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Hello, I am getting a download speed of 5 KB/s and there is nothing wrong with my Internet connection. Is that normal?

Ed

that's a bit low...

can you reply me the entire exact URL of the sound you are downloading? In particular I would like to know if the sound is coming from freesound or one of the mirrors.

i.e. if it starts with http://freesound.iua...., http://freesound.musipedia... or http://123.123.123... (not these exact numbers)

- bram

here we go:

http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/download/48409/48409_inchadney_side_street_II.wav

(from: http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=48409)

With some luck the download might finish in 24 hours ...

I also tried another link, same problem:

http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/download/44204/44204_Stephan.Matson_traffic_with_highway_close.aif

(from: http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=44204)

Ed

getting:

150+ KB/s from http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/data/48/sounds/48409__inchadney__side_street_II.wav
100+ KB/s from http://freesound.musipedia.org:3128/data/48/sounds/48409__inchadney__side_street_II.wav
and
300+ KB/s from http://150.214.146.56:50600/data/48/sounds/48409__inchadney__side_street_II.wav

so, it's definitely your connection.

- bram

thanks for checking that. seems you're right, somehow: I get much better speeds via the musipedia link, and when I use VPN connection via two different universities, the freesound connection gets faster. all between 50kb/s and 200 kb/s. I have no idea what the reason could be, without VPN I get max download speeds on other sites (600kb/s). without vpn, freesound connection still at around 5 kb/s.

can one freely sawp between the host addresses? (i.e. the beginning parts of the address)?

VPN connections create extra safety measures (firewall, virus scanners, secure connection) and this slows down your connection considerably.

e123
thanks for checking that. seems you're right, somehow: I get much better speeds via the musipedia link, and when I use VPN connection via two different universities, the freesound connection gets faster. all between 50kb/s and 200 kb/s. I have no idea what the reason could be, without VPN I get max download speeds on other sites (600kb/s). without vpn, freesound connection still at around 5 kb/s.

Glad to hear that my server seems faster. But the real reason is probably somewhere between your computer and the server you are using. Did you try traceroute?

For example, the command

mtr freesound.musipedia.org

should give you something like:

My traceroute [v0.71]
<your host name> (0.0.0.0) Mon Mar 31 17:35:24 2008
Keys: Help Display mode Restart statistics Order of fields quit
Packets Pings
Host Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. <your host> 0.0% 21 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.0
2. some intermediate host 0.0% 21 0.5 10.2 0.4 93.4 25.5
...
5. vz3.iban-rechner.de 0.0% 21 1.9 1.3 0.6 4.9 0.9
6. www.musipedia.org 0.0% 20 0.6 0.9 0.6 1.5 0.3

Wherever the packet loss is especially high, something goes wrong. By using a VPN via different universities, you might be changing your route such that the problem is avoided, which could explain a higher speed despite the VPN overhead.

- Rainer

... actually, I saw in the news yesterday that an oversea cable (EU-USA) of my service provider (german telekom) has some problems, that might be the propblem and would perhaps explain why I get a faster connection when vpn-ing via a university network, as they probably use a different connection to the usa...

musipedia has a good point though.

On OSX try in terminal: traceroute sitename
On Windows try in cmd.exe: tracert sitename

- bram