Not all 1000 mile Internet connections are equal. The 1000 miles you are talking about are as the crow flies. But an Internet rout to that same connection could be two or more times that distance and it's not guaranteed that you will get the same rout every time you make that connection. Also, if your rout has a lot of hops, it's possible for any hop to have a heavy traffic load for whatever reason. This will slow down your connection speed. The best you can do if you want to measure the speed between two points is to do an average over time. As far as your operating system goes, the communications functions can be tweaked to maximize your connection speed for the hardware it's running on. Any machine has a hardware limit no matter what software it's running.
You are aware of more than most. But you are under the impression that a 'connection' is made like a phone call, it isn't. A single download from anywhere on the internet involves packets that take many routes to return to you. One packet may go through Chicago and the next may go through Houston. One may take a route actually going away away from you for a few states and then hop the rectangle and head your way, and the next may take a route geographically in your direction from the start. Think of it more like a shotgun, with each pellet liable to take a far different route to get back to you, and less like a bullet headed in your direction and you get closer to the actual a nature of the internet.
What you say is true to some extent, but as soon as you establish a connection all the data packets in your communication will have a affinity for the established rout and there's a good chance they will all take the same rout. They don't have to, but most likely they will unless something interferes with that rout. That's especially true for short tests of Internet speed.
Again, you don't understand routing. You have more of a clue than most, but you are not correct. There is no 'established route', there is nothing that could even be loosely compared to that. If you think of it more like a shotgun of completely unconnected pellets, each of which is a packet of data, that take many paths, some of which are even lost for good and have to be retransmitted, you will have a better understanding of routing. There is an IP in the header as a destination, that is handed off to the gateway of the LAN, that then makes a call based on a routing protocol like RIP(small network) or OSPF, in that second, to send it to the next network based on the routing table decision in that second. The decision may be different a second later on that same router/switch. It has no idea of where the destination of that packet is, only that is should throw it at the next gateway and let it make a call to get it closer. Then at that next hop it forwards the packet to, another completely independent decision is made by that router/switch, possibly running a different routing protocol with a different routing table, to forward the packet to the next network. None of them have any clue where the ultimate destination is, they only make a decision on the next place to forward that packet to that their table and protocol say will get it one step closer to the destination network in that second based on a criteria. Those decisions have nothing to do with geography or an overall map of the internet. Hence the packets spread out in all manner of ways when they make their way to the destination.
So tell me why you can trace the rout with software that shows each and every hop that was used during a communication. They show you a direct sequential list of hops between point A and point B. Would they be able to do that if all the packets took off in all directions from point A to meet up again at point B?
I know about this stuff, and you don't. It was obvious you were interested, I thought you might like to know more. I was trying to help you understand things a little better, not argue.
That was a cop out answer. Also, I've been working with computers and networks much longer than you have. So quit trying to tell me what I don't know about.
They don't necessarily follow the same routes (as Dr Mabuse stated), however they 'appear' to have affinity since many route-to-route hops are more deterministic than other hops. This is because some routes may round-robin packets for distribution or offload dependent on loads, hops are often similar because network engineers have done a good job. Routes are close to optimal for each route. Code: $> traceroute sciforums.com 1 10.1.10.1 (10.1.10.1) 0.229 ms 0.414 ms 0.480 ms 2 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 2.287 ms 2.246 ms 2.308 ms 3 * * * 4 te-0-1-0-8-ur10.beaverton.or.bverton.comcast.net (68.85.151.41) 67.283 ms 68.310 ms 68.400 ms 5 ae-3-0-ar03.troutdale.or.bverton.comcast.net (68.85.243.165) 117.126 ms 117.489 ms 68.508 ms 6 pos-2-3-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.213) 74.308 ms pos-1-14-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.201) 16.906 ms pos-2-2-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.95.97) 21.150 ms 7 4.59.234.25 (4.59.234.25) 14.878 ms 28.534 ms 27.423 ms 8 ae-32-52.ebr2.Seattle1.Level3.net (4.69.147.182) 103.508 ms 103.498 ms 103.426 ms 9 ae-2-2.ebr2.Denver1.Level3.net (4.69.132.54) 111.138 ms 111.105 ms 109.733 ms 10 ae-3-3.ebr1.Chicago2.Level3.net (4.69.132.62) 103.030 ms 103.625 ms 100.142 ms 11 ae-6-6.ebr1.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.69.140.189) 94.824 ms 90.125 ms 101.009 ms 12 ae-10-10.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net (4.69.153.86) 128.584 ms 146.310 ms 145.074 ms 13 IWEB-GROUP.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net (4.59.178.58) 140.906 ms 142.233 ms 142.760 ms 14 vl693.dr4.mtl.iweb.com (67.205.127.229) 323.336 ms 318.427 ms 316.960 ms 15 vl3203.dr7.mtl.iweb.com (184.107.1.38) 135.112 ms 128.184 ms 124.440 ms 16 ip-70-38-28-27.static.privatedns.com (70.38.28.27) 115.103 ms 93.322 ms 90.264 ms Code: $> traceroute sciforums.com 1 10.1.10.1 (10.1.10.1) 0.315 ms 0.524 ms 0.622 ms 2 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 3.207 ms 3.564 ms 3.781 ms 3 * * * 4 te-0-1-0-8-ur10.beaverton.or.bverton.comcast.net (68.85.151.41) 19.455 ms 20.329 ms 20.462 ms 5 ae-3-0-ar03.troutdale.or.bverton.comcast.net (68.85.243.165) 21.587 ms 21.438 ms 21.600 ms 6 pos-1-15-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.93.25) 28.140 ms pos-2-1-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.95.93) 16.982 ms pos-1-14-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.201) 17.360 ms 7 4.59.234.25 (4.59.234.25) 16.373 ms 15.296 ms 16.454 ms 8 ae-32-52.ebr2.Seattle1.Level3.net (4.69.147.182) 91.400 ms 90.104 ms 91.306 ms 9 ae-2-2.ebr2.Denver1.Level3.net (4.69.132.54) 96.605 ms 98.491 ms 99.289 ms 10 ae-3-3.ebr1.Chicago2.Level3.net (4.69.132.62) 98.403 ms 97.916 ms 94.115 ms 11 ae-6-6.ebr1.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.69.140.189) 93.473 ms 93.563 ms 98.397 ms 12 * ae-10-10.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net (4.69.153.86) 113.792 ms * 13 IWEB-GROUP.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net (4.59.178.58) 89.138 ms 89.213 ms 87.914 ms 14 vl693.dr4.mtl.iweb.com (67.205.127.229) 110.773 ms 111.660 ms 111.415 ms 15 vl3203.dr7.mtl.iweb.com (184.107.1.38) 86.680 ms 86.040 ms 85.667 ms 16 ip-70-38-28-27.static.privatedns.com (70.38.28.27) 85.567 ms 86.059 ms 87.075 ms We can see here hop 6 is different.
Ech... Sciforums is screwing up for me, so if this is duplicated a moderator can delete the other copy. They don't necessarily follow the same routes (as Dr Mabuse stated), however they 'appear' to have affinity since many route-to-route hops are more deterministic than other hops. This is because some routes may round-robin packets for distribution or offload dependent on loads, hops are often similar because network engineers have done a good job. Routes are close to optimal for each route. Code: $> traceroute sciforums.com 1 10.1.10.1 (10.1.10.1) 0.229 ms 0.414 ms 0.480 ms 2 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 2.287 ms 2.246 ms 2.308 ms 3 * * * 4 te-0-1-0-8-ur10.beaverton.or.bverton.comcast.net (68.85.151.41) 67.283 ms 68.310 ms 68.400 ms 5 ae-3-0-ar03.troutdale.or.bverton.comcast.net (68.85.243.165) 117.126 ms 117.489 ms 68.508 ms 6 pos-2-3-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.213) 74.308 ms pos-1-14-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.201) 16.906 ms pos-2-2-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.95.97) 21.150 ms 7 4.59.234.25 (4.59.234.25) 14.878 ms 28.534 ms 27.423 ms 8 ae-32-52.ebr2.Seattle1.Level3.net (4.69.147.182) 103.508 ms 103.498 ms 103.426 ms 9 ae-2-2.ebr2.Denver1.Level3.net (4.69.132.54) 111.138 ms 111.105 ms 109.733 ms 10 ae-3-3.ebr1.Chicago2.Level3.net (4.69.132.62) 103.030 ms 103.625 ms 100.142 ms 11 ae-6-6.ebr1.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.69.140.189) 94.824 ms 90.125 ms 101.009 ms 12 ae-10-10.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net (4.69.153.86) 128.584 ms 146.310 ms 145.074 ms 13 IWEB-GROUP.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net (4.59.178.58) 140.906 ms 142.233 ms 142.760 ms 14 vl693.dr4.mtl.iweb.com (67.205.127.229) 323.336 ms 318.427 ms 316.960 ms 15 vl3203.dr7.mtl.iweb.com (184.107.1.38) 135.112 ms 128.184 ms 124.440 ms 16 ip-70-38-28-27.static.privatedns.com (70.38.28.27) 115.103 ms 93.322 ms 90.264 ms Code: $> traceroute sciforums.com 1 10.1.10.1 (10.1.10.1) 0.315 ms 0.524 ms 0.622 ms 2 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 3.207 ms 3.564 ms 3.781 ms 3 * * * 4 te-0-1-0-8-ur10.beaverton.or.bverton.comcast.net (68.85.151.41) 19.455 ms 20.329 ms 20.462 ms 5 ae-3-0-ar03.troutdale.or.bverton.comcast.net (68.85.243.165) 21.587 ms 21.438 ms 21.600 ms 6 pos-1-15-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.93.25) 28.140 ms pos-2-1-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.95.93) 16.982 ms pos-1-14-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.201) 17.360 ms 7 4.59.234.25 (4.59.234.25) 16.373 ms 15.296 ms 16.454 ms 8 ae-32-52.ebr2.Seattle1.Level3.net (4.69.147.182) 91.400 ms 90.104 ms 91.306 ms 9 ae-2-2.ebr2.Denver1.Level3.net (4.69.132.54) 96.605 ms 98.491 ms 99.289 ms 10 ae-3-3.ebr1.Chicago2.Level3.net (4.69.132.62) 98.403 ms 97.916 ms 94.115 ms 11 ae-6-6.ebr1.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.69.140.189) 93.473 ms 93.563 ms 98.397 ms 12 * ae-10-10.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net (4.69.153.86) 113.792 ms * 13 IWEB-GROUP.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net (4.59.178.58) 89.138 ms 89.213 ms 87.914 ms 14 vl693.dr4.mtl.iweb.com (67.205.127.229) 110.773 ms 111.660 ms 111.415 ms 15 vl3203.dr7.mtl.iweb.com (184.107.1.38) 86.680 ms 86.040 ms 85.667 ms 16 ip-70-38-28-27.static.privatedns.com (70.38.28.27) 85.567 ms 86.059 ms 87.075 ms We can see here hop 6 is different.
On a 6+ years old cheap computer, using Linux, I got 24 Mbps, and it impressed the hell out of me. Now I am going to use it for websurfing....
I used to check my internet sped in this site http://www.scanmyspeed.com/ and i posted my results below Download speed :25 Mbps upload speed :12 Mbps