Chat & Social > The Bar - General Chat
Broadband info please
Evilgoat:
--- Quote from: V8MoneyPit on January 29, 2008, 18:00:41 ---The speed limitation may not be the ISP. If you are in a rural area at the end of a very long line, you may not be able to get any faster speeds. Also, ADSL is severely affected by how many people are using the line at the same time. At peak times, our rural connection grinds to a virtual halt.... slower than our old dial up connection.
Our Virgin package is a 2gb, but we rarely see more than 500k :roll:
--- End quote ---
Dropped them over that, switch off in a few weeks. Virgin (and a lot of others) Do traffic shaping which doesnt help things.
Silvery Thing:
--- Quote from: Evilgoat on January 29, 2008, 19:03:29 ---.... Virgin (and a lot of others) Do traffic shaping which doesnt help things.
--- End quote ---
"Traffic shaping" :-. I have never heard that term before.... what does it mean :?
waveydavey:
Where is your modem plugged in?
I know a guy who moved it from a phone extention to the main incoming socket, changed the ADSL splitter (the little box between the modem and the phone line) and got about a tenfold speed increase.
Worth a look?
Evilgoat:
--- Quote from: Silvery Thing on January 29, 2008, 20:38:45 ---
--- Quote from: Evilgoat on January 29, 2008, 19:03:29 ---.... Virgin (and a lot of others) Do traffic shaping which doesnt help things.
--- End quote ---
"Traffic shaping" :-. I have never heard that term before.... what does it mean :?
--- End quote ---
The idea is that different types of traffic use the line differently.
HTTP or Web traffic is 'Bursty'. This means you can give the illusion of 8Mb downstream while in reality you have a lot less or its shared between users, this is the Contention ration, how many people you are 'sharing' with.
As long as this is the way it stays, just programs like MSN, chats, web traffic and games, everyone wins.
HOWEVER
Streaming, Peer to Peer and most downloads are sustained transfers, this means the line becomes tied up for the duration of the transfer, with Peer to Peer the story can be much worse. Obviously, you tying up all 8Mb effects the other people that are on that connection.
Its possible to classify what traffic is flowing down a line, and its possible to prioritise some traffic, and rate limit others, Thus, its not impossible to see huge transfer rates for web stuff, which is what most people want. Then <20K speeds for peer to peer to keep line speeds up artificially. This means that they can keep most customers happy while only the tech savvy actually click whats happening., My employer write such software so I know how to see it in action.
Virgin do this and make no secret about it, although they wont tell you if you ask. Many other low cost ISPs doo too. I was getting amazing speeds browsing the net. Fire up anythign else and it was slower than dial-up.
So thats traffic chaping in a nutshell.
Other tricks I've seen include dropping line rate when you hit your cap, or changing the traffic profile completely to really clamp down.
Bouncy:
ermmmmm richard at what point did "make it simple" pass you by ? :doh:
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