Guide on how to "Possibley" increase your bandwidth

I have heard of this phenomenon in the past, I think it was about unlocking the Cable Modems or something to that effect.

Good call though. Important stuff to consider indeed.

I believe I once heard unlocking a cable modem is illegal. Illegal or not, one bandwidth hog slows everyone else down thats just trying to get the speeds theyve paid for.

Don't kid yourself

Don't kid yourself, all it takes to slow people down is already regular procedure at companies like comcast. They way over sell bandwidth in areas so that if everyone subscribed in a small area were to actually use what they were promised, they wouldn't be able to. At that point, comcast would probobly find the person using the service the most in the area, (All within promised speeds mind you) and complain that they need to use it less or risk being terminated. It's the most redicilous crap i've ever heard of. The only reason these ****ers can get away with the stuff is that they have monopolies going on in the smaller areas. Bottom line is, we need more ISPs.

anyone have CableOne? in the Oklahoma areas?

there is only one cable internet isp in my area of my city

Thanks for the info, SixFootDuo. I never really gave it any consideration.

I have CableOne in North East Texas

Ya know, this is a sketchy subject at best... Something we need to consider is that not everybody can compare results apples to apples, even with the exact same hardware. Speaking about Comcast, which is my current provider.... Comcast's VOD (video on demand) requires an INTENSE amount of bandwidth to operate properly. What does their CABLE functionality have to do with the internet? Quite a bit actually. There are still a lot of cable internet providers still piping their bandwidth out to customers on 64-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) technology. Those who are rather tech savvy can read more about QAM its effect on the internet end product here. Comcast upgraded their whole network to 256-QAM last year I believe. Basically this allows them to move more bandwidth in a smaller timeframe (kinda reminiscent of the AMD vs. Intel argument "more work per clock cycle"). I guess what I am trying to get across is that the bandwidth is there. I have had my Comcast set up in many Metro areas, and now it is setup out in the country. I have ALWAYS been able to use my advertised speeds from them, even on their peak hours. Yes, cable internet is still shared technology... its much more efficient for Comcast to setup a bandwidth pool and let all of the users in that block of bandwidth share it. This works very well right now, considering there are not as many HEAVY users as there are the casual surfer right now. This will eventually change, however, with more streaming media and remote storage apps coming to the forefront. At this point the pre-calculated %-age of heavy bandwidth consumers will have to be tweaked.

Hardware does play an important role in getting the most out of your bandwidth also. If you are not running a DOCSIS 2.0 compliant modem, you may not get more than 4-5 mbps of downstream data to your PC. The router of course plays an important role here too... however if you are on a wired 100 mbps connection to your router, you WILL have access to all of the bandwidth that is available to you. The only place where you may start to lose speed is if you are fighting with a wireless router. I will have to argue with you about your choice to bash the Belkin Pre-N router here. I have owned one of them myself and found it to work at 100% with my internet connection. Of course with the semi-immature MIMO technology it employs, you have to buy the Belkin Pre-N desktop or notebook card to use all of the higher bandwidth functions it provides. I personally did not care for the Belkin router as the file transfer speeds were insufficient for my home wireless network (they were also GREATLY affected by my microwave ).

In the end I have settled on a Netgear WPNT834 Rangemax router for my daily use. I can get a solid 100 mbps wireless transfer between my laptop, my two servers, and my wife's computer with it. This actually averages out faster than a wired 100 mbps connection (as the most I can get out of a Cat5 connection is around 85 mbps sustained rate with the TCP overhead... )

If you really want to get the most out of your Broadband internet connection, make sure you have at least a DOCSIS 2.0 or higher compatible cable modem, and a decent router for your specs. Also download a program such as DR.TCP, or Cablenut to tweak your RWIN, TCP and other settings for maximum performance. The most helpful website I have found for Broadband tweaking and optimizing would have to be DSLREPORTS. There are thousands of helpful users there that can help get your connection sucking bandwidth out of your modem like theres no tomorrow.

Hope some of this helped anyone with questions. Drop me a PM if you need any more tips. I would be glad to assist!

I got Verizon FIOS 5meg down 2meg up for $35/month including taxes.

I had comcast before. It's F***ing expensive. $55 if you didn't have cable tv. Plus $2 rent of the modem, $3 franchise fee, $4 in taxes. They claimed it was a 6MB down 384kb up. I was only getting ~3500kbps down and ~300kbps up. Boooooo for comcast

Go research cable modem uncapping, ill do it for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncapping some more research will show you that while one person can get greater speeds, it does slow others connected down. I'm not defending the cable companies at all, high speed shouldnt be as expensive and underperforming as it is, but you made it sound like I was talking without knowledge,