Modem connection speed

  • Thread starter Thread starter Neil Barnwell
  • Start date Start date
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Neil Barnwell

On our standard 56k dialup modem (in the UK, this is), we only get ~38k when
we connect. Are there any ways to correct this? I've considered calling
the phone company and asking them to turn up the gain, but I've also been
told that this wouldn't make any difference.

Drivers etc are all up to date and this is happening on 2 computers in our
house, so does anyone have any ideas?

Cheers for your help.

<Barney />
 
Line quality might be the limiting factor. See if you can get the line
provider and the isp provider to check it for you.

Art Leonard
 
56k = 56k max if you're lucky. I've never been about 44k when forced to use
dial up (usually when fixing virus infected laptops in work).
 
Your computer's distance from the local telephone switch determines what the
speed of your connection is. If you live next door to the switch office
you'll get the 55k. If you live 10 miles away, you may only get 24k. The
level of line noise that the telephone company allows on its lines also
affects the transmission speed.
 
On our standard 56k dialup modem (in the UK, this is), we only get ~38k when
we connect. Are there any ways to correct this? I've considered calling
the phone company and asking them to turn up the gain, but I've also been
told that this wouldn't make any difference.

Drivers etc are all up to date and this is happening on 2 computers in our
house, so does anyone have any ideas?

Cheers for your help.

<Barney />
Click to expand...


My max connect is 28.8 with a 56k modem.

It's all down to what speed the telco wants you to connect.

Cheap telco (sbc...) + muxxed line = twice the number of customers
without upgrading equipment.

bastards.
 
Neil Barnwell said:
On our standard 56k dialup modem (in the UK, this is), we only get ~38k when
we connect. Are there any ways to correct this? I've considered calling
the phone company and asking them to turn up the gain, but I've also been
told that this wouldn't make any difference.

Drivers etc are all up to date and this is happening on 2 computers in our
house, so does anyone have any ideas?

Cheers for your help.
Click to expand...
You need to pretty careful when talking about modem speeds,
if you use a stop bit then there are 9 bits to the byte, so to speak.

So...56/9 ~= 6 (6X9=54) so 6X8=48 which is the max I get on tests
and mine uses one stop bit.
 
From: "half_pint" (e-mail address removed)
Date: 07/02/2004 2:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id: <[email protected]>



You need to pretty careful when talking about modem speeds,
if you use a stop bit then there are 9 bits to the byte, so to speak.

So...56/9 ~= 6 (6X9=54) so 6X8=48 which is the max I get on tests
and mine uses one stop bit.
Click to expand...

Ummm...56k is 56k BITS/sec, not bytes, so your math is somewhat irrelevant.
 
ChrisJ9876 said:
Ummm...56k is 56k BITS/sec, not bytes, so your math is somewhat
Click to expand...
irrelevant.

Well maybe, it depends on how the data rate is calculated if for instance
you go
to
http://start.maui.net/home/techsupport/bandwidth/image1.htm
You will find your speed is determined simply by dividing the size of the
image in bytes by the time taken (X8), however as I use a stop bit it should
be X9.
Also there will be a start bit two so it is X10 so......if I get the max
data rate 56kbs and they use their image size over time method all
is not as it seems, because 10 bit are transmitted for every 8 counted.
So the speed is 20% higher in reality.

Then of course there is the overhead of internet protocols to take into
account.
Also if you look at dial up networking bytes sent this is not going to
include start and stop bits.

I would imagine most phone lines are easilly capable of 56kps, I
mean when you upgrade to broadband they dont change the line of
they?

They dont lay down a whole new wire back to the exchange, its the
same line isn't it?

And those lines will be doing 10 times 56 kps (or 40X's in some cases).
 
It's BITS PER SECOND. if a byte was 5000bits it would still connect at a
max of 56kb/s ;-)
 
Alex B said:
56k = 56k max if you're lucky. I've never been about 44k when forced to use
dial up (usually when fixing virus infected laptops in work).
Click to expand...

Well if you divide your 44 by 8 to get bits its 5.5 then times 10
to get bits including start and stop bits which is quite close the mythical
56k,
incidently the max rate I get on downloads is also 4.4 KBytes/second.

You will never transmit 56k of data bits in a second because extra bits
are added, the start and stop bits.

Sounds like you connection was working at a full 56k.

I could be wrong of course, but that doesnt happen very often.
 
DaveW said:
Your computer's distance from the local telephone switch determines what the
speed of your connection is. If you live next door to the switch office
you'll get the 55k. If you live 10 miles away, you may only get 24k. The
level of line noise that the telephone company allows on its lines also
affects the transmission speed.
Click to expand...


His line will probably take broadband. which is 10 times the bandwith
 
Alex B said:
56k = 56k max if you're lucky. I've never been about 44k when forced to use
dial up (usually when fixing virus infected laptops in work).
Click to expand...


You appear to be saying you have a broadband capable line
which is not capable of transmitting 56kbits/s, now that is
a rather slow broadband isnt it?
 
Try this

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/nsl.htm

Just testing it my self, but it seems good, very useful, it shows me
receiving
data at a max 25.4KB and average of 6.2KB i think thats kilo bytes (must
be).

I used some pics from a newsgroup to tesy it (far to rude to say which one)
but basically you need to connected to a site (or newsgroup) which has
good through put at its end.
 
Well if you divide your 44 by 8 to get bits its 5.5 then times 10
to get bits including start and stop bits which is quite close the mythical
56k,
Click to expand...

By "44k" the OP means that he is connecting at 44000 bits per second.
It makes no sense to divide by 8 and multiply by 10.

If the OP has error correction disabled, then he will be downloading
at the rate of 4400 bytes per second (1 byte = 10 bits = 1 start bit +
8 data bits + 1 stop bit).

If EC is enabled, then there are no start or stop bits. Instead the
data are packetised to give an average of 8.37 bits per byte
(according to my testing).

See my test results in this post:

"Test results - compression and error correction"
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&output=gplain

Error Data Transfer MNP Throughput Bits
Correction Compression Time block (bytes/sec) per
(sec) size byte
---------------------------------------------------------------
None None 298 - 3356 10.0
V.42 LAPM None 249 - 4016 8.37
V.42 LAPM V.42bis 87 - 11494 2.92*
MNP 4 MNP 5 218 128 4587 7.32
MNP 4 None 263 64 3802 8.84
MNP 4 None 252 128 3968 8.47
MNP 4 None 244 256 4098 8.20
incidently the max rate I get on downloads is also 4.4 KBytes/second.

You will never transmit 56k of data bits in a second because extra bits
are added, the start and stop bits.
Click to expand...

Only at the DTE interface. They are stripped out by the DCE in EC
mode, as described above.
Sounds like you connection was working at a full 56k.
Click to expand...

No. If that were the case, then how would you explain those cases
where people connect at 50667bps or better?
I could be wrong of course, but that doesnt happen very often.
Click to expand...

Well, it's happened this time. :-)


- Franc Zabkar
 
You need to pretty careful when talking about modem speeds,
if you use a stop bit then there are 9 bits to the byte, so to speak.

So...56/9 ~= 6 (6X9=54) so 6X8=48 which is the max I get on tests
and mine uses one stop bit.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but none of this makes any sense. See my other post in this
thread.


- Franc Zabkar
 
Franc Zabkar said:
By "44k" the OP means that he is connecting at 44000 bits per second.
It makes no sense to divide by 8 and multiply by 10.
Click to expand...

He means what he said (not too clear).
If the OP has error correction disabled, then he will be downloading
at the rate of 4400 bytes per second (1 byte = 10 bits = 1 start bit +
8 data bits + 1 stop bit).
Click to expand...


The OP said he was getting ~38 actually, however
If EC is enabled,
then there are no start or stop bits. Instead the
data are packetised to give an average of 8.37 bits per byte
(according to my testing).

See my test results in this post:

"Test results - compression and error correction"
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&output=gplain

Error Data Transfer MNP Throughput Bits
Correction Compression Time block (bytes/sec) per
(sec) size byte
---------------------------------------------------------------
None None 298 - 3356 10.0
V.42 LAPM None 249 - 4016 8.37
V.42 LAPM V.42bis 87 - 11494 2.92*
MNP 4 MNP 5 218 128 4587 7.32
MNP 4 None 263 64 3802 8.84
MNP 4 None 252 128 3968 8.47
MNP 4 None 244 256 4098 8.20


Only at the DTE interface. They are stripped out by the DCE in EC
mode, as described above.


No. If that were the case, then how would you explain those cases
where people connect at 50667bps or better?


Well, it's happened this time. :-)
Click to expand...


I think you need to re-read my posts where a filesize in bytes is
simply multiplied by 8 to get bits them divided my time to get
a bits per second rate, clearly this will not take into accound start
and stop bits.

I don't think so, as I am pretty sure 99% of people connect at full speed
and any apparent delays in speed are due to there reasons other than the
telpphone line quality
 
Franc Zabkar said:
Sorry, but none of this makes any sense. See my other post in this
thread.
Click to expand...

I've seen them, I forgot about the start bit here but i corrected that in a
slightly later
post. See my response.
 
Also the OP may make things clearer if he downloads the
software I recommened as it is easy to get misleading results using
some other methods.

Incidently the software shows my speed to be about
6.2 KB/s which is far faster then is ever reported by
other methods

The OP does not say how he obtained his figures and
I am fairly sure the method he used was incorrect/
misleading.

If he used something like Kazza or other fileshareing software
for instance, it will probably be wrong.
 
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