Our Organization uses Windows live messenger to connect clients at remote locations (children and their parents who are separated by distance). We chose this program because of it's ease of use/install for the general public. Unfortunately, some of the connections are poor quality; the video cuts out or the voice is garbled or the connection stalls altogether. MS says all that is required is dial up but we always require broadband to connect. i cannot find a comprehensive list of system/bandwidth requirements or troubleshooting tips. Any help in these areas would be excellent! Thank you!
posted by lake59 on Sep 16, 2009 - 5 answers

What sites do you jump on to waste excess bandwidth? [more inside]
posted by jakubsnm on Sep 7, 2009 - 9 answers

Is there a way to limit download/uploads through my internet connection? [more inside]
posted by LDL707 on Aug 31, 2009 - 10 answers

I'd like to move a big file (110gig) to a business associate across the internet. The file must arrive in as fast a time frame as possible in order to update a database with as little downtime as possible. [more inside]
posted by BrodieShadeTree on Jul 15, 2009 - 46 answers

Throughput, download speed, bandwidth, or something else -- which of these am I trying to say? I can download a huge file, topping speeds of around 140 KB/s. Is 140 KB/s my maximum download speed? And isn't that speed the same for all information I can receive, or just file transfers? [more inside]
posted by Quarter Pincher on Jun 4, 2009 - 16 answers

Why has it taken so long for internet multimedia to match TV and telephones in speed and latency? [more inside]
posted by lunchbox on Apr 25, 2009 - 18 answers

Is there a website that tracks ISP's bandwidth caps and download quotas, and presents the information in an up-to-date and easy-to-read format? I'm especially interested in USA.
posted by kidbritish on Apr 7, 2009 - 2 answers

One internet connection shared between three computers. One jackass who uses the entire download limit(!!) and gets our speed capped(!!). So, what software or hardware solutions might there be?? Secrecy isn't a concern. That they are too stupid to be trusted is. Is there maybe something that monitors where the data is going? And also a way to hobble their line speed, once they've reached their 'share'. (I'd prefer not to just yank their cable out completely, but whatever.) I have no idea (keywords to google??) so I'm completely open to suggestion on this :) Thanks! [more inside]
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har on Apr 2, 2009 - 11 answers

How can I enjoy streaming radio at work without hogging bandwidth? [more inside]
posted by jaseaco on Feb 23, 2009 - 11 answers

On the podcast for This American Life, Ira claims NPR spends $140,000-$160,000 per year just on bandwidth for the podcast. To those of you who do hosting & have some vague idea how much bandwidth TAL's podcast would take: Does this seem reasonable to you? [more inside]
posted by chairface on Jan 27, 2009 - 29 answers

I'm having bandwidth allocation issues between different pieces of software on my Mac (10.5.5). When uploading photos using the flickr uploader or when the computer is backing up using Mozy, both of these programs tend to use all the available bandwidth on my dsl line. This makes it nearly impossible to use the internet for anything else on this machine or my PC laptop. Is there a way to adjust the bandwidth that these programs use?
posted by buttercup on Jan 2, 2009 - 4 answers

I have a Business Cox Internet account which is supposed to be 6mb/s down and 768kb/s up. The problem is that it never comes close to providing those speeds. I spent about an hour on the phone yesterday with a tech support guy. It was a terrible circular discussion that hinged completely on speakeasy's bandwidth test. His position was that since speakeasy's results showed that I was getting the proper amount of bandwidth everything was fine. [more inside]
posted by Mr_Zero on Dec 2, 2008 - 16 answers

Firewall and VPN throughput: Please help me understand the real world difference ? [more inside]
posted by hboogz on Oct 16, 2008 - 9 answers

How can I tell what's included in the flat-rate bit of my vodafone blackberry, and what's coming out of my 500 MB? [more inside]
posted by By The Grace of God on Sep 26, 2008 - 1 answer

Linux/Unix Admin Filter: What is your preferred method for monitoring bandwidth use per virtual host in Apache? [more inside]
posted by Brian Puccio on Sep 16, 2008 - 3 answers

I'm looking for a software PC-to-PC VoIP program that will handle an extremely low bandwidth connection with high UDP packet loss. This is to reach a person at the far end of a highly contended (8:1 or greater) TDMA VSAT connection. Total bandwidth available to the client PC at the far end of the satellite link is about 64 kbps. Skype does not work properly due to >45% UDP packet loss and high latency jitter. [more inside]
posted by thewalrus on Sep 11, 2008 - 5 answers

Why is it when I take internet speed tests my rating is great, but overall my browsing is miserably sluggish? [more inside]
posted by toekneebullard on Aug 28, 2008 - 12 answers

I need web hosting, and my needs are pretty narrow. I don't need fancy tools or applications, everything I'm doing is pretty much text. I don't need hand-holding or customer service. But what I DO need is to not have to worry that if any of my domains (I've got five or six) go viral, I'll be socked with $$$$ bandwidth overage bills. That happened to me once a long time ago, and I still have trauma scars. I realize that no hosting service can offer, like, infinite bandwidth. At a certain point, service would either cut off or else overage charges will cut in. But are there any web hosting outfits out there known to have particularly generous bandwidth limits, and reasonably priced overage charges beyond those limits?
posted by jimmyjimjim on Aug 6, 2008 - 32 answers

Is there anything meaningful I can do with 10Mbps worth of spare download bandwidth? [more inside]
posted by kureshii on Jun 1, 2008 - 6 answers

My little brother will in a few months embark in a year-long trip around Asia (India, Vietnam, Thailand...), towards Australia as final destination. He asks me to set up a blog for him - easy does it, I'm a WordPress translator. But what about media? And in general, what should I not forgot to make sure we get the best from his experience while not making it hard for him to communicate? [more inside]
posted by XiBe on May 21, 2008 - 10 answers

I am having a disagreement with a co-web developer I'm working with. He's insisting that having image width and height specified for images in the image tags is going to make an enormous difference in how fast this database driven site will render, while I feel that having the height and width called in the css for these images is enough. The site is very fast. [more inside]
posted by semidivine on May 7, 2008 - 21 answers

My site's cron tasks eat up a lot of bandwidth. Can I change the paths from http to local? Or can I move the tasks to my home server? [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Apr 5, 2008 - 18 answers

I'm looking for a freeware Windows bandwidth monitor that can be minimized to an icon sitting in the taskbar that displays a graph (think Process Explorer-style) of the up/down bandwidth. [more inside]
posted by griphus on Jan 23, 2008 - 5 answers

Is there anywhere I could find an old Qwest commercial? [more inside]
posted by daninnj on Dec 29, 2007 - 7 answers

I will soon be distributing a bunch of large scientific and research datasets, all entirely legal for redistribution, many as large as a few gigabytes. Bittorrent is the best solution for this. Many respectable webhosting sites don't allow Bittorrent trackers; too many of those that do seem fly-by-night. I have a budget for this and want something respectable and reliable. Recommendations? [more inside]
posted by mrflip on Dec 18, 2007 - 20 answers

Our office is setting up a satellite office in Hong Kong. We've always had trouble sending our large 5GB files to Asia. But our office in HK with have a 100Mb internet connection. We have a DS3 in San Francisco. We'll be using a proprietary third-party app to do the heavy lifting. Realistically, what does the hive-mind think we will experience in transfer speeds?
posted by roderashe on Dec 4, 2007 - 6 answers

Bandwidth monitoring per IP device? [more inside]
posted by doomtop on Dec 4, 2007 - 8 answers

Some web pages with a lot of text seem to load slowly, even over broadband, and especially when compared to the bandwidth streaming video uses, I don't understand why. Can somebody explain? (Warning: Those links load slowly.)
posted by cgc373 on Nov 25, 2007 - 14 answers

What, if any, is the relationship between bandwidth and power? [more inside]
posted by odinsdream on Nov 19, 2007 - 14 answers

What would cause web site traffic to rise and then hit a plateau for the middle of each day before falling again? [more inside]
posted by Mo Nickels on Nov 18, 2007 - 16 answers

Can anyone recommend a free tool to do a long term bandwidth analysis? [more inside]
posted by Raichle on Nov 12, 2007 - 6 answers

Rogers customers: would you recommend Rogers Hi-Speed Internet Extreme Plus? [more inside]
posted by saraswati on Oct 10, 2007 - 6 answers

I'm a new server operator, and I've got QoS set up, but the flattened bandwidth graphs make me wonder, 'How much is too much?'. [more inside]
posted by philomathoholic on Oct 5, 2007 - 4 answers

How do you set up bandwidth throttling / traffic shaping on Fedora Core 6? [more inside]
posted by remi on Aug 23, 2007 - 2 answers

I'm looking for a bandwidth monitoring tool for OSX. I need it to do some specific things. [more inside]
posted by jammnrose on Aug 21, 2007 - 5 answers

I'm considering downgrading my cable broadband from 512kbps-800MB/month to 256kbps-uncapped. I'd like to estimate the real-world hit in terms of casual web browsing and more intensive applications. [more inside]
posted by Gyan on May 12, 2007 - 10 answers

What's the comedic/facetious word/phrase for extremely high bandwidth as a result of just plain carrying a disk drive? I remember reading an article somewhere that referred to the high-latency, super-high-bandwidth transfer speeds obtained by just picking up a hard drive and taking it somewhere. I was thinking it was HAN (Human Area Network), but that apparently has a different meaning. I've seen the term in more than one place, so I know it wasn't just a one-off in that article, but try as I might (and google as I might) I can't remember the term.
posted by Bugbread on May 1, 2007 - 19 answers

Help me understand bandwidth, servers and net speed in general please! [more inside]
posted by fightorflight on Apr 11, 2007 - 17 answers

Web-hosting quandary: how to best prepare for the potential of a surge in high-bandwidth traffic? [more inside]
posted by robbie01 on Apr 3, 2007 - 22 answers

I can barely upload anything and I've tried everything to fix it. [more inside]
posted by Hands of Manos on Feb 7, 2007 - 17 answers

Do I need to worry about my DSL provider pulling the plug on me for bandwidth consumption? [more inside]
posted by calhound on Dec 5, 2006 - 4 answers

How do I track where my bandwidth is going. I've got 2 computers set up on a wireless network. With DU Meter installed. One of the computers is showing a significant increase on D/L and U/L traffic over the other. I want to track where the traffic is coming from on the bad computer ie it's connecting to www.zombiecomputer.com.
posted by lloyder on Nov 28, 2006 - 3 answers

I need a recommendation for colocation space in the SF Bay area. Requirements and [more inside]
posted by autojack on Nov 14, 2006 - 3 answers

Other than XO Communications, who in San Francisco offers ADSL2 service or bonded G.SHDSL service (aka "Ethernet over Copper") and allows BGP? [more inside]
posted by eschatfische on Nov 11, 2006 - 3 answers

It seems like when someone is doing file sharing on the network everything else slows to a crawl. Besides setting a limit on the bandwidth in the file sharing program, can I set it on the router? Lets say the bandwidth hog was a roommate who I didnt want to have to police. Could I just do something on my end? [more inside]
posted by GleepGlop on Oct 19, 2006 - 13 answers

Help! I'm participating in tomorrow's Blogathon and my site got mentioned today on Pitchfork because I'll be giving away music during the event. My site's getting pounded and was down for about 3 hours right after the article appeared. The thing is, I haven't even put the tracks up yet! I fear the site may go down during the 'thon or, if it stays up, my bandwidth bill will be murderous. Suggestions? Questions inside. [more inside]
posted by dobbs on Jul 28, 2006 - 30 answers

A corporate computer has connected to my wireless network and is wasting bandwidth. How can I stop this and get compensated? [more inside]
posted by Hot Like Your 12V Wire on Jun 22, 2006 - 28 answers

Why don't DSL and cable providers compete on the amount of UPLOADING bandwidth they offer? [more inside]
posted by shivohum on Jun 21, 2006 - 19 answers

How can I use bittorrent clients without bringing my home network to a crawl? [more inside]
posted by odinsdream on May 4, 2006 - 19 answers

I recently signed up for two high power servers (1 linux, 1 win2k3) with a dedicated hosting provider that turned out to be terrible. As a result I won't be keeping the servers, but they won't refund my first months payment. So, I have 2 servers 100mb/sec internet connection 1000gb bandwidth. Any ideas? Nothing illegal or immoral. Was thinking of a pulic mirror - or hosting some high demand files for a good cause? Problem is it's only for a month, so is it worth it? Ideas?
posted by JpMaxMan on Apr 12, 2006 - 8 answers