Need Help with download speeds and server questions

[markwolff]

I have just completed upgrading the video players on my websites to a 640x480 screen. I am offering them for stream and download, late last year i upgraded my bandwidth and moved our server to Europe. My concern is the speed of the video downloads and the speed of my site in general ie the tour pages and photos loading . I am on high speed cable here on the West coast and sometimes it is very slow to download a movie file.Between 30kb/s and 50kb/s in contrast i can download about 1200kb/s from a server based in California or BC i was also noticing my sites were sometimes slow to load. I had one of my Tech guys look at the problem, to make sure all my code and everything was OK, it all checked out fine. However he did a tracing route from Europe to Vancouver and said the problem was more than likely a result of the distance the data has to travel, and there was a major slowdown from where it jumps from NYC to Europe. This Tech stuff is not my thing, i'm a marketing guy, i wanted to see if other GWW have seen this problem. I was told that i can add a US based server, and that would solve the problem, maybe? I moved my servers to Europe to get more bandwidth at a cheaper price, i am very happy with there service, however since most of my customers are in the US i need to make sure my sites are running as fast as they can for my US based customers. I have not had any customers complain, and have had several people check the speed of the video downloads in various cities,on the East coast and Europe and most said that the speed was fine. however here on the West coast on my computers it seems slow. I would appreciate any solutions, or ideas, and if adding a US based server to the members area would be a good idea. As i said because i have not had any complaints, i am not sure how much of a concern this is, i just want to make sure everything is running as well as it can. Maybe some of you could tell me how quick my sites home page and tour pages load, and if they seem slow www.markwolff.com www.markwolffvideo.com also if someone on the east coast, west coast, europe and even S. America wants to PM me i can send a password to the members area, so they could check the download speeds of the videos.
Thanks for your help

[gaybucks_chip]

The distance alone is BS. I regularly ping servers in the Netherlands, Australia, Europe and other places and get very decent ping times. Yes, there is going to be some difference in response because of the thousands of miles of distance, but you're talking like 40-80 ms of difference , not something that would really have a significant impact on download speed.

Sounds like your tech guy doesn't really understand routing. I just checked, and while my routing is different than yours (it goes ATT to San Francisco, then Global Crossing to Europe), it does look like there's a congestion issue between Global Crossing San Francisco and Global Crossing Amsterdam.

My guess is the problem might be with the total bandwidth on your server. If you only have a 10 or 20 Mbit connection and are serving 1Mbit videos, you're probably maxing out your bandwidth connection with just a small number (10 or 20) of people viewing your videos, so the server is scaling down bandwidth to each customer to serve the maximum number of customers. Each of our membership and gallery servers are regularly putting out 40 or 50 MBits each, sometimes bursting to 70 or 80 or even higher if we've just done a promotion to our affiliates.

As to moving servers to the US, I wouldn't recommend it. If you're living in Canada, operating entirely outside the US, you don't have to comply with the ridiculous 2257 regs. If you move your servers into the US, you become subject to US jurisdiction for 2257. Not that you shouldn't be compliant in any case if you have US affiliates and customers, but might as well avoid the additional oversight/regulation if you have can.

Looks like you're with Chilihost. Get with Luke or one of his tech people and I'm sure they can help you solve the problem.

[MMemmer]

My guess is the problem might be with the total bandwidth on your server. If you only have a 10 or 20 Mbit connection and are serving 1Mbit videos, you're probably maxing out your bandwidth connection with just a small number (10 or 20) of people viewing your videos, so the server is scaling down bandwidth to each customer to serve the maximum number of customers. Each of our membership and gallery servers are regularly putting out 40 or 50 MBits each, sometimes bursting to 70 or 80 or even higher if we've just done a promotion to our affiliates.

I would concur whith Chip's thoughts on this, if your not on a 100mbps connection or if you are on some other form of unmetered but capped plan it could really be affecting your performance.

Also keep in mind that while your current clients may be satisfied with the speed they are experiencing for downloads, potential new clients may not, and that can be hard to measure because it is just lost business.

[Chilihost]

Mark, I am sending you an email on this, trust me we will do everything we can to ensure that your sites are fast and you are happy.

thanks,
Luke