Internet Dial Up Connect Speeds

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jack Gillis
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Jack Gillis

I suppose this problem is not limited to XP but am not sure. Anyway,
when I connect to my ISP through my USR 58.6 modem using XP's Internet
dial UP, I getting varying connect speeds from as low as 28.0 to a high
of 50.6 Kbs. Most often in the 48.x range. At 48.x and above, the
performance is acceptable for me. At 28.0 it seems awful slow.

Can someone tell me what sorts of reasons cause this variation? Is it a
problem on my end or the ISP's? I think probably the former.

Thank you very much.
 
56k is a theoretical maximum for 56k modems. It doesn't mean you will always
connect at those speeds. Anything above 45k is good believe me. Also speed
depends on how busy the internet is at the time of day or how busy the
server your trying to access is, they all play a part in how fast your
connection will be. You could try setting up some accounts with other free
isp where you only pay for the phone call. Test them for a few days at
various times of the day and see if you get an speed improvement you could
then switch your account to the one which gives you fastest reliable speeds.

Watch out for software which tells you it will speed up your internet
connection. I have never seen anything which can accelerate internet speed.
This doesn't include segmented downloading but that doesn't really apply
here for general internet browsing.

Midnight
 
This is a FWIW post...

Most ISP's have what's called a modem pool to allow multiple simultanious
connections to their servers. Not all modems in the modem pool are
necessarily created equal.

Some modems are actually provided for lower speed modems so that a 28.8
modem is not taking up bandwidth on a 56k modem.

When ISP's get busy, the faster connections are usually taken up first. If
there are not enough 56k resources available then a user can be shunted down
to one of the slower modems in the pool.

Sometimes you can hear this as your modem makes multiple tries to negotiate
with the ISP's modem pool until it can finally "connect" with one of the
modems.

This could be the circumstance that is causing your various connection
speeds, but is not the only possibility. A poor phone line can do the same
thing. Probably the OS would be way down the line as a suspect for
connection speed variences.

YMMV,
Len
 
Modem connection speed is almost completely independent of the OS. It is
the two modems (yours and the ISP's) that negotiate the speed at which they
will make a link. Think of the communication path between you sitting at
the keyboard and the final destination as a series of little boxes each
connected by a wire. Each box has to talk with only its immediate
neighbours and negotiate the speed at which it will send and receive data.
At your end there is the keyboard that talks via its cable to the computer
that talks via the serial port to the modem which talks via the phone line
to ISP's modem which talks to other little boxes at the ISP's computer room
and finally to someone else via many little boxes on the internet.

So, if your modem connection to the ISP modem appears as 14k or 28k or 50k,
it is the end result of the negotiation between your ISP's modem and yours.
The noise that you hear when connecting, is the two modems negotiating a
common (and fastest) speed at which they intend to make their link. That
speed is dependent on the design capabilities, eg, 2.4k, 14.4k, 28k, 56k of
the slower modem. (A "56k modem" will actually connect at a max of 50.6k)
They must agree to the same speed else they hangup. It is also a speed at
which the error rate is acceptable to both modems - the final negotiated
speed is thus also phoneline quality dependent. Phone line quality is not a
constant and may be affected by the weather especially if the exchange is
far away. If you consistently get better than 40k connections on a 56k
modem, be happy!

Be aware too that the apparent speed at which you send is always and
measurably slower than the speed at which you receive data. That's by
design - it's a compromise for bidirectional data exchange when using
ordinary phone lines. You'll notice that it takes longer to send large
email attachments than to receive them.

If you plan on doing a big download, check the connection speed. If less
than say 45k, consider whether it's worth your while hanging up and
dialling again later to see if you get a better connection. As someone else
has advised, the ISP's fast modems may all be busy when you try first time
so consider waiting for a less popular time of day..

You can control the speed at which your computer talks to your modem and
this, generally speaking these days, is automatically set up for you when
the OS installs the modem. The most common serial port speed setting
nowadays is over 100k so that it is much more than the maximum modem
speed. That way, the serial port speed does not limit 56k modems - weakest
link and all that.

Hope this helps and puts your mind at ease.

Richard M.
 
Thank you both, Len and Millicer. Your explanations are clear and make
good sense. I had forgotten about the modem pools at my ISP and the
fact that they may not be all the same speed.

Thanks again.
 
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