Current Issue

Privacy vs. Security

AT&T vs. Comcast

Marketing Idea

AT&T Speed Test

This test was peformed using the San Francisco server at the web site http://www.speedtest.net/. The test was performed September 2nd. These results are at the high end of what has been acheived with the AT&T DSL service. Typically, the speed is 300kb/s up and down, although speeds as low as 200kb/s have been measured..

It is important to note that this location is approximately 11 to 12 kilofeet from the central office and is on home-run copper (no Service Area Interface), which is rare these days. The location is in the middle of the Silicon Valley.

Comcast Speed Test

This test was peformed using the San Francisco server at the web site http://www.speedtest.net/. The test was performed September 5th. These results are pretty typically of what has been acheived with the Comcast Cable Modem service. It is consistently well above 6 Mb/s downstream and clocks in at 350 kb/s on the upstream.

The location is in the middle of the Silicon Valley.

Packet8 Video call over a Comcast connection.

In general, the performance of this connection was pretty good. The lips were fairly well synchronized to the voice. Pixelization was minimal and only appeared during rapid movement.

One end of this call used a DSL connection that is typically 1.5 Mb/s downstream, 400 kb/s upstream. The far end (Roger Bindl's end) used a Packet8 softphone on a Dell Notebook computer, while the near-end used a Packet8 DV326 Video Phone. Unfortunately, there were some recording issues, so it was filmed instead of being direct recorded from the output of the Packet8 Video Phone. The router used was the NetGear WGR 614 v6.

Packet8 Video call over an AT&T Connection

The performance in the video will not look much different than what was seen as compared to the Packet8 call over the Comcast connection. There is more pixelization, especially with fast movement. The lips are a bit out of sync and the delay might be a bit more noticable. Based on a few other calls we made, this bandwidth seems to be marginal. In one of those other calls we experienced, a few seconds of delay, which was unacceptable.

One end of this call used a DSL connection that is typically 1.5 Mb/s downstream, 400 kb/s upstream. The far end (Roger Bindl's end) used a Packet8 softphone on a Dell Notebook computer, while the near-end used a Packet8 DV326 Video Phone. Unfortunately, there were some recording issues, so it was filmed instead of being direct recorded from the output of the Packet8 Video Phone. The router used was the same NetGear WGR 614 v6 described above. .

Video Download from YouTube - 16 second

This is a side-by-side comparison of the download performance of Comcast and AT&T using a short video from the YouTube video site.

The AT&T is using a relatively new (January 2006) Toshiba lap-top (1.4 GHz , 512 MByte), while Comcast uses an older Toshiba (Sept 2001, 800 MHz, 384 Mbyte). The AT&T connection uses a Linksys router, while the Comcast connection uses the NetGear WGR 614 v6.

Video Download from YouTube - 1 minute

This is a side-by-side comparison of the download performance of Comcast and AT&T using a medium-length video from the YouTube video site. You may be surprised as to which connection delivers the video first.

The AT&T is using a relatively new (January 2006) Toshiba lap-top (1.4 GHz , 512 MByte), while Comcast uses an older Toshiba (Sept 2001, 800 MHz, 384 Mbyte). The AT&T connection uses a Linksys router, while the Comcast connection uses the NetGear WGR 614 v6.

Video Download from YouTube - 2 minute+

This is a side-by-side comparison of the download performance of Comcast and AT&T using a bit longer video from the YouTube video site. This longer length video, titled Relay for Life, really shows the difference in speed between the two broadband offerings.

The AT&T is using a relatively new (January 2006) Toshiba lap-top (1.4 GHz , 512 MByte), while Comcast uses an older Toshiba (Sept 2001, 800 MHz, 384 Mbyte). The AT&T connection uses a Linksys router, while the Comcast connection uses the NetGear WGR 614 v6.

Video Download from Google - 1 minute

This is a side-by-side comparison of the download performance of Comcast and AT&T using a one minute from the Google video site. This is the a shortened version of the Relay for Life video that had played from the YouTube site.

The AT&T is using a relatively new (January 2006) Toshiba lap-top (1.4 GHz , 512 MByte), while Comcast uses an older Toshiba (Sept 2001, 800 MHz, 384 Mbyte). The AT&T connection uses a Linksys router, while the Comcast connection uses the NetGear WGR 614 v6.