The USA and parts of Europe have insanely fast Internet, but we live on a sleepy island, an overseas department of France in the Caribbean called Guadeloupe. Of course our Internet backbone comes from the USA via Americas II submarine cable which was commissioned in 1999, but has been kept very expensive so only government and the corporate sector could afford it, but they are finally rolling it out to residential.
We had VDSL which has a theoretical limit of 52 Mbps/16 Mbps Asymmetric, although we never saw more than 6 Mbps/.4 Mbps. After 5 years Canal+ and buffering YouTube experience, blurry cable TV and updates that took the whole night, a door to door canvasser from Orange (France Telecom, who own the land communications infrastructure) proposed us Fiber 600 Mbps Symmetric from a 10Gb link. Of course we said yes! But the whole area has copper wire and there are no fiber optic cables in sight. I knew we were in for a long wait and yet they promised it in 14 days. Was this just a cynical marketing ploy to probe if it is viable for them given our sparse population? Orange had locked us into a virtual contract once we accepted the Fiber box and TV decoder that arrived on our doorstep the next day. The following day a canvasser showed up from Canal+ (the losing ISP) pleading with us to stay offering to undercut Orange’s price. But our bad experiences were still too fresh in our minds: hours wasted on hold to talk to a machine telling us to call back later or eventually get a telephone support person trained in denying everything and blaming France Telecom. We eventually got them to send out a technician and the technician plugged in his diagnostic tool in and declared we have 10 Mbps and was gone, even though we could not even open a web browser on any computer in the house. We were left without Internet for a month, and one day it suddenly came back to its old 6 Mbps as before. But these experiences leave a sour taste in your mouth.
Meanwhile, Orange keep sending SMSes with installation appointments and breaking them at the last minute due to technical difficulties. We know those difficulties were that there is no fiber optic infrastructure in the area. A few days after our third broken appointment, I saw shiny new aluminum poles going up along our road, but we had to wait another month for cables to be strung up and an ONT to be installed, but it is thankfully quite close to us. I knew the big day was about to happen. The next day we woke to a flashing router with no Internet, our current ISP found out we were transferring our phone number and just cut us and left us with no house phone or Internet for 8 days. Fortunately we have generous data (which we only used because often the 4G was faster than the local VDSL we have now, we figured we could use mobile hotspot until the fiber was finally rolled out. That turned into 8 days with only our mobile phones burning hot from sharing data, but at least we will have fiber soon enough.
In the past I have asked questions about how to rank Arch mirrors, but it didn’t seem to matter what regions or options I chose with such a ratty connection.
I am happy to report,the Fibre Optic was worth the wait and all the pain. We are now being spoiled with 500+ Mbps and we love it.
Can some kind soul from the 21st century tell me what optimal ranking options should be given these huge improvements in connectivity? E.g. We are in Guadeloupe, which is overseas department of France. It defaults to check France, but I am geographically much closer to USA.
lucky you. Here in Germany, most cities are happy if they have 50Mbit. My parents still can use 16Mbit max in a 5000 people town …
Even here in the rather big city where I live (300.000 people), I had to wait until last year, to be able to get up to 500Mbit with fibre to the cellar, before that the max was 50 Mbit …
Even with fibre to the flat, the max is 1000 Mbit …
same here. i have 50mbit and on the other side of the road 1000 fiber optics. the joke of the whole thing is, three years ago they concreted the road and sidewalks new…
500 meters in the direction of the city center, they also have 1000 fiber optics with a population of 15000. somehow I’m living in the wrong part of the village.
That is, being exploited to the max, just like us all in these Banana republics of the West where IT companies are being fed to the max. Ever compared home DSL pricing internationally?
While fibre-cables are slowly(!) being dug under in my town, I still go by stone-age copper-wire tariffs, costing me 40 bucks monthly for 50 mbps like shown above by @swh …
After all the construction work is done, when I want to switch over to fibre, the tariff-offers will automatically increase by 10 bucks monthly without any choice.
What I keep hearing from not included countries (see my above link), such as India and China, 50 mbps cost no more than 5 bucks per month.
As this forum has an internationally variant membership, I’d love to hear more from those people living “abroad” from the western countries…
$ milcheck
State Url Proto Country Comp% Delay Avg Dev Score
Ok https://opencolo.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:39 0.52 0.26 1.4
Ok https://america.mirror.pkgbuild.com/ https United States 100 0:01 0.55 0.26 0.8
Ok https://mirrors.lug.mtu.edu/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:10 0.61 0.39 1.2
Ok https://ziply.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:39 0.58 0.31 1.5
Ok https://codingflyboy.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:38 0.53 0.13 1.3
Ok https://mirrors.ocf.berkeley.edu/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:31 1.27 0.65 2.4
Ok https://mirror.mia11.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:30 0.75 0.39 1.6
Ok https://repo.ialab.dsu.edu/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:14 0.75 0.62 1.6
Ok https://mirror.sfo12.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:31 0.69 0.28 1.5
Ok https://mirror.pit.teraswitch.com/archlinux/ https United States 100 3:44 0.64 0.77 5.1
Ok https://nocix.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:39 0.48 0.21 1.3
Ok https://nnenix.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:39 0.43 0.21 1.3
Ok https://mirror.stephanie.is/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:28 0.44 0.20 1.1
Ok https://archive-us-lv.gaab-networks.de/arch/ https United States 100 12:51 0.70 0.36 13.9
Ok https://mnvoip.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:38 0.44 0.26 1.3
Ok https://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:34 1.44 1.35 3.4
Ok https://mirror.hackingand.coffee/arch/ https United States 100 0:00 0.59 0.52 1.1
Ok https://mirror.wdc1.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:31 0.73 0.50 1.7
Ok https://mirrors.rit.edu/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:15 0.65 0.66 1.6
Ok https://mirror.arizona.edu/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:32 0.79 0.33 1.7
Ok https://coresite.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:38 0.43 0.33 1.4
Ok https://archive-us-nj.gaab-networks.de/arch/ https United States 100 7:31 0.64 0.55 8.7
Ok https://ohioix.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:39 0.42 0.22 1.3
Ok https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/archlinux/ https United States 100 6:15 0.94 1.29 8.5
Ok https://mirror.adectra.com/archlinux/ https United States 100 1:19 0.85 0.21 2.4
Ok https://iad.mirrors.misaka.one/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:29 0.77 1.30 2.6
Ok https://forksystems.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:38 0.52 0.36 1.5
Ok https://dfw.mirror.rackspace.com/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:53 0.55 0.38 1.8
Ok https://mirrors.bloomu.edu/archlinux/ https United States 100 3:13 1.14 0.61 5.0
Ok https://arch.hu.fo/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:06 0.58 0.34 1.0
Ok https://irltoolkit.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:38 0.69 0.67 2.0
Ok https://m.lqy.me/arch/ https United States 100 1:08 0.95 1.53 3.6
Ok https://ord.mirror.rackspace.com/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:53 0.76 0.98 2.6
Ok https://mirror.lty.me/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:00 1.01 1.66 2.7
Ok https://iad.mirror.rackspace.com/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:53 0.64 0.65 2.2
Ok https://mirror.rackspace.com/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:53 1.15 1.38 3.4
Ok https://volico.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:39 0.46 0.26 1.4
Ok https://arch.mirror.ivo.st/ https United States 100 0:45 0.75 0.32 1.8
Ok https://mirror.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:38 0.51 0.13 1.3
Ok https://mirror.clarkson.edu/archlinux/ https United States 100 1:15 0.49 0.24 2.0
Ok https://zxcvfdsa.com/arch/ https United States 100 0:34 0.68 0.70 2.0
Ok https://southfront.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:38 0.50 0.34 1.5
Ok https://archmirror1.octyl.net/ https United States 100 2:26 0.55 0.31 3.3
Ok https://mirror2.sandyriver.net/pub/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:35 0.77 0.91 2.3
Ok https://mirror.dal10.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:29 0.83 0.67 2.0
Ok https://uvermont.mm.fcix.net/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:38 0.44 0.35 1.4
Ok https://arlm.tyzoid.com/ https United States 100 0:01 0.67 0.57 1.3
Ok https://arch.mirror.constant.com/ https United States 100 0:00 0.64 0.35 1.0
Ok https://mirror.theash.xyz/arch/ https United States 100 0:07 0.64 0.30 1.1
Ok https://mirror.tmmworkshop.com/archlinux/ https United States 100 0:02 0.68 0.32 1.0
and France.
$ milcheck
State Url Proto Country Comp% Delay Avg Dev Score
Ok https://mirrors.slaanesh.org/archlinux/ https France 100 11:44 0.83 1.69 14.3
Ok https://mirror.cyberbits.eu/archlinux/ https France 100 0:01 0.47 0.39 0.9
Ok https://mirror.spaceint.fr/archlinux/ https France 100 0:22 0.73 0.60 1.7
Ok https://mirror.wormhole.eu/archlinux/ https France 100 2:03 0.67 0.61 3.3
Ok https://mirror.ibakerserver.pt/Arch/ https France 100 1:03 0.68 0.77 2.5
Ok https://mirrors.eric.ovh/arch/ https France 100 1:01 0.92 1.16 3.1
Ok https://arch.yourlabs.org/ https France 100 0:40 0.60 0.40 1.7
Ok https://mirrors.gandi.net/archlinux/ https France 100 2:47 0.63 0.53 3.9
Ok https://archlinux.mailtunnel.eu/ https France 100 0:00 0.49 0.53 1.0
Ok https://mirror.thekinrar.fr/archlinux/ https France 100 0:33 0.91 0.50 2.0
Ok https://mirror.sysa.tech/archlinux/ https France 100 31:48 0.76 0.70 33.3
Ok https://mirrors.celianvdb.fr/archlinux/ https France 100 0:15 0.51 0.44 1.2
Ok https://mirror.oldsql.cc/archlinux/ https France 100 0:50 0.70 0.50 2.0
Ok https://mirroir.labhouse.fr/arch/ https France 100 0:35 0.36 0.27 1.2
So which one would you use? I’m not so sure milcheck is the right tool for the job and I don’t really know how to interpret the results. To me the US looks better.
Uwe, we only have 3 ISPs in Guadeloupe. France Telecom (Orange), Canal+ and SFR. They all use FT’s infrastructure, which is around 55€ for Fibre 600 Mbps Symmetric. The remaining two fight it out by discounting the price FT gives them.
On copperwire (VDSL) Voice, TV and Internet its 39€ - but none ever got 50 Mbps and its Asymmetric so the upload speeds are impossibly slow, .before I disconnected were getting 0.4 Mbps.
I think that 5€ for copperwire may be a trend. My cell is already down to 4.99€ for 15Gb data and an hour of talktime unlimited destinations.
As a side note, I remember reading an an old ITU report from 2020 where they stated (I paraphrase) that there has been 110,000 percent drop in the technology cost of communications but the providers have passed on less than 8 percent of savings to the end users. I think that is starting to change and market forces and EU government consumer law is driving down prices for consumers, since they know how filthy rich telecoms have become. That’s my take any way.
This topic reminds me of some another topic where the people showcased their internet speed, and discussed many good things their.
I will also show my internet speed then:
And this is not from optic fiber, but from USB wire coated with TPE, PVC and braided cable which makes up its fiber, and I can see it Optically, and feel it from my skin !!
There is no “which one”. I told you to check both. Checkboxes. You had a screenshot full of checkboxes under your nose; just check all checkboxes that might be relevant, like fr+us, press “OK”, and the tool will rank all servers in that pool and select the fastest.
That’s the entire point of the tool
You will get a mix of French and US servers (likely very slanted towards the US). They will be the best servers for you at this moment.
That’s it.
And you can do that whenever you feel like it. Ranking one’s mirrors is a casual thing. You didn’t need to go and install tools from the AUR. Maybe three clicks needed, that’s all.
I recently received a 5€ increase in my contribution. Energy has become too expensive says vodafone. I now pay for mine 50mb DSL offer 34€ instead of 29€. mind you without phone connection. to make calls I only use my smartphone.
I was upset on that thread before about the behavior of the ISP’s…
updates that took the whole night, a door to door canvasser from Orange (France Telecom, who own the land communications infrastructure) proposed us Fiber 600 Mbps Symmetric from a 10Gb link. Of course we said yes! But the whole area has copper wire and there are no fiber optic cables in sight. I knew we were in for a long wait and yet they promised it in 14 days. Was this just a cynical marketing ploy to probe if it is viable for them given our sparse population? Orange had locked us into a virtual contract once we accepted the Fiber box and TV decoder that arrived on our doorstep the next day. The following day a canvasser showed up from Canal+ (the losing ISP) pleading with us to stay offering to undercut Orange’s price. But our bad experiences were still too fresh in our minds: hours wasted on hold to talk to a machine telling us to call back later or eventually get a telephone support person trained in denying everything and blaming France Telecom. We eventually got them to send out a technician and the technician plugged in his diagnostic tool in and declared we have 10 Mbps and was gone, even though we could not even open a web browser on any computer in the house. We were left without Internet for a month, and one day it suddenly came back to its old 6 Mbps as before. But these experiences leave a sour taste in your mouth.
“copper”
