Flow Gigabit Fibre Tested

[TriniXaeno]

Today we have the privilege of testing the Flow Gigabit Fibre internet service at our very own headquarters.



First up, we test the raw bandwidth available through the connection using the venerable speedtest website.

The server location is Flow's very own NOC, located in Trinidad.



The speeds are off the charts. Fastest we have ever seen in the country.

But a lot of us game on servers located outside of the twin island republic. So next, a second test is performed using a server in the United States.



Understandably, the numbers aren't as fast as domestic traffic but still faster than any international speed test to date. Especially the upload. This will be fantastic for hosting game servers as well as doing casting and streaming of local content to an international audience.

The ping time was also impressive. Coming in at 52ms

Moving on, a real world test of downloading a game from STEAM.



The connection was able to achieve up to 30MB/s throughput. The 2GB game completed in two minutes.

Fast download speed isn't everything though. Equally important is jitter. Having a stable ping makes for a better gaming experience.

Our go to game for evaluating ping is DOTA 2.

US East is the closest server location provided by Valve. Ping times to it are seen below:



During actual game play the ping hovered around 104ms, remaining relatively stable with very little jitter.



Under stress (streaming two videos in the background and a 4K stream) the ping increased to 133ms. Still playable but pings of 100 and below are desirable.



Summary: Personally, I was not even aware these sort of speeds were possible. Flow Gigabit is the fastest internet we have ever tested, bar none.

Very exciting times ahead for gamers. It looks like fibre is about to change the game for good. This sort of bandwidth opens a lot of possibilities.

Suhuweat!!!!!!!!

[D2ultima]

Man, I gonna be real serious. If they selling gigabit internet and can't even achieve gigabit internet to their own servers.... I real not impressed. I tested gigabit internet from TSTT back in 2009 in SBCS and I saw the full thing working then, so flow have no real excuse now.

[TriniXaeno]

This is the fastest I've ever seen in real life. If you saw faster, I'd love to see those test results.

Do you still have them to share?

[TriniLink]

Someone needs to run a game on their Twitch channel and see how it works out. Who's first to try that? 

[Arcmanov]

What will it take to please allyuh trini again boy? 

I say run yuh fibre and do better yes.   Impress yuhself.





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[TriniXaeno]

hahah, yuh understand.

That internet faster than typical 7200RPM Hard drives.

My mind is still blown that we have that right here in Trinidad. Crazy

Good idea with the twitch stream TriniLink!

[D2ultima]

This is the fastest I've ever seen in real life. If you saw faster, I'd love to see those test results.

Do you still have them to share?

I don't. I was in the IT room with my last laptop back then, and all I did was run a speedtest while connected via LAN. I just remember that it was here for many years already.

What will it take to please allyuh trini again boy? 

I say run yuh fibre and do better yes.   Impress yuhself.

I not saying it good or bad, I just saying that since I know the tech has been in Trinidad for about 6 years already, and since they can't hold an actual gigabit up/down speed to their own local servers, it doesn't seem as impressive to me as it is seeming to you.

Now if this was publicly available for a decent price, similar to how Google Fiber was being offered in some places of the US, then I'd be impressed. Until then however the myriad of packetloss issues and internet slowdowns in load times for websites etc even though download and upload speeds are full, and jitter on the line with Flow doesn't really make me feel quite as amazed.

Anybody want to impress me, they have to be IMPRESSIVE. Just because it has nothing else in its class currently doesn't mean it's impressive =D. Just like the Razer Blade didn't impress me when it launched and was the only laptop in its class. It isn't an impressive machine.

[TriniXaeno]

Pity you don't have those test results.

I didn't get any jitter or slow down even during peak times on this fiber connection.

Now we need to figure out what to do with all this bandwidth. Feel free to pitch ideas.

The twitch is a good one. More the merrier.

[Arcmanov]

Ah well..wha ah go tell yuh...things can only improve from here.
It's still performing better than any connection that the BULK of users in Trinidad (and maybe even the Caribbean) have right now.

I for one...cannot wait.  Them's some epic latencies there. 

I am eagerly awaiting pricing and availability information.

[TriniLink]

Try a KODI 4K or HD tv/ video streaming and see how that works out. Free cable and HD? can't go wrong. Couch Potatoes in the making, urp. :x 

[EmpireKing]

So beautiful. So very beautiful.

[D2ultima]

Pity you don't have those test results.

I didn't get any jitter or slow down even during peak times on this fiber connection.

Now we need to figure out what to do with all this bandwidth. Feel free to pitch ideas.

The twitch is a good one. More the merrier.

Yeah, but at the time I never felt like it made much of any sense to save it. I certainly didn't think I'd be bringing it up 6 years later for the at-the-time working-really-well Flow.

No jitter or slowdown would be great. But what I getting from flow right now is much twitch throttling especially in the evenings and I've had way too much packetloss issues, so hopefully they shape up soon. Digicel coming in guns blazing, especially with lower pings.

Twitch isn't a good idea, because 3500Kbps is about the limit you have, and for a non-partner it's suicide. Hitbox would be a far better idea to get consistent quality from, and even better would be youtube streaming where 10,000 bitrate is easily done by many. You could also use it for many high quality uploads to youtube, or streaming to multiple websites from one connection for the purpose of tournaments, for example (though the load on that system would be another matter entirely, unless multiple systems for multiple tournaments are used).

Or maybe you could upload and host useful files/patches/mods for users to get access to. That's about all I figure the net usage could run for though.

[Philosophical45]

Oh Em Gee!!! I was just satisfied with Digicel giving me a piece of beautiful Fibre in my home in Tobago, now I'm seeing Flow with this nice phat booty connection wining up in my face.... sigh... Bless these people.

[Arcmanov]

Relevant.