Guys,
I've got a 56k Modem hooked up through my Phone line.
But when it comes to downloading stuff off the Net, the transfer rate is only 4-5kb/s and man is it SLOW!!.
Apart from getting an ASDL line(which costs mega-dollars,over here to install and access), how can I get faster downloads?.

Is that the "average" transfer rate reported by your software? If so, then part of that is the delay between packets coming through the net to your ISP.

At what speed are you actually connecting to your server?

Trumpy,
When you say "4-5kb/s" do you mean kilobits (kb/s) or kilobytes (KB/s) per second? Windows typically reports downloads speeds in kilobytes.

The typically speed for a 56Kbps modem about 4.8 KB/sec.

There’s not a lot in between dialup and cablemodem/ADSL. One is 2-way satellite, like Starband, but it’s expensive on the North American continent, and the latency will drive you mad… with the double 33,000-mile signal path to a geostationary bird.

ISDN/IDSL is a bit pricey, and limited to 64-144kb/sec but is consistently at that rate. Some less-populated communities in the western US have within-a-few-miles ”802.11” {radio} service, but it seems expensive, and only a little better than dialup speedwise.

Oh,
I was under the impression that a 56k modem had a transfer rate of 56KB/s.
Paul,
that's a really good question, I've seen something like 42.2KB/s(sound right?)mentioned on the screen when connecting.
ftl-eric,
Welcome to ECN, mate!,
Yeah, sorry about that, I meant Kilo-Bytes.

Paul,
Could you please tell me how ADSL differs from a standard Dial-Up connection?.
Why are these systems so expensive to get installed?.(and operate)
Do you need new wiring for these systems or are us people in NZ being led down the garden path?, so to speak.
Telecom in NZ is not exactly renowned for it's honesty being a Monopoly land-line company!.

ADSL, asynchronous digital subscriber link.

I've been hooked up over two years now on ADSL.

Let's start with what you are looking at, these words on your screen, right now. You wish to reply to me so you use the mouse to push the "Post Reply" button. When your finger clicks the mouse button, a digital signal courses through the computer, is used to change the image on the screen, and is sent out through the phone line to the world wide web.

The digital signal from your mouse click stays digital from your computer through the phone line and on into the "cloud" of the internet on the ADSL connection. The modern dial up modems beginning with the transition to V.90 and later standards also do a direct digital transmission. The real difference is in the width of the band of frequencies allowed by the phone company for your specific line. Dial up is limited to a band of frequencies (bandwidth) that works well for carrying the human voice, and little else (that's why the music-on-hold always sound tinny). Dial up bandwidth can't be adjusted. So dial up simply can't get faster, now that we've used up all the mathematical compression and conversion tricks, with out a wider band of frequencies to send the signal into.

ADSL service provides a seperate band of frequencies above the frequencies used for voice. The higher band is used by the ADSL router for the digital information to go to and from the cloud of the internet and can be made wider or narrower, depending on how much you wish to pay for each month. As this band of frequencies doesn't interfer with the voice signal, both can be on the same single phone line. The voice line in your house is kept free of the whistle of the higher frequency digital "noise" with simple low-bandpass LC filters at each phone, or at the head of a wire that goes only to (a) phone(s). The computer ADSL router doesn't need a filter as it simply ignores the lower voice frequencies.

The phone wire that runs out the back of your computer, through the wall and down the road to the closest phone company office is metaphorically called "The Last Mile" and is where the greatest signal disruption occurs. The condition of your Last Mile is what determines whether the phone company can even supply ADSL to you, specifically, at all. The wire was manufactured and installed for low frequency voice signals. ADSL is higher frequency, and therefore, more susceptable to capacitive losses along the length of The Last Mile. Sopmetimes, the condition of The Last Mile restricts the speeds availabel to the slower ADSL rates. Sometimes, substituting a different line pair in the trunk will help. Sometimes, bits of hardware must be removed from your specific line. Sometimes, one must wait for the company to build an entirely new section of The Last Mile (if they ever will).

AL — That's a very good description.

If I could add two comments..

An ADSL "voice grade" twisted pair (to the phone office) is supposed to have is up to 1.2MHz signal components. (!) That, and the one here is side by side with a pile of other voice [and T1] pairs.

Most important, though, is that ADSL is "packet switched" and not "circuit switched" like dial tone. That gives the appearance of being always connected. I’m very lucky to have a 15,105 ft pair and routinely get 1100kb/sec data rate. {It took the telco 7 months to get it working right.}




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 06-07-2003).]

Well, I think Al has covered the ADSL/dial-up point very well there.

It really is that last connection (the "local loop") from your house to the CO that is the limiting factor these days. Many people living out in the sticks just don't have ADSL available to them. That "last mile" can also have a big effect on the speed at which you can connect on dial-up. A 56k modem is really pushing the limits of what can be crammed down a 3kHz wide telphone channel. I'm about 5 miles from my CO, and can generally connect between 42 and 44k, although it handshakes out at 38k on a bad day.

The difference between bits per second and bytes per second is also greater than the factor of 8 that you might think. On an asynchronous link you have not only the 8 bits for each byte, but also a start bit and a stop bit, so at full tilt 56 kilobits per sec could give you an absolute maximum transfer rate of 5.6 kilobytes per sec (before any compression is applied).

Can't wait until I can afford to go ADSL here at home! Plan to connect the ADSL Brouter to the LAN Switch and share with all Workstations!
But then I need to play Netgeek at home - + Firewall the whole thing!

At least, would be nice to have one W/S on a Dynamic IP ADSL connection, until the 5 Static IP addresses rate drops to something affordable.

Until then, I am still pushing data via Analog V90 MODEM connection - which top speed is 45,333 BPS, equaling upto a highest download speed of 6.5 KBPS (Kilo Bytes). That includes all the parity stuff and ack-ack (RTS/CTS and etc.).

Much nicer than my previously used V34 / 28.8 KBPS connection, which I used from 1996 upto 2001!

Scott35

When DSL and cable modems were very new (and not generally available) some ISPs were offering dual 56K connections via two modems and two regular phone lines for 112 Kb/s. I don't know where this stands today. Diamond refered to this ability as "shotgun technology" (google search for info). If you have two phone lines anyway and can't get DSL this might be an option - make sure your ISP supports it first.

Or you could have a buddy with DSL download the porn for you...

(just kidding, not implying anyone here downloads that filthy stuff...)

Porn on the internet, your kidding.

MAN, Am I having some problems with accessing the Internet today, everything is down to a Snail's pace, I keep getting bumped off with a "cannot find server" message, even though I have been connected three times before to the same server.
Anyone else had this?.

Hey, it's OK now!.
I logged off of the Net and then came back on and then it was back to normal.
Thank God for that!!.

Haven't had any problems the last couple of days.

{VoiceMode = Abe Simpson}
"I remember the days when all we had was a 300bps modem and you spent the first hour dialing and just getting a busy signal...."

Good one, Paul!.
Had a real strange thing happen this morning, went to Dial-up on the Net, to check my e-mails and my Modem would not work.
I figured with the weather being so poor (snow, etc), that there may have been a voltage transient during the night.
In Device Manager, the Modem came up as Inoperative and I was fearing the worst(ie: cooked Modem!)
So I bit the bullet and turned off my computer and took out the Modem and checked it(wearing a Static strap!), it looked OK, so I plugged it back in and put the covers back on, powered the system back up and I was away again, don't know what caused that?.
But the modem hasn't missed a beat since!.
Funny things these computers!.
Have you(or anyone else, for that matter) ever heard of this particular fault before?.
I can tell you, it gave me a half decent fright!.

It might have been dirt or oxidation on the contacts. Just pulling the board and re-installing would wipe the contacts clean. Just a possibility.....

I actually re-formatted my Winchester drive and re-installed everything on this system a couple of days ago. This computer doesn't have a "real" modem -- It's one of those "everything's done by the driver software" jobs.

Well, I had Windows98 on here before, and I could usually connect at around 42 to 44k. I decided to dump 98 and re-install Windows 95, and what do you know? I can now connect at 56k every time!

Trumpy,

If that loss of hardware situation ever happens again, try performing a "Warm Reboot" first, and see if the problem "goes away" once the machine has been rebooted.

If that does work, you may be looking at a failing power supply or DRAM holes.
The machine attempts to display a "blue screen of death", but for some reason it doesn't... only the hard error has still occured! Stumbled across that one maybe 3 times on troubleshoots for clients.

Another thing could be IRQs stepping on each other.

If warm booting does not do any good, try a 10 minute shutdown. Instead of rebooting, bring the machine down in a normal fashion, and leave it off for about 10 minutes.
If that works (hardware is seen again after reboot), then heat is causing a bus connection to lose contact.
If that's the case, move the adapter (card) to another bus slot. Also examine the adapter's contacts to see if there are any lifted segments.
If problem persists, replace the adapter.

If it's not a heat, adapter or IRQ problem (or any kind of PnP conflict / loose jumpers / etc.), or anything caused by a windows application, then you get to dive into core malfunctions! How fun!@!@!@! ( *!@#% ).

Good luck!

Scott35

Paul,Scott,
Thanks heaps for the advice.
I'm just hoping that it is not going to become a recurring thing.
Scott,
How is a Warm Re-boot done (or a Hot or a Cold one,too, for that matter)?.

In Windows, Start -- Shut down -- Restart system should reboot, but of course the system has to actually be running to a certain extent for that to work!

The IBM-PC has always used Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot (i.e. hold both Ctrl & Alt while pressing Del). On A Windows system, the first Ctrll-Alt-Del should bring up a box indicating the different processes running, and you need to do a second Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot.

If it doesn't do anything, the system's well and truly crashed.....

You can also do a hard reset without powering down if you have the appropriate switch wired to the motherboard, but most modern systems don't bother to provide one.

Thanks Paul,
I've always wondered how that was done!.

<homer simpson> DOHHH!!! </homer simpson>

Sorry, Trumpy... forgot to explain what the heck a "Warm", or even a "Cold" reboot is!


Paul has described it already (thanks, Paul!!! )

A little expansion to the reboot thingee:

"Warm" reboot:
<OL TYPE=1>

[*]To restart the computer via the "normal" method of using the shut down command - such as shut down / restart,

[*]To restart using the "Three-Fingered Salute" - known by "Ctrl + Alt + Delete",

[*]To restart by depressing the "reset" button - if available.
</OL>

"Cold" reboot:
<OL TYPE=1>

[*]To turn off the power - either by turning off the power switch, pulling the plug, turn off the circuit breaker for that branch circuit, or chopping down the pole with the Transformer which feeds your neighborhood, then eventually restarting the machine after a minimum 30 second wait time period.
</OL>

For the Warm reboots (AKA Soft reboot), the first one is generally used under all circumstances - and restarts everything from "scratch".
The second one is used when things kind of go haywire, and an application misbehaves . Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't! If it works, it does a "quick exit" which does not close any running applications - it just, for lack of a better way to say it, dumps the operating system from memory.
The third one is commonly used when things go haywire and a three-fingered salute does nothing (pretty much always ).
It resets the processor by "faking" a signal to the CPU from the power supply, describing the state of output power (it makes the CPU think the power supply is not sending out a "power OK" signal). This results in the CPU locking into a reset state, which clears everything from RAM and puts the machine back at the POST.

Needless to say, the 2nd and 3rd options are only for critical situations, not for normal shut downs or reboots.

For the "Cold" reboots (AKA Hard reboot), these are done when no reset button is available.
Also, when doing a normal shut down (shut off machine, not reboot), this is a "Cold" restart - since the machine gets turned off for a period of time.
p.s. Only the first option of "Cold" rebooting is common - rest of options are just thrown in to be funny!...

Man, could talk (type) for hours about the interesting ways a computer operates + brings its self to life by "Picking its self up by its Bootstraps"!!!

Scott35

Scott,
Thank God for that, I thought you were talking about a strange sort of a Masonic Hand-shake!.
Thanks for your help Scott.