July 13th, 2007
Stupid FioS broadband tricks
The Verizon installer just left and I now have FioS–installation took about four hours and it was painless. I’ll follow up Monday with all the details, but overall I’m just a bit giddy with more speed. So what do you do with 15 mbps downstream? You gloat. You smile. And you conduct a few stupid tricks.
Here’s the old “I’m checking my speed for the 20th time on the PC trick.” Speakeasy.net’s speedtest cooked up the following results:
But big deal. Those results don’t show real world conditions. Why? I never use the home PC since I’m always on the laptop over Wi-Fi. The real FioS experience will be delivered over a Wi-Fi router in Bucks County, PA.
So I conducted the “I’m downstairs typing ‘news to know’ on the couch” experiment. Speakeasy.net says:
Holy Wi-Fi leakage Batman. So I ran to the home office right next to the PC and got…something worse downstream. Speakeasy.net says:
But I’m not complaining. After all, I never hit 7 on the PC with the cable modem (assuming service was up) anyway.
After those two tests I decided to up the ante a bit. I went outside maybe 15 yards away to the swing set. I plopped down on the swing (as if I’m coordinated enough to write a post and swing anyway). Speakeasy.net says:
Not too shabby. Next up I went to the farthest corner of my yard behind two trees and almost in a neighbor’s flowerbush. Bam:
Hmm. I wonder if I’d get a better signal if I climbed one of those trees with my laptop? Conclusion: Just an hour into my FioS experience I’m finding new applications…like blogging on a laptop in a tree. Oh well gotta run. Calling Comcast to bid farewell.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Smart Planet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 07/13/07
