expectations for Internet speed from north to south across USA (Dallas to Chicago)

**Island** · 02-12-2009, 04:18 PM

I currently have servers in Texas and Florida. In checking the test file transfer speed, I'm only getting 1.42M/s in 74s 17:10:36 (1.34 MB/s) - `data.bin' saved [104857600/104857600]
which is quite a bit slower than my Texas (Dallas) to Texas (Houston) transfer speed of 8 MBytes/second or my Texas to Florida speed of around 4 MBytes/second.

1 (not included for forum post)
2 2d.fe.5746.static.theplanet.com (70.87.254.45) 0.524 ms 0.614 ms 0.612 ms
3 po52.dsr02.dllstx3.theplanet.com (70.85.127.109) 128.128 ms 128.238 ms 128.218 ms
4 et3-2.ibr04.dllstx3.theplanet.com (70.87.253.25) 0.371 ms 0.439 ms 0.369 ms
5 eq-dal.wvfiber.net (206.223.118.120) 0.651 ms 0.609 ms 0.580 ms
6 nsh-ten1-4-dal-ten2-1.wvfiber.net (64.127.130.49) 14.850 ms 14.971 ms 14.946 ms
7 chi-vl2200-nsh-t4-3-2200.wvfiber.net (64.127.130.53) 41.542 ms 41.591 ms 41.897 ms
8 ge-0-0-992.cr2.ord0.amcbb.net (64.127.128.158) 41.356 ms 41.502 ms 41.495 ms
9 steadfast.dmarc.ord0.amcbb.net (208.78.26.204) 35.814 ms 36.017 ms 36.372 ms
10 utility1.steadfast.net (67.202.100.2) 35.749 ms 35.662 ms 35.455 ms

1 ip255.216-86-146.vswitch.static.steadfast.net (216.86.146.255) 0.699 ms 0.743 ms 0.954 ms
2 be-10-413-cr01.chicago.il.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.89.189) 1.808 ms 1.815 ms 1.805 ms
3 pos-0-6-0-0-cr01.atlanta.ga.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.85.62) 22.754 ms 22.777 ms 22.766 ms
4 pos-1-14-0-0-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.85.153) 43.259 ms 43.273 ms 43.268 ms
5 68.86.88.50 (68.86.88.50) 43.221 ms 43.299 ms 43.390 ms
6 te7-1.dsr01.dllstx3.theplanet.com (70.87.253.2) 41.521 ms 41.577 ms 41.524 ms
7 po31.dsr01.dllstx5.theplanet.com (70.85.127.106) 41.456 ms 42.113 ms 42.069 ms
8 2a.fe.5746.static.theplanet.com (70.87.254.42) 42.783 ms 43.178 ms 43.387 ms
9 (not included for forum post)

Is 1.42 M/s or about 11 megabits per second the best I can expect going cross-country north to south right now?

**ManagerJosh** · 02-12-2009, 08:14 PM

In any given point in the day, routers are taken offline throughout the day for a variety of reasons by respective line providers and routers subsequently change their routes to compensate. Often the most direct route is available, but not always.

Of course it also depends on congestion throughout the day.

I'd be interested in finding out what's going on with Comcast right now. It seems unusual to have a connection go from Chicago to Atlanta before arriving in Dallas. Why couldn't it go directly from Chicago to Dallas....

**Karl** · 02-13-2009, 10:39 AM

There are a couple things to note.

1) Do not ping/traceroute www.steadfast.net or steadfast.net for traceroutes to our network. The domain is on a separate AS along with our own internal phone systems and out-of-band configuration in case of a network failure, network maintenance, etc. so we can stay in touch with our customers.

2) Distance will always play a factor in the download speeds you get. You will almost certainly get faster speeds between Dallas and Houston than you will from Dallas to Chicago.

3) The download was being done from a data center location. We do not send much traffic to other data centers, so the chances are that the InterNAP FCP device has not selected a best route for that, it determines the frequency of it's checks on certain network blocks based on the volume of traffic to those network blocks. If you do end up regularly sending traffic to those IPs, then the FCP will begin optimizing for that route more frequently.