bandwidth is important. But for online games response time is important.
Do not underestimate the bandwidth of a truck loaded with DVDs! It is much more than the bandwidth of any cable, DSL, satellite, or even fiber connection. Not very usable for Web browsing, I agree.

A satellite can deliver a good bandwidth (total bandwidth of a typical satellite is something like 40 Gb/sec) but has a slow response time. DIRECWAY apparently cuts down your bandwidth to 1 MB (or 8 Mbit) per second, but they can't do anything about the delay that occurs due to the distance the signal has to travel.

As for the speed of web sites, there are several factors. How fast is the site's connection with the Internet backbone? The bandwidth of that connection has to be shared with all simultaneous users. How fast and efficient is the computer that runs the web site, and how well is the server programmed? And most of all, how busy is the site? All these factors play into the speed of the site.

Oh, about video streams: those are designed to download at a certain speed. The speed is set by the stream. No matter how fast your connection, a video stream that's built to download at 100 k/sec will download at 100k/sec. As it should, else it would play too fast!

And I forgot to say why a satellite connection has a slow response time. It's because your request has to travel up to the satellite (36,000 kms), down to the central dish at DIRECWAY (another 36,000 km), then do the 'normal' travel over the Internet backbone (fast), and travel back to you via satellite, (another two trips of 36,000 km). That's 144,000 km of travel for the satellite track alone. Since electronic signals travel at the speed of light, 300,000 km/sec, you will have a delay of at least 0.5 seconds due to the satellite track alone.

This delay is no problem at all when watching TV or Internet video streams. But when you have two-way traffic, as in browsing web sites, you'll feel the delays.

DSL works over terrestrial phone lines. The same kind of signal could easily be sent over coaxial cable or even satellite, but AFAIK it is not being done.

And that modem thingy: the satellite dish is nothing more and nothing less than a specialized antenna. The signal coming from the dish has to be converted to a signal your PC understands. That's what the modem is doing. Cable, DSL and dialup also need modems to convert the signals. Dialup modems are often built into the computer, cable modems, DSL modems and satellite modems are usually separate boxes.

This thread has gone rather OT, hasn't it? (smile).

But its a 'good' kind of OT yes? G

Notwithstanding the technology behind the new format (that's transparent anyway) I have to say that I visited Renderosity more often than the other sites because it was so clear and to the point.

Now, before even reading the newest, interesting mails,  I have to....

Reset the listing to latest first, notice that the little star image (one day) will be a different colour, read about the author of the mail, when their last post was (who gives a toss?), what their chosen (meaningless) image is, I have to worry how many posts they've made (why??), when their birthday is, etc. All this in spaces within spaces, UNTIL!! There it is, the actual text! The bit that hasn't been repeated a million times, some new thought! The whole reason for the existance of the site. Sadly this is immediately followed by a thoughtful quote or banal remark, which I read the last 20 times the guy posted for GODS SAKE!

I realise that Renderosity now looks as crap as all the other forums and it'll never go back but it needs to be said that it's worse!

James

Soory about being tardy in replying but I've been away to Wales for an Easter Break.Missed my PC but got lots of inspiration from the beautiful Welsh hills and the wonderful spring overcoat she has put on.

I can see that after a long period with the site the way it was that you might be a bit annoyed at so many changes at once.I would have been the same if I'd bothered with the site and got used to the lay out but I've had to contend with other sites changing the way they operate and coping with change..something I would have thought creative types could cope with well.Being adaptive and open to change is surely the best way to develop if your work is not to stagnate.

I'm also a little annoyed at the age of 53 to be told that because I'd rather post in a forum set up this way,use an avatar and smileys that I'm childish..But maybe the lack of a signal such as body language or a facial expression has led me to misunderstand what was actually said..If it was meant tongue in cheek?If not I guess I should just put it down to artistic temperament I suppose?:unsure:

Good afternoon.:biggrin:

SVDL and ALL - MUCH thanks for the info! I'm SURE there are MANY others who will see/read this and 'learn'. Lord knows, If I can half-way understand it, THEY will! WINK. SVDL - You would make a GREAT teacher! My best to you and yours, T.P.

to be told that because I'd rather post in a forum set up this way,use an avatar and smileys that I'm childish.

Pffftt..dont worry about it....just because some dont like it..~shrugs~

The main thing is this...we all come to the forums for information and communication..we might not like the way the board looks or performs..but it 'does' work for what it was intended right?...we can post, and read the posts..I dont like some stuff myself..but I can deal with it..I adapt to change..If I couldn't I would be in a sad mess indeed...LOL

Quote - SVDL - You would make a GREAT teacher!

grin Teaching is my day job. I teach computer hardware, computer networks, and software engineering at a polytechnical. So I should be able to explain the concepts of bandwidth and response time, I wouldn't keep my job if I couldn't!

Thanks for the compliment!

Ohhhh...we know who to hit with the techy questions then hehehe! ;)

"No offense intended, but y'all asked for an edit box. We knew giving it to you would solve some problems and complaints only to create other problems and complaints. These edit boxes are always cumbersome. There's no getting around that. It takes huge amounts of Javascript to make one of these things work, work well, and work reasonably the same across multiple browser platforms."

No, I didn't ask for anything actually. All I require is to be able to read and post without having time to go and make a cup of tea and have a cigarette. Of course not everyone can ever be happy with every change. That's a given. But there are plenty of high traffic web sites that implemet forums far more elegantly. Ultimately what this means, from my perspective at least, is that I'm spending far less time here, due to what I consider to be a loss of functionality, not an improvement in it.