Once you get up in those ranges, the difference is not that noticeable between, say 20Mbps and 40Mbps. If you are downloading a really large file, the higher speed will allow it to download faster, and the higher speed means less buffering of videos once the video has started. However, the display of pages by your browser may not be perceptibly much faster. It's not that there is something necessarily wrong with your computer...it's just that the software you are using (the browser) still takes a certain amount of time to process the information and can be a limiting factor. In effect, when you go to another page, the "input" queues up faster at a higher speed, but it can only be processed so fast by the computer. A couple of years ago I had a 3Mbps connection, and then I switched to a 35 Mbps connection. Even though my current speed is more than 10 times my previous one, it doesn't mean the pages load 10 times faster. In fact, pages seem to load only a tad faster now than before.

Hi again mush, I've used both Yahoo! and gmail for email - both very useful - and free. Son was just checking what options may be available for me rather than dial-up - heck, I'm 82: time's getting shorter. I haven't got time to twiddle my thumbs waiting for dial-up to load! It seems that at about 20 km. from the city, 13 from a village, and about 5 from a switch, I think, I'm too far out to get high-speed service over wire. So we were told the other day when he went searching for an ISP on www.canadaisp.com? ca? I think was the address: got at least a couple of dozen potential providers. Our rural municipality has arranged for increased speed for much of the area via 15 towers, one of them about 12 miles away, but it needs line-of-sight ... and that would require more or less going through old uncle's barn ... or putting an antenna on its roof, or on the silo. We're going to see whether I might be able to do that, and send signal over the air to the house, about 300 feet away. There's another tower in another county that may be closer, but I haven't been able to find from a neighbour using it how the system works through that. Another guy who lives near me gets a signal from a nearby grain elevator, operated by a telephone company, that gives him fast download of print and small graphics, but not of material in motion and some of the included ads have that, so if one has limited download capacity, it might get eaten up more quickly than one expected, were one not able to get rid of them. ole joyful

A bit of trivia - traditional landlines, also known as POTS (plain old telephone service), USED TO use exclusively analog technology end to end. Folks who are old enough will remember poor quality long distance phone calls. Since several decades ago, POTS calls have changed, they do most of their traveling though the telco systems over digital links, including the Internet. That's why a cross country call or even an international call can sound like someone next door, the signal doesn't degrade with distance. But the so-called "last mile" of POTS service is analog over copper wire. Digital signals (like DSL) traveling over analog circuits have distance limitations. Those who have cable-supplied phone service or other VOIP have an entire digital path on their end for voice calls. Internet service is digital. When DSL service was first "released", only customers located within 12,000- 15,000 feet (measured by the length of the wire) of a telco office could get it. That's because distance limit of digital signals over copper wire intended for analog phone calls and that the analog to digital conversion equipment was only housed in the central offices. The telcos had large build-out projects to string fiber lines out in hub and spoke configurations (with an office as the hub) to broaden the areas where DSL could be offered. In my area (telco formerly called Pacific Bell), there was a web page that listed their construction schedule and showed the dates for when particular neighborhood work would be done and where the sites were located. I remember when it was started for my area, I went to visit the guys at the local neighborhood drop as they added the needed equipment. PS - satellite internet is for areas where no other internet service is available. Most will not offer service to a customer having an alternative. Satellite service tends to be very limited (only a few GB per month), expensive and has high latency (delays) because of the distance the signal has to travel. TV service of all kinds is distributed by satellite. Whether the ultimate signal a user gets comes from a cable, from the phone company, or the obvious satellite providers, satellite transmission is used. If you pass by a regional office of a cable provider, for instance, you'll usually see large satellite dishes. I don't know all the details.

Internet capacity isn't like weights and measures. If you pay for a pound of strawberries because that's what a recipe requires and get home with 8 ounces, you've not gotten what you needed. If you're getting 15 Mbps instead of 25, it may not matter. It doesn't mean something shouldn't be done about it, it just may not an immediate problem. Unless you have a several (like 3 or more) users who are downloading files or streaming video at the same time, the capacity drop shouldn't affect use. One quick question - are you checking this from a wired PC or a wireless one? Many home routers are limited to Wifi signals of about 15 Mbps and if that's how you're measuring the test, that's why. If so, try using an ethernet connected PC and see what you get. Or, maybe your modem gets clogged and needs a periodic reboot (if the higher speed remains for several days). Call the provider, explain the problem, let them diagnose the fix. It could be their their hardware as yours but they can sort it out.