OT: DSL Woes

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Thu Jul 19 18:25:43 2001

There's quite a bit of competition, at least rhetorically, between QWEST, our
local phone service provider, and AT&T, which is the local cable company. Both
offer "high-bandwidth" (DSL/Cable) internet service. The party line from AT&T
is that they offer 256Kb up and down, while QWEST guarantees that you get at
least that. I have DSL from QWEST and they tell me (via their router, which
could easily lie) that I normally have 640Kb down and 272 up. That speed isn't
reflected in my transfer speeds, however.

I seem to remember reading that the former RBOC's are required to provide a 256k
minimal transfer rate in either direction, while the cable service providers
have more latitude. Everyone I know who's got/had the AT&T cable modem service
has had lower slower transfer rates. My understanding is that AT&T is
provisioned such that they can provide the full 256Kb to one block (whatever
that means, but presumably a city-block, since that's how they're physically
structured) and that's what the customers on that block have to share. I find
that a little hard to swallow, but it's possible, since these companies are run
by bean-counters.

Though the statistics my DSL modem software provide suggest I receive lots of
bandwidth, my transfer speeds vary widely. I have made a few cursory tests, and
found on one occasion, that when I used my notebook via dialup on the voice
line, at 56Kb, I got faster transfer (concurrent transfer of the same file from
the same place took WAY less time) than concurrently and through the same ISP
via my DSL connection. Weird!

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey S. Sharp" <jss_at_subatomix.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 4:55 PM
Subject: Re: OT: DSL Woes


> On Thu, 19 Jul 2001 mjsnodgr_at_rockwellcollins.com wrote:
> >
> > I've had 256k DSL for about 9 months now
>
> Is 256 kbps common for DSL or cable?
>
> A network admin at the local cable company here (who handles my cable
> modem service) told me that their infrastructure can do 10 Mbps to each
> modem, but that the software in the modem was configured to limit that to
> 2 Mbps. I don't know if the software limit story is true, but I can vouch
> for the 2 Mbps effective rate. I've had FTP transfers in excess of 200
> KBps before.
>
> > had about 37 minutes of down time.
>
> I've had more than that. Sometimes it happens several times per week, but
> there have also been periods of several months without problems. Only one
> outage has lasted over 30 minutes. It's been good enough for me to run
> this mail server on it.
>
> Speaking of running servers: my cable company supports it. I've never
> came out and asked them directly, but all the evidence is there. There
> are explicit provisions in the service agreement against running servers
> _for_other_parties_, but no other mention. IPs are assigned via DHCP (I
> probably ought to ask if static IPs are available), but you always get the
> same IP until you change NICs. Finally, I've been running a mail server
> over my link for a while, and my logs show that the cable company has
> tested it for open relaying (which I don't do) several times. I have
> never gottan a call from them asking me to not have the server up.
>
> --
> Jeffrey S. Sharp
> jss_at_ou.edu
>
>
Received on Thu Jul 19 2001 - 18:25:43 BST