RedPenguin said:
Can a cable modem due to P2P activity or just high connections,
espeically if it's like 5 years old become clogged with connections,
just like a router is known to be? I am wondering becuase once I start
up a P2P application, my web browsing is slow, access to the modem's
setup page gets slower, everything does until I close the P2P app. It
didn't do it when I have a slower cable Internet from the cable
company. Could it be the modem?
A look at a couple articles, suggests to me that the cable modem
doesn't know about connections. It is not a router. (Of course,
you could have a router connected to the cable modem. Or the
cable modem product might include a router, if it has multiple
Ethernet connectors on the modem itself.)
http://www.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu/~mrehman/mp/assignment2/cableanddsl.html
http://www.comsoc.org/ci/private/2001/mar/pdf/fellows.pdf
One thing you have to keep in mind. TCP/IP is a reliable protocol.
Sure, you download packets from a web server when you surf.
But when the packets are sent to you, the agent at the other end
of the network (the server) is looking for acknowledgement that
the packets were received. So while there may be a lot of bandwidth
at play in the "forward direction", there is a little bit of
bandwidth needed in the "reverse direction", to carry
acknowledgements.
Things get complicated, if you do P2P and web surf at the same time.
P2P has most of its bandwidth leaving your house. Your cable modem
may have an asymmetric characteristic - you are allowed a large
download bandwidth, and a small upload bandwidth. Your P2P activity
is pushing data through the tiny upload bandwidth. Now, while this
is happening, let's open a web page. You download the web page, and
your computer wants to send an acknowledgement packet back out
to the web server on the net. But there is already a flood of traffic
from the P2P that is also leaving your house. The acknowledgement
packet has to wait its turn, so there is a delay before the
acknowledgement packet leaves the house. It means your attempts to
download a web page, are being head-of-line blocked by the P2P going
in the other direction.
Do I know for sure that is what is happening ? Of course not. It
is a theory. Now, you can do an experiment, to prove whether this
is the right theory or not.
Open up the documentation for your P2P software. What you are
looking for, is the option to establish a "Cap" or upper limit
on the bandwidth the P2P uses. Normally people would just let it rip,
but what you want to do, is set a bandwidth number for the P2P packets
leaving your house.
Say your cable provider, provides a max of 10Mbit/sec download and
2Mbit/sec upload. The 2Mbit/sec number is what is being used by
your P2P. You go into the P2P software, and tell it "don't use more
than 1Mbit/sec". That allocates half the available bandwidth for
P2P, and leaves a few opportunities for your acknowledgement packets
to "leave home".
If you are still having problems, in your next posting, include a
diagram showing the hardware you are using. Something like this,
only with a little more detail (brand names and model numbers).
Some people have very complicated distribution in their homes,
but don't tell people about it when they post.
--- Cable_modem -------- Wired_Router V V
| | | | | |
#1 #2 #3 Wireless_Router--+ +--- Laptop
etc.
Also, it would be good to know what kind of service you got from
the cable company (10Mbit/sec download, 2Mbit/sec upload), and
what traffic level your P2P can sustain (like the entire 2Mbit/sec).
I'm sure the P2P is pretty good at doing its thing
HTH,
Paul
