Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Waiting for faster broadband…

cliffski

Look at this sad, sad image below:

Image1

This is my internet speed, and this is a GODO day with a BRAND NEW router. TBH, the 6MB download is generally quite enough for me. I have a 110GB monthly cap anyway, and I can stream through amazon video on that, plus I don’t download a huge pile of AAA games every day so it doesn’t really bother me. I have a monthly cap because I’m with a really reliable ISP who charge a lot but provide decent tech support and actually have human staff who aren’t in some call center 10,000 miles away…

Anyway, it’s the upload speed that is a pain. Imagine uploading a 100MB game installer with that. Now imagine a 300MB installer… And then the mac build, then linux, then to 3 other portals, and then a 300MB promo video… And then all of it again because you found a bug :D.

When I check out the upgrade plans for the nearest exchange to me, BT list it as ‘2014’ which is very encouraging. So I *may* get faster broadband before GSB2 ships (I really hope so). I suspect this will be FTTC, and not FTTH, but to be honest if I can just get a service that doubles my upload speed it would be a godsend, let alone all this 50MB stuff people have.

I live in a pretty remote village of maybe 60 houses, so we don’t have any cable service here. Our telephone lines are all raised up on poles right outside the houses, subject to the random whims of the local vegetation and wildlife.  There is vague talk of community broadband being set up using a radar link? but I think that might be unlikely to happen, whereas presumably if BT write ‘2014’ on the exchange, it’s definitely going to happen, even if it gets delayed.

I bet the prices go up too…

7 thoughts on Waiting for faster broadband…

  1. Using directional wifi antennas connections over several kilometers are possible but requires line of sight. Satellite internet might be more realistic. Providers claim 22MBit/sec download and 6MBit/sec upload via sat link. I hear reliability is occasionally a problem but why not keep your existing connection as backup.

  2. Based on previous posts by you I think you’re not a big fan of command lines…but have you ever thought about doing your builds on a remote server and distribute the files from there? I assume you use some kind of version control anyhow so you’d only have to upload deltas. Even if remote builds are not for you, maybe something like rsync can reduce the total amount of bytes to upload.

  3. What Martin said – if your bottleneck is your personal internet connection, get a build machine that runs off-site, and have it collect the changes from source-control, build, and push the builds.

    Far less stress on your part, and you don’t have to change your internet connection.

    We use TeamCity running on an Amazon server for our builds, and it’s worked great for the last 5 years or so.

  5. Apologies if you’ve tried all these things, but if not I highly recommend them, they can make a massive difference to sync speeds.

    Try plugging the router directly into the test slot on the BT master socket with a normal filter – this will disconnect all other phones/etc in the house, but it’s a good way to isolate any problems. If you get a big bump in speeds, then the wiring in your house is causing most of that problem. If so, continue..

    a) If you want phones throughout the house, get an after-market filter panel for the master socket and plug the router into that – much better than the filter boxes you get with routers.
    b) Disconnect as many phone extensions as you can (DIY time!) – these pick up signals from the microwave/etc and pollute the signal your router is trying to isolate.
    c) Query with your ISP to be put onto a different profile, and/or reset the profile at the exchange. This will cause the router/exchange to find a new stable sync point which may well be much higher now the wiring situation has sorted itself out. You can also be put on a lower profile if your router has a string of bad syncs due to a thunderstorm or similar, it can take months to iron out. Your connection might be unstable with dropped syncs for a few days, so find a quiet time (ha!) to do it.

    When I was on ADSL2 (a luxury for you of course I realise) I went from an 8mbit sync to 16mbit just by plugging directly into the test socket (with a filter). I didn’t have a house phone so just left it plugged in there. HTH

  6. Would it be faster to travel to a coffee-shop with wifi and upload stuff over a white chocolate mocha? Or is coffee-shop wifi not great at mega uploads?

  7. You could just mail me the game to upload for you, I get about a 10MBs upload and 120MBs download (thank you Virgin Media)…. ^_^

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