I don't know if I am falling behind the technology but it seems like EVERYONE's got a T1 or T3 these days, frankly I don't believe that and I don't quite understand why would a person click T1 or T3 while he/she's only got a 56k?

those connection type means nothing to us, how about replace it with the ping? so I don't try to download from a "T3" wannabe with ping in the thousands

In TCP/IP, a ping only measures the amount of time it takes for a signal to travel from source to destination. It doesn't reveal anything about the speed of the destination. I could get a ping of 50ms from someone with a 56K modem who could theoretically be living right next door to me. Likewise, I could get a 1000ms ping from someone with a T3 who is 5000 miles away from me. In either case, the ping doesn't tell me the speed of the person's connection. I, for one, wouldn't appreciate starting a download from a source with a really low ping (like 50 to 100ms) only to find that they're running a 56k modem.

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- SJF

I don't know why those generic speed descriptions are used at all. It would make more sense for LimeWire to actually measure your average upload speed and advertise it in KB/s.

I know exactly what "ping" is, you are right, but I think it's still better than just a "cnonection type" that users select by themselves

Like SJF said.

Ping has nothing to do with speed. I'm too busy to explain at the moment.

All i have to say is, if you download from a user on 28.8k modem with a ping of 10, it will be lots slower than the T3 user with a ping of 7800.

(Lower ping = better, btw).

... ping is the time it takes for a package travel from a to b and back to a. lower ping does not indicate better connection type.
but correct me if I am wrong, a cable/DSL user is "LIKELY" to have lower ping than a dial-up, right?

That's exactly what I am talking about, I want to see ping and I don't care about their connection types. They can all be T3 if that boosts their ego, all I care to see is the ping. I think that's what I said in the first post, if I didn't make myself clear.. sorry about that.

sounds like you're on to something. it does me no good when i choose to download something from a T1 or T3 connection and the transfer rate is 2.0 kb/s!! what a waste

also, what happened to the ip address field. i liked seeing whether soemone was behind a firewall or not

Correct, both times.

(Had one minute left of class, sorry for not being able to explain any further.)

Tx users can send -much- more data at any given time than a 33/56k modem user.

Ping is just the delay of the data.

Higher ping = longer travel distance
Lower ping = lower travel distance

Soo, a T3 user, with a "bad" ping, will STILL be better to download from than the "good" ping 56k user.

Sorry, but no.

Quote:

Ping is just the delay of the data. Higher ping = longer travel distance Lower ping = lower travel distance

Not always.

A higher ping can also be caused by net congestion, packet loss, and bad hardware along the way. Therefore, higher ping times are not always a sign of distance.

Quote:

Soo, a T3 user, with a "bad" ping, will STILL be better to download from than the "good" ping 56k user.

Again no.

If the cause of a high ping on a T3 is because of bad hardware or packet loss, then file transfers will be affected as well. I'll take a rock solid 5Kbps from a modem user over a transfer that fluctuates from 0Kbps to 50Kbps intermittantly from a T3 user sitting behind a bad router anyday.

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- SJF

LOL. Thats what i was gonna say, but I wasnt sure exactly how it worked. I was gonna use a nice VW Bug vs Mack Truck analogy, to explain it better.

I didnt even -think- about packet loss due to bad hardware, connections. I kept equating distance ::LOL::.

Thx again for clarifying that.

I don't know, but I think it was Napster (god please bring back napster) that showed ping and I always went for those with lower ping, it's usually the faster ones. I just did a search that turned out 263 results, there was ONLY 5 cable modem users, 37 T1, and the rest ALL T3... something's wrong in this picture... if you can only display user-selected connection types, you might as well erease that field.. it's useless, untrue information.

How bout autodetecting speed?

Doing an upload and download bandwith test during the install, no manual selection.

Then, if a user tries to block the speed test, or doesn't want to perform it, dont install.

A user can stop all internet activities and install so he gets a near-perfect performance mark for his connection type. but who knows how many other sharing program he's running or how many files he's downloading at the time you are doing the search?

how about a dynamic autospeed test? the test could test say once every hour and then the speed would change according to what the test results were.