Speed on Evan Hoffman

Slow HTTP downloads through Cisco ASA 5500

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:15:20 +0000

Recently we noticed weird behavior downloading files from certain sites. The transfer would start out fast (around 10 MB/s), then after a couple of seconds it would plummet to around 9 KB/s. It didn’t happen for every file or every site: downloads from S3 buckets were still particularly fast. But some files that I remember being particularly fast were now showing this weird fast/slow/fast/slow behavior, for example the Sun JDK and ISOs from rit.edu that used to saturate our pipe were now getting all cRAzY.

Macbook Pro locks up with SSD installed.

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:04:54 +0000

A few weeks ago I switched from my trusty old HP nc8430 to a Macbook Pro (MC118LL/A) that was left spare when another employee left. I mostly enjoyed using Linux but I was tired of dealing with weird quirks like having X lock up, essentially forcing me to do a hard reboot.

To transition, I copied my documents from Linux to Mac, then turned off the Linux laptop. Surprisingly I found I didn’t need to turn Linux back on at all. Last week, I decided to put the final nail in Linux’s coffin by taking the SSD (Corsair CMFSSD-128GBG2D)out of it and putting it in my Macbook. The Macbook was pretty fast (Core 2 Duo @ 2.5 GHz) but some things were noticeably slower on its 7200RPM disk than on Linux with an SSD, especially running Windows VMs.

FCC Report shows Verizon much faster than Cablevision

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:14:18 +0000

The FCC recently conducted a study of some of the top broadband ISPs in the country and measured customers’ actual bandwidth as compared to what the ISPs advertised. FiOS really came out on top.

The report is available on the FCC site. The bottom line, though, is that Verizon FiOS averaged nearly 120% of advertised speed (i.e., more than was advertised) and Cablevision was between 50% and 75% of advertised speeds. Latency (ping) was also heavily in FiOS’s favor.

TP-Link TL-WR841ND v7 802.11n router, wireless dies after a few days

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:46:57 +0000

I mentioned in a previous post that I got the TP-Link TL-WR841ND 802.11n wifi router and it solved the speed problems I was noticing with wifi connections since going from FiOS to Cablevision. This seems to be the case still, however I’ve now had another problem with the TP router. Basically, wireless becomes unusable and the web UI becomes inaccessible. The SSID still shows up but I can’t get an IP address. When accessing it from the wired LAN via a browser, the connection times out - apparently whatever’s going on inside the router is also crashing its internal webserver.

Speed comparison: Optimum Boost vs Verizon FiOS

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:26:38 +0000

Optimum Boost advertises 30 Mbps down, 5 Mbps up. Here’s a speed test I just ran at Ookla’s SpeedTest.net:

(My desktop is plugged into the router, the router is plugged into the Arris cablemodem.)

Here’s one of the last speed tests I did with Verizon, on 2/15. I had the 25/15 internet package:

(Desktop was plugged into 8-port Linksys 100 Mbit switch, the switch was plugged into the FiOS/ActionTec router.)

FiOS speed 10 months later, better than ever.

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:44:48 +0000

I switched to FiOS in December, 2009, and I was pretty apprehensive, having been a Cablevision customer for many years. I really had no problem with Cablevision’s service, I just thought their pricing was much too high in the face of the new competition (and deals) Verizon was offering. I ended up going with Verizon due to their awesome deal, but now it’s almost a year later and I can’t imagine going back to Optimum. It’ll probably come down to price when the current promo pricing I have with Verizon ends, but if the price was equal then no contest - I’d stick with FiOS.