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How fast is your internet connection?
Thread poster: Tom in London
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:27
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Dec 17, 2020

I was chatting to someone today (not a translator) who works with videos and video editing. He told me he needs a very fast internet connection: 200mbps or more. I was shocked; as a translator, I get away with much less than that. I've installed a SpeedTest application https://www.speedtest.net/apps/mac and here's my current readout:

Screen Shot 1

This is as much as I could possibly need, doing translation work + listening to Spotify + emailing, googling, downloading, watching TV etc etc. Never had a problem with these speeds.

But if you have a large family with 3 teenage children playing videogames etc. I imagine you would need a lot more.

What is YOUR internet speed? Is it enough for what you do?


 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Everything is relative Dec 17, 2020

As someone who still has nightmares about uploading basic WordPerfect files overnight on a 2400 modem, our current download speed of 8MB in the office is a dream.

The 35MB at home seems a bit OTT to be honest. But then we don’t have the fridge and the lightbulbs on the network yet, old farts that we are.


Zibow Retailleau
 
Andriy Yasharov
Andriy Yasharov  Identity Verified
Ukraine
Local time: 19:27
Member (2008)
English to Russian
+ ...
Mine is faster Dec 17, 2020

I enjoy a faster Internet connection.

It's


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:27
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
To quote the Italian fish and chip man Dec 17, 2020

You gedda whadda you pay for.

I could increase my speed up to 150 if I paid £5 extra per month, or up to 300 if I pay twice what I currently pay - but I really don't need that speed and I'd rather spend that money on something else.

[Edited at 2020-12-17 15:49 GMT]


 
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Kay-Viktor Stegemann
Germany
Local time: 18:27
English to German
In memoriam
Huge files sometimes Dec 17, 2020

Cloudflare speed test tells me my connection has about 230 Mbps download and about half of that upload speed. This helps a lot sometimes when agencies send me big files (like 100 MB packages where the TM of decades is included, or Excel files with high res pictures of app UIs). On the other hand, when working with translation platforms like Smartling or Memsource online (or when working on MemoQ online projects), the actual connection speed does not matter much, it is the servers that can slow y... See more
Cloudflare speed test tells me my connection has about 230 Mbps download and about half of that upload speed. This helps a lot sometimes when agencies send me big files (like 100 MB packages where the TM of decades is included, or Excel files with high res pictures of app UIs). On the other hand, when working with translation platforms like Smartling or Memsource online (or when working on MemoQ online projects), the actual connection speed does not matter much, it is the servers that can slow you down a lot.Collapse


Tom in London
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Sometimes Dec 17, 2020

Tom in London wrote:
You gedda whadda you pay for.

Maybe in London. In the countryside where you're still on copper wires, you take what you can get.

But then I'm sure there are plenty of translators out there who can only dream of 8MB.


 
Mervyn Henderson (X)
Mervyn Henderson (X)  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:27
Spanish to English
+ ...
35MB Dec 17, 2020

Maybe they made an extra effort because of your neighbour? Or is it not unusual?

Zibow Retailleau
Christopher Schröder
Matthias Brombach
 
Laurent Mercky
Laurent Mercky
France
Local time: 18:27
Chinese to French
+ ...
almost 30 mbps Dec 17, 2020

really don't know, I'm on wifi from my tv box.
enough for working, playing online games and also listening live shows.


 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
OT, soz Dec 17, 2020

Mervyn Henderson wrote:
Maybe they made an extra effort because of your neighbour? Or is it not unusual?


I would make a clever reference to one of his lesser known songs, "I've got supersonic broadband and you're welcome to sponge off my WiFi", but I'm worried about being castigated for straying off topic.

Perhaps I'll be forgiven if I share how we still, a decade on, giggle uncontrollably about the Spanish hotel receptionist who tried to get us to pay for "whiffy" in our room and had no idea what was so funny. Had they never had British guests before?


Mervyn Henderson (X)
 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:27
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Saved by 4G Dec 17, 2020

Chris S wrote:
But then I'm sure there are plenty of translators out there who can only dream of 8MB.

I was that person for quite some time. My telephone/ASDL connection is a direct, three-mile copper link to the exchange. On a good day it's 2Mb/s, but uploads are a fraction of that, which means returning large documents is a nightmare. Uploads often time out before completing. It's also unreliable, because the telephone line runs through woodland, and bits of tree (or indeed entire trees) tend to fall on it during storms.

Fortunately, I'm no longer dependent on ADSL. When I started back in 2015 I was able to cobble together a 4G connection. This involved a 6-metre antenna, two short-range wireless terminals, a load balancer and quite a bit of duct tape, but it worked and the speed and quality of the service seems to have improved over the years.

I get a good 40-50Mb/s plus for downloads using 4G, and uploads are mercifully quick (25-30Mb/s), but my ping times are pretty poor at >31ms. Subjectively I get a lot of lag when using cloud-based CAT tools, which is one reason that I generally avoid using them.

If anybody in the UK has problems with landline (ADSL) broadband in the UK, I encourage them to walk around with a 4G phone and see what the signal strength is like in/outside their home.

Regards,
Dan


Christopher Schröder
Tom in London
Angie Garbarino
Daryo
 
Matthias Brombach
Matthias Brombach  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 18:27
Member (2007)
Dutch to German
+ ...
Radio Norddeich, bitte melden! Dec 17, 2020

Dan Lucas wrote:

When I started back in 2015 I was able to cobble together a 4G connection. This involved a 6-metre antenna, two short-range wireless terminals, a load balancer and quite a bit of duct tape, but it worked and the speed and quality of the service seems to have improved over the years.


Sounds very impressive to me! Do you have a photo of your antenna? Do you still need it or would you sell it? I ask because I sometimes visit my parents in East Frisia where 4G still is a catastrophe in that place where they live.


Mervyn Henderson (X)
 
Andy Watkinson
Andy Watkinson
Spain
Local time: 18:27
Member
Catalan to English
+ ...
Eeee, you were lucky! Dec 17, 2020

Chris S wrote:

As someone who still has nightmares about uploading basic WordPerfect files overnight on a 2400 modem


Living in the back of beyond, I didn't even have a phone line, but a TAC - Teléfono de Acceso Rural - basically a dodgy radio-frequency poor excuse for a phone.

Downloading 100k was about 15 min.

Uploading 100k would take about an hour. Of course, most times it would cut off half way through.....


Christopher Schröder
 
Mervyn Henderson (X)
Mervyn Henderson (X)  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:27
Spanish to English
+ ...
Whiffy Dec 17, 2020

Shamefully, there was a time many moons ago - and I've broached this subject of not being 100% au fait with the language back home before - when suddenly, with no warning, I found the word "wi-fi" looming ominously up in my speech in a shop in the very town where I was brung up. I baulked, because I wasn't sure whether or not the word "wi-fi" did in fact go like "hi-fi", for by that stage it was definitely an everyday "wee-fee" for me. I skirted the issue by talking about Internet connections, u... See more
Shamefully, there was a time many moons ago - and I've broached this subject of not being 100% au fait with the language back home before - when suddenly, with no warning, I found the word "wi-fi" looming ominously up in my speech in a shop in the very town where I was brung up. I baulked, because I wasn't sure whether or not the word "wi-fi" did in fact go like "hi-fi", for by that stage it was definitely an everyday "wee-fee" for me. I skirted the issue by talking about Internet connections, until the person in the shop actually said it for me. I thought about this recently, because I remembered it was a bit like trying to make someone say "like James Bond".Collapse


Christopher Schröder
 
Philippe Etienne
Philippe Etienne  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 18:27
Member
English to French
Wimax Dec 17, 2020

Preamble:
No landline or fiber, but a septic tank, borehole and water pump. Inorganic rubbish shipped by a 2003/260,000km campo car to the container area a mile away. The good thing is that it's next to the nearest bar. We could use a wheelbarrow to be greener, but the aircon fails during the summer.
On-topic:
10 Mbps downlink and 3 Mbps uplink, latency 15ms, unlimited data for €20/month. Sporadically unreliable, but mobile tethering is there for a reason.
Terms of u
... See more
Preamble:
No landline or fiber, but a septic tank, borehole and water pump. Inorganic rubbish shipped by a 2003/260,000km campo car to the container area a mile away. The good thing is that it's next to the nearest bar. We could use a wheelbarrow to be greener, but the aircon fails during the summer.
On-topic:
10 Mbps downlink and 3 Mbps uplink, latency 15ms, unlimited data for €20/month. Sporadically unreliable, but mobile tethering is there for a reason.
Terms of use:
Whenever I need to download 300MB of video reference material, it takes the time it takes, and I hardly upload or e-mail files larger than 20MB. I've heard of Internet speeds of 100+Mbps, though.
To avoid traffic jams and domestic rage, children have their own "guest" wi-fi network with the bandwidth and schedule I grant them on the router. Still, they use a massive great big load of data, far more than me.
Background:
Before that, for €50/month, satellite Internet, with half a second of latency and data volume limited to 25 GB/month. The 1st generation dish was as large as a backup for the late Arecibo radiotelescope.

Philippe
Collapse


Mervyn Henderson (X)
Christopher Schröder
 
mughwI
mughwI
United States
Local time: 13:27
English to Spanish
+ ...
Gaming, music production & video editing Dec 17, 2020

Download Mbps
372.26

Upload Mbps
25.82


 
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