FTP Speeds over FIOS

[fiatlux]

Verizon seems to say that no one else but me is using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) over FIOS.  Is that correct?  If you are using FTP over FIOS please post your typical upload/download speeds here.  My upload speeds are 20 kbps (that's kilobits per second).  I used to get better FTP throughput over a 28.8 modem than FIOS!

[spacedebris]

Data transfer is data transfer. What speeds are you getting when you do a speed test at the speed test web sites?

speedtest.verizon.net

speedtest.net

speakeasy.net/speedtest

If your internet speeds are fine, then the FTP will only be limited by...

1. The FTP program in question

2. Your computer

3. Any firewalls

4. Server on other end

Verizon does not do any traffic modification or monitor the type of traffic on the network. They will not be slowing down just FTP traffic for example.

Now you may be having issues with the router. Maybe, maybe not. But as long as your internet speeds are up where they should be, it wont be Verizon slowing you down.

As for no one else using FTP, I guess they mean me. I must be "no one". I too use ftp and usually my speed is only limited by the server on the other end. I upload regularly to three different FTP's. One has me limited to 1Mbps, one I usually average between 3-4Mbps, and my big FTP usually lets me average somewhere around 6Mbps.

[jmw1950]

I guess I must also be among the  non-existent.

I look after a couple of web sites.

I get upload speeds that are well short of the 5 million BPS claimed, but far far above the 28.8kbps you are talking about.  I can usually get about 1.6 mbps or so on transfers larger than about 200kb. Small files are often much slower, but even at 100kbps, it doesn't take long to upload 20kb...

On the other hand I rarely upload files more than about 400kb as long as it doesn't take more than a few seconds, I am not going notice.

The main issue with FTP is that most web hosting organizations make a conscious decision not to allocate a lot of resources to FTP. The result is the limits on FTP performance tend to because of the limited resources on the other end, as opposed to any obvious issue with FiOS or your computer. FiOS really doesn't care whether you are using HTTP or HTTPS or FTP. It is all traffic in the same data stream.

The use of FTP tends to be miniscule relative to HTTP or HTTPS, so there isn't a good reason to allocate a lot of resources to support it.

You might want to make sure that you don't have an firewall or router issues that are slowing things down however.

[Justin46]

I have 25/15 FiOS service. I don't do much FTP work, but do occasionally upload or download. Using fileZilla on a Windows 7 laptop I just did a test download (from a server outside the Verizon network but physically less than 100 miles from my house):

During the download FileZilla was showing various speeds, from 2 or 3 MB/sec up to 5 or so. At the end it showed an almost 20 MB download in 7 seconds. If I am doing the calculations correctly that works out to an effective rate of 2.8 MB/sec or 22.4 mb/sec.

My experience is that this is pretty much what I generally get. And it is acceptable to me.

__________________________________
Justin
Verizon FiOS TV, Internet, and phone
QIP6416-P1, IMG 1.7.1, Build 09.97
Keller, TX 76248

[Mikhail]

---

@jmw1950 wrote:

I get upload speeds that are well short of the 5 million BPS claimed, but far far above the 28.8kbps you are talking about.  I can usually get about 1.6 mbps or so on transfers larger than about 200kb. Small files are often much slower, but even at 100kbps, it doesn't take long to upload 20kb...

On the other hand I rarely upload files more than about 400kb as long as it doesn't take more than a few seconds, I am not going notice.

The main issue with FTP is that most web hosting organizations make a conscious decision not to allocate a lot of resources to FTP. The result is the limits on FTP performance tend to because of the limited resources on the other end, as opposed to any obvious issue with FiOS or your computer. FiOS really doesn't care whether you are using HTTP or HTTPS or FTP. It is all traffic in the same data stream.

The use of FTP tends to be miniscule relative to HTTP or HTTPS, so there isn't a good reason to allocate a lot of resources to support it.

You might want to make sure that you don't have an firewall or router issues that are slowing things down however.

---

Well, three notes:

1. FTP is a greedy protocol by design. It tries to grab as much bandwith as it could. So a lot of providers tries to shape FTP traffic (aplly QoS).

2. When you transfer small files it involves a lot of file system API calls -- create file, close file. And file creation involves path parsing and directories reading. So transfer of 64 16 KB files would take much longer then transfer of 1 1MB file.

3. FTP protocol has less overheads than HTTP.