Broadband rates not up to speed
Published 28 July 2009
Posted by Greg Corke
Moving processor intensive CAE operations to The Cloud is no use whatsoever if our broadband connection is inconsistent. Image Copyright P R Yakin – Fotolia.com
The findings in this latest report from UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, really annoyed me.
Many of us pay for high-bandwidth broadband connections but simply don’t get what we pay for. It’s a bit like buying a pint of beer and only being served a half. OK, so it’s not, but you get my point.
Business connections are of course much better, and you get what you pay for, but even at our London office we sometimes get much less than our 16mbps business connection is supposed to offer and upload speed is consistently underwhelming. You only have to tot up the number of WiFi signals in the area to understand why – 20 at the last count from the comfort of my desk
I guess most engineering/design firms don’t have central city addresses, but in the UK it’s often the remote companies that suffer more simply because high-bandwidth connections aren’t available. Regardless of location it’s essential for all, even the smaller firms who can’t afford dedicated lines, to have reliable and consistent connections. This is even more important when you consider the ever expanding size of the CAD/CAE datasets that we work with and the need for reliable connections will get even more critical if we move our processing to the Cloud or adopt a SaaS delivery system for our 3D software. These are technologies that many CAD/CAE developers are currently giving serious consideration to.
What’s broadband like where you work/live? Are you paying for bandwidth you simply don’t get? Does it hinder your adoption of Web-based technologies or, like me, do you simply like having a bit of a rant? I’d love to hear your thoughts/experiences.
Comments:
Personally, I like the advertising of high-speed internet companies.
I work from home, sometimes, so having a fast upload & download speed is essential in transferring files back and forth from/to my clients. Since I live out in the suburbs, the best speed available to me is 1.5Mbps download, half of that upload. My provider has faster speeds available in city-center areas, advertised as "up to 20Mbps download speeds." There's the rub, because they don't guarantee a minimum speed. You may be paying for 20Mbps, but only getting 1.5. I'm happy that mine is consistently at 1.5, so I get what I pay for, but I definitely wouldn't mind a faster speed. When it becomes available though, before I pay for it, the most important question will be asked…. WHAT IS THE GUARANTEED MINIMUM SPEED?
Posted by Scott Wertel on Thursday 01 1970 at 01:00 AM
The cloud thing sounds great and I'd love to be able to analyze my FEA model on some high power computer "in the cloud". Plus the cloud idea works pretty nicely if you don't have a lot of data being piped back and forth or need fast response.
For CAD/CAE/PDM its a trickier problem because you do have LOTS of data. You have to think of new ways to keep the data in one location and minimize data transfer. Note, this is not unlike problems faced by many multiplayers games like WoW and Second Life that are pseudo-cloud based and graphics intensive.
However, there is not a gamer around that doesn't complain about lag at some point and game geometry doesn't have near the level of detail we have in CAD.
It certainly is an interesting problem to solve.
Posted by Burhop on Thursday 01 1970 at 01:00 AM