For those of us who live in parts of the world where high speed Internet is still a luxury, there’s a massive amount of jealousy that happens when we see huge numbers. In a thread over on Reddit where members of Google’s Chrome team are answering questions, we’ve just gotten a peek at Google’s Internet connection:
Now, let’s put these numbers into perspective. According to Ookla’s Net Index, the average speed for a country in Europe is around 12 Mb/second. For the US, it’s around 10. I’m on the high end of this, personally, with a 25 Mbit home connection. Even still, the connection being used for this test is over 20 times faster than my “high speed” Internet at home.
What does that equate to in “real world” numbers? As the thread’s authors posted, here is a screenshot of them downloading the video game Rift:
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that’s 32 megabytes per second. To break that down even further, a typical HD rip of a movie, running 4 gigabytes, would be downloaded in full in around 2 minutes.
Pardon me. I’m going to go cry myself to sleep now.
That is fucking nuts.
@Zee Do want.
sweet
Pretty nice — but they still got nothin’ on Chattanooga’s 1Gbps internet!
https://epbfi.com/internet/
@Andy Montgomery Hahah, yup. I’m uber-jealous.
@Brad McCarty Here’s my office – http://www.speedtest.net/result/1226740763.png
@Andy Montgomery That’s just sick, Andy. So so jealous of that here in Nashville :)
@Andy Montgomery Would it be OK if I just popped round to your office to do the last 8 years work I’ve been unable to do without a decent connection?!!
@Andy Montgomery If you look at the packages in the order screen you see that it is limited to 30mbps.
@zaiger Not true. If you go to the customize page, you’ll see the 1Gbps option. My office has the business package with 50+Mbps. It is truly the fastest internet in the country.
There you have it, I’m no longer happy with my 20Mbps..
Keep in mind that the measured speed is limited by the speed of server you’re connecting to…
@jakub kozioł Indeed indeed.
Yeah, this is preety unimaginable, but I have nothing to be ashamed of as well: http://speedtest.net/result/1226814620.png; I wish we all could have at least such decent connections, the net would be a heaven like that :)
@IceD Dude! That’s hot. I’d love that 7mbit up.
@IceD http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227373258.png
Apple is faster:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/577363735.png
@• joseph thornton • Hahah, that’s awesome.
Well that is settled. I am going to go get myself a job at Google.
Whoa!
Wow, I never thought about it like that before. Wow.
privacy-online.it.tc
Guys … look .. http://www.speedtest.net/wave/3cf155b498a81af8
We did what speedtest.net calls a speedwave .. and our fastest user is from Google NYC, result n*2 : 520 Mb/s of download and a crazy 334 Mb/s of upload
How would speedtest’s servers even be fast enough to really measure those types of speeds? I don’t think one can use a service like speedtest.net just to measure just any internet access, especially when internet connections start being that fast.
@charbax Well, speedtest doesn’t own the servers. If I’m not mistaken, most all of them are donated by businesses that have the bandwidth to do it.
@charbax where I work I test lot of the speedtest.net serviers and average them out, we have about 60 up and 40 down, most of the servers around us top out at 25 or 30 down 15 to 20 up…
My my… hope any 1 can show these figures to people in Kuwait… It’s damn so expensive to have a good reasonable connection. still feel proud to have a 1mb connection and look what you people are talking about… sucks
Is this really newsworthy? I almost forgot, any story mentioning Google is implicitly cool and trendy.
My work connection is faster than that.
My home broadband is 100 MB.
It’s unhealthy for engineers to have the fastest machines and connections. The experience for average users will be different. No wonder Gmail and Docs are slow (less slow from inside Google).
@Tim Acheson Shouldn’t it be not slow since you have 100mb internet…? ;)I have like 15 and I’ve completely switched over from MS Office.
@Farid El Nasire Gmail and Docs are too slow for me, especially over Wi-Fi. It’s not just a bandwidth issue, it’s also affected by bloated slow JavaScript and DOM manipulations, excessive concurrent HTTP connections (in some browsers more than others). Google Maps is slow, too compared to Bing Maps.
My work connection has roughly equal up and down speeds, too — about 99 according to speedtest.net.
@Tim Acheson Oh come off your high horse, Tim. It’s on Shareables. The channel where we post lolcats and other interesting things we find around the Internet.
It’s called fun. You should try it sometime.
@Brad McCarty Hi Brad! Oh, don’t get me wrong. This is an interesting –factoid yeah perhaps even fun! I enjoyed it anyway, it’s a good find. Little gems like this are a bit part of the reason why I tend to read your stuff. I don’t have you down as as *that* much of a Google fanboy at all, I just thought you probably wouldn’t have even considered posting it if the stats were from inside, for instance, Microsoft. To be fair, the guy at Google’s SF office who posted that doesn’t seem to have been boasting about his connection all that much, it was more an answer to a question.
@Tim Acheson Oh how incorrect you are.
I’m completely platform/brand/name agnostic. I love Android and Google, but I also highly recommend WP7, Windows 7 and MS products.
Just sayin’.
@Brad McCarty I stand corrected! It’s good to hear. :)
Still pretty happy with my home connection.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227322760.png
:))…. watch this : http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227338067.png
I don’t think that’s a huge number…
In Romania we have 100 Mbit home connections too for around $15
Of course no company guarantees this, but 90% of the time it actually works at full speed…
Crikey! At work we’re running an 85mb line and that’s fast enough!
And this is in Kenya, yes in Africa
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227373258.png
Only 32mb at the TNW Offices in Amsterdam: http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227375786.png
Almost there (Portugal/FTTH): http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227389530.png
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227399649.png
USA is so behind the times, as usual.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227396755.png
Indonesia FTW
@❤ http://speedtest.net/result/1210087479.png
Indonesia.
feel the gap.hehehhe
this thread is depressing lol… 25down here :/ http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227412608.png
that’s almost as fast as my hard drive’s copy speed.
In Australia we still have to build websites with preloaders. *weep*
FUCK ME, in Egypt we made a revolution by 512 kb :D
I get over 50 Mbps here in Chattanooga, Tennessee and I’m on the cheap plan. Our EPB Fiber Optics is the fastest in the US and even offers a 1000Mpbs plan. And thats upload and download.
@Bret Douglas Man you Chattanooga people are angering me here in Nashville ;)
Hanoi, Vietnam
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227712704.png
Well, I love to live in Finland anyway
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227791148.png
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227806329.png
well in argentina sucks
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1227968441.png
Someone should put together a list of the top ten or so fastest Internet speeds. Who would have Internet faster than this? Apple and Microsoft probably, maybe the Pentagon. I would be interested in knowing and I’m sure others would too.
Speedtest allows you to choose which server to use as a target. If Google tested to their ~own~ servers, this may mean only that they have typical cables in the local network. Have them run the test to some other ISP — across town at least, hmm?
the speed at which they download Rift is less than half of their potential speed, clearly limited by the speeds at which the server can upload the game. As for your 2 minute download for movies that would be at 32 megabytes a second for 3.75 GB, which is also going to be limited by the speed at which the server can upload the movie, which could be less than 32 megabytes a second or closer to the maximum 65 megabytes a second of their connection.
http://www.speedtest.net/wave/4e89671f84c3ec67?o=desc&sb=download list of fastest connections. Googles connection isnt that great compared to others.
I kinda feel lucky having fiber at home. 60mbps both up and down. A ping lower than 10 to most places in Norway. Also, I love in Norway.
@håkon erling laland i now love Norway too.
Santa Claus, if you’re reading this:
I want this for Christmas. Nothing else. Just this.
32 MBs? Google says “523.96 megabits(Mb) = 65.49500 megabytes(MB)”
I think maybe Rifts max upload is 32MB/s
And if they downloaded 2GB with full 65MB/s that would be about a 32 second download.
One more – 2048 divided by 32 is 64, Sooo thats alittle over a minute, not two.
Sorry speedwave you have nothing on me with speeds like this.
This is what happens when all your ISPs are controlled by the state.
And yes, prices are not cheap too.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/651221207.png
Interesting. But it’s not THAT mind blowing. With my home fiber connection here in Japan I average 14MB/s (yes megabytes, not megabits) when downloading binaries from usenet. Best effort on a 200Mbps line. Sure will miss these speeds when I move back to the states.
get about half that on living on campus
http://speedtest.net/result/1131207012.png
I doubt that’s the limit of the Google connection; just the SpeedTest provider that was hit. In addition that test would be contending with the extremely heavy traffic in and out of Google. I also wonder about the authenticity; because obviously the photoshopper doesn’t know that a large internet firm like Google wouldn’t have an asymmetric line – the download should match the upload. I doubt 127Mb/s upstream is enough for Google.
The real speed test would be to aggregate all the router logs on a day like e.g. the Japanese earthquake.
@Jonathan C Dickinson Actually, upload speed is always around 1/4 of the download speed. Also, in case of being PhotoShoped, talk to the guys of Speedtest for allowing someone to access their database and giving an official link.
Hard to believe, I know. Just do as the post say, cry and go to sleep… Like most of us did.
Well, they are rolling out 1gbps fiber optics in Kansas City. This is pretty much a sample of what’s to come there. It’s not that mind blowing… it’s a business line.
I used to live in Japan too, and they already had auHikari 1gbps fiber optics at about 450mbps in residential.
Great choice of game. :D
I feel small with my 3Mbps connection in Canada :(
Engaging and well written article! This tops anything I have read lately on the subject at hand. I wonder if this’ll be posted on Twenty-First Tycoon. Although the site has awesome <a href=”http://www.21Tycoon.com”>political, business, technology and real estate news</a>, they could use more stuff like this.
Engaging and well written article! This tops anything I have read lately on the subject at hand. I wonder if this’ll be posted on Twenty-First Tycoon. Although the site has awesome political, business, technology and real estate news, they could use more stuff like this. http://www.21Tycoon.com
i get 2mbps in India( kolkata) at 3G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
they host the speed test AND are doing the speedtest from a computer in the same building as tghe servers… DUH!!!
@Robert Tito Not if they’re testing to SF. Google is in Mountain View.
I’m curious as to the 1% of the US that it’s Not faster than… O.o
Our school’s connection is faster than this one
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1188192871.png
our country’s (Lebanon) average speed is : 480 Kbps
that’s really embarrasing, shame on that country, i pay 32 $ in a month for a 256 Kbps speed with only 3 GB traffic,
@• Joseph Thornton •
I’m sorry what were you talking about? http://i.imgur.com/Edk6V.png
http://i.imgur.com/Edk6V.png
When you break 1Gbps a share link isn’t generated since Speedtest doesn’t support values over 999.
The only people with a good experience downloading XCode 4 from the App Store.
Well, that’s depressing.
About the speedtest.net results ( http://thenextweb.com/shareables/files/2011/03/1226257835.png ) :
Impressive that speedtest.net is prepared to measure that kind of speed. Don’t take it for granted!
On the other hand, speedtest.net rated this result only with an A+. So their rating is not that granular.
The ISP says “Google”. Are you 100% certain the speed test packets are not staying within the Google network? Local networks can be pretty fast.
As an ISP, Google got a rating of 4.5 stars. What does that mean? Which ISP would be better?
Finally, the 3ms ping time looks lame in this context.
Germany has all of a 1% installed fiber base, and most of that is dark and isn’t even lit.
We’re living in an A/DSL Stone Age here.
It’s like banging 2 rocks together in a dark forest, 5,000 years ago, at night, during a downpour, in the hopes of striking a spark that will light a pile of kindling, so *maybe* we can start a fire that *may* attract some females that *might get us laid.
Wouldn’t mind it so much, ‘cept I shoot video @ +05Mbps, which translates to about +1 gig for every 3 minutes of film, and with an upload speed of 500Kbps,( about 8x slower than what you take for friggin’ granted), it’s like what’s the goddamned point of shooting it, if nobody’s gonna see it if I’m all bottle-necked at home?
The rub is is that The Damned Dutch, the friggin’ Dutch, are wired.
While we’ve got our Autobahns for cars, that have no Speed Limit, (big whoop), The Damned Dutch have Broadband Speeds, throughout the whole damned country of 120Mbps: http://hollandnotjustfilmproductions.com/new_commercials/UPC_fast_internet.html
They suck, I hate them.
Those are some kick ass speeds. I work at a university and we seem to max out at 11MB/second.
Seriously? You’ll never see it say 100%, because they’re included in the sample. Google’s Internet speed isn’t faster than itself (and can never be faster than itself), so even if it was faster than every other Internet speed in the United States, it would still be 99%. It’s basic statistics.
huhuhuhuhu………. i wanna go cry myself to sleep too T.T
I am close to 7 MEGABYTES + at home and I use 1/10th of the speed package available at Singapore homes which is 100MegaBYTES per second over fiber optic. The problem is most servers aren’t fast enough or fat pipe enough.
2mbpsiz the latest in INDIA under 3G mobile services :(
120MB/SEC ^^ Greatings from Holland.
Wow…makes my 5MB/sec feel like dog s****.
<a href=”http://www.locationalerter.com”>Location Alerter</a>
the game is actually downloading in half speed ppl :P !! 523Mbps should giv 64 MB per second .. so the actual time remaining is 1 and a half minutes .. not three on full speed.. NOW cry even harder and go to sleep
my download speed is 10kb/sec :D greetings from LEBANON!! the slowest internet :)
That’s not the fastest internet in the world it’s not even close…
Some Lithuanians could get such speeds which is more than the plan have: http://www.speedtest.net/result/1284153081.png.
This explains why Google thinks their awful javascript and ajax heavy changes from a couple years ago, are so great. You can’t fast-browse images anymore, since they do not load automatically anymore. Apparenlty Google would never even notice something like this. That’s why they think their “Google Instant” is instant. A normal computer sees it as “Google Choppy”.
Not that extreme. Take a look here: In Sweden, where mostly of the country is covered by fibre they offer you up to 1000 Mbit/s . Source: http://www.telia.se/privat/bredband/