Cable speed and Windows Settings

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rob Schneider
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R

Rob Schneider

Hello. I'm hooked up to cable, apparently. And the email/newsgroups
certainly are much faster. Email attachments that used to take 2
minutes to send that rush through in about 2 seconds.
However, I don't understand why the Internet, including Yahoo mail,
should still be so slow. Is it possible to have a fast hookup for email
but a slow one for the Net on the same connection? Otherwise, I may be
in error in setting preferences, or something like that.
Is there some menu I can adjust to make my Net speed comparable to
my email speed on my cable connection? tia
Click to expand...

What do you mean by "slow"? Can you describe what you experience and
what your expectations are?

Remember that when you connect to web sites (including Yahoo) you are
connecting to a remote computer through the internet through a whole lot
of "hops". Then once your signal get's there, it has to interact with
the web server. It won't be instantaneous.

Even multi-media on the cable internet is not instanenous (even though
it looks like it is). It will "cache" data and present to you
image/sound while simultanously grabbing more data in the background to
display it to you ... giving the illusion of "instantaneous".

You are seeing fast email attachments probably because you are only
downloading between your ISP's mail box which is from a network
perspective very close to your PC ... this especially true if you are
using your cable internet service as you email service provider.
 
Thanks for your reply. How can I describe "slow"? Believe me,
"slow"! Okay.
Say I open Yahoo Mail. Thirty seconds go by as I wait for the
browser window to appear, with a list of my email messages. It
differs. Sometimes I'm certain it may be about a minute or more.
Sometimes it takes so long I open other windows, to pass the time
reading the current news, before I go back to check my email.
Clicking
on a new email takes
similar amounts of time. Sometimes, depending on time of day, I can
tell it's much faster. Still, even then nothing like sending or
receiving mail on my regular browser or non-Yahoo account.
As for webpages, I see no difference from before I got hooked to
this cable, and sometimes it seems slower. However, when it's so
slow,
I
switch to a regular (non-cable) modem hookup and there's no
discernable difference. Come to think of it, although my modem is
always turned off when I'm on cable, maybe there's something about
simply having that connection that is interfereing with the speed of
my cable connection (even though, as I said, the modem is off).
By the way, I just checked my so-called cable connection & it
says, LOCAL AREA CONNECTION, at 100.0 Mbps. Under the GENERAL
properties tab
it says Fast Ethernet NIC, whatever that means. I'm wondering if I
should install something on THIS CONNECTION USES THE FOLLOWING ITEMS;
or maybe
UNINSTALL on the properties of my modem server connection! Maybe one
cannot have both a modem installation and a cable installation. Just
hypotheses.
I find it hard to believe that people will spend money for this
kind of speed, with not much difference from a modem. But from the
people I spoke to they kept emphasizing that there is NO wait at all;
webpages just pop up as
soon as you click a link, etc. And the fellow who helped get me onto
my local area connection seemed surprised at the slow speed and
played with the settings. I think something is wrong somewhere. I'm
wondering if
just having a modem installed might be conflicting with the speed.
Mail is definitely different. I know, because I send a lot of
files across, sometimes 2 MB of material. I used to get up, make
myself
a cup of coffee while the mail slowly transmitted. Now, there's a
maybe 2-second pause, and then WHOOSH, gone! Now that would be worth
paying
for.
I can't complain, since I'm getting this for free; but if
there's a minor adjustment I can do to make the other Net go as fast
as email and newsgroups, that would be great.
As for newsgroups, I go into a group and in about maybe 2-3
seconds, say 500 messages pop up! Using a modem, that might have
taken
a minute or so.
Maybe there are different kinds of cable connection. I don't
know. I thought about the issues you mentioned. I remember
asking
someone (and I forget the reply!), "Regardless how fast one's ADSL is,
what if the server one accesses is very slow? How can a fast
connection bypass webpages with a slow server?"
Anyway, any ideas welcome.
Click to expand...

Here ADSL is 137KBytes/sec down and 18KBytes/sec upstream(capped at the
DSLAM) The people who supply cable do not give solid numbers, which is for a
good reason.
Think of cable as being a 12" diameter water pipe with 50 taps connected to
it. The taps represent you and 49 other cable customers. At 7AM when most
folks are getting themselves and their kids ready for work, the pressure
(bandwidth) will tend to drop. This fluctuates up and down all day til past
10 pm when most people are getting ready for bed. At 3 am, you might be the
only one of 50 using your tap and you'll have use of all of the water
pressure. Cable is the very same way.

Servers like those used for Yahoo mail probably become very busy at peak
hours. I wouldn't use those as a guide to how fast your connect is. Try
downloading Test.exe from ftp://ftp.mts.net/ It's a 60MB dummy file. Take
note of how long it takes to download and the average speed Windows
indicates. Try it a couple of times, once during peak hours, and once in the
dead of night.
 
Hello. I'm hooked up to cable, apparently. And the email/newsgroups
certainly are much faster. Email attachments that used to take 2
minutes to send that rush through in about 2 seconds.
However, I don't understand why the Internet, including Yahoo mail,
should still be so slow. Is it possible to have a fast hookup for email
but a slow one for the Net on the same connection?
Click to expand...

Possible, but unlikely, to have two network connections. But bear in
mind that each of the things you describe is a different computer, and
a completely different location, run by different people. Some sites
are blindingly fast, some are amazingly slow. The same site can be
fast at times and glacial at others, due to an enormous variety of
problems.
 
Thanks for the feedback (this and previous emails). It's really good to
know.
As for the gentleman concerned about my clock, I thought we had
gone
over that issue in the past. This is MY (Taiwan) time. My clock IS
accurate
(well, maybe about 6 minutes fast). I don't know where the problem is,
but
my other parameters are correct too.

Tim Slattery wrote:
Click to expand...

I'm not moaning about your time, but please check your timezone settings
anyway... This post of yours has a datetime of 26/07/2003 05:39 when it's
definately still the 25th!!

It's quite possible for your time to appear correct to you but with an
incorrect timezone setting. As the newsgroups use GMT, everything is
corrected for that and the correct post times show, but an incorrect
timezone will throw it off...

Personally, it doesn't bother me, but some of the experts in here
automatically block future posts so your hurting yourself by not fixing
it...

As for the speed problems you are having, it could be an issue with the
proxy server your ISP uses (or lack of one!). Have you tried contacting
them about it? They're in a much better position to help than we are as
they are the ones controlling your connection :) But you are right in one
thing... broadband surfing should be and IS a lot faster than dialup so
there definately is a problem there...

Good Luck

Lorne
 
Thanks for the lesson in bandwidth and pressure (usage). But I just
never
suspected usage variables WOULD affect ADSL; kind of like strong
arteries would
not be affected by the amount of aerobic pressure, but a person with
weak
(closed) arteries might keel over from a heart attack after shoveling
snow for a
minute or so. I thought that difference was PRECISELY what
distinguished a
modem from cable! Apparently so many people are now on cable it's
getting just
like using a modem!
Click to expand...


The "water pipe" analogy I gave only applies to cable. ADSL would be more
like 50 taps connected to the same pipe where a stop was placed on the valve
to limit water flow.
Again, a good measure of downstream potential would be to download that 60MB
test file at different times of the day. Anything over 200Kbytes/sec,
sustained, is pretty good. I managed 363KBytes/sec for 2min 49 seconds. I've
seen better and worse.
 
Hi, Invictus.

Your clock may be accurate, but your time ZONE is still set at GMT -0700,
which is correct for Pacific Standard Time (PST) in Redmond, Washington,
USA, not Taiwan.

ADSL uses telephone lines, not TV-type cable, which is a vigorous competitor
to DSL. They both fall under the heading of "broadband", but the two
technologies are different. The "water pressure" analogy applies to cable,
but not to the phone lines. Whether dial-up, DSL or cable, they all use
different versions of equipment called a "modem", so to say that cable is
faster than a modem is ambiguous. And to refer to cable as ADSL is wrong -
and very confusing! Your messages flip-flop between the two terms as if
they were interchangeable. Which one do you have, really?

All online delivery systems (cable, dsl and dial-up) are susceptible to many
bottlenecks: at your end; at the other end; and at the many forwarding
computers between you and the page you are viewing. When you say "email",
you may be dealing with Yahoo email, which is Web-based email (I think; I
don't use it) or another Web-based email such as Hotmail. This is handled
through different servers than POP3 email and NNTP news servers. There
should be no difference in speed from your local ISP's servers to you, but
there can be large differences in getting data from the Internet TO your
local ISP. Also, your ISP might cache some data locally (such as
locally-popular newsgroups), but need to download other material for you
based on your specific request.

In short, there are many reasons why you might see speed differences. Some
of these you can fix or work around; some you can't.

RC
 
S.Heenan said:
The "water pipe" analogy I gave only applies to cable. ADSL would be more
like 50 taps connected to the same pipe where a stop was placed on the valve
to limit water flow.
Again, a good measure of downstream potential would be to download that 60MB
test file at different times of the day. Anything over 200Kbytes/sec,
sustained, is pretty good. I managed 363KBytes/sec for 2min 49 seconds. I've
seen better and worse.
Click to expand...

You're wrong about ADSL (basing it on your last analogy), as the line (which is a phone line) is dedicated to that sole user (no 50 taps can be analogous here, but the cap can be)), and noone else can use that bandwidth. Its bandwidth is only restricted by the distance from the CO, the max bandwidth alotted DS/UPS by the ISP, and whoever else is visiting/downloading/uploading from possibly the same web sites the ADSL is visiting with others.
 
Thanks for the feedback (this and previous emails). It's really good to
know.
But the impression I received from people I talked to here is
incredulity that I would even ask such a naive question, since
everything was so fast on ADSL! I suspect these people just use email
Click to expand...

Cable is not ADSL. They are two entirely different technologies.
or rarely use the Net. So apparently there's nothing I can juggle on my
preferences or other options to speed up this thing. Even now it took
forever to get into Yahoo mail and onto one webpage, which was so slow,
I've given up about five times! The one thing, however, that puzzles me
is, why would there be NO DISCERNABLE DIFFERENCE when I switch to my
modem connecton from another server? THAT I think is strange: Even
assuming some
websites are slower, they should be FASTER with cable than with a modem
Click to expand...

We often use the expression "high speed" internet connection when describing
either cable or DSL. That term is a bit misleading. A more accurate
expression would be "high bandwidth" connection. Cable and DSL connections
are not necessarily significantly faster than a dial up connection. They
are only faster when the desired data transfer is at a rate beyond the
capacity of the dial up connection. To leverage the water pipe analogy
given elsewhere, if cable and dialup are both water pipes, the water doesn't
go through one substantially faster than the other, but one has the capacity
to pass a great deal more water. Think wider pipe, not faster pipe.
even if still relatively slow! Also, under the circumstances, why is
ADSL so popular? (Maybe most businesses are more concerned with sending
Click to expand...

One of the principal advantages of DSL and cable is the always on nature.
No need to dial up when wishing to connect.
 
In said:
Whether dial-up, DSL
or cable, they all use different versions of equipment called a
"modem", so to say that cable is faster than a modem is
Click to expand...
ambiguous.


Although most of us call the device that connects the computer to
the line a "modem," whether it's a dial-up line, DSL, or cable,
that's really a very loose of the term and isn't correct. A modem
is a device that converts from analog (e.g. a dial-up telephone
line) to digital (e.g. a computer) and vice versa. Since the DSL
and cable lines are already digital, the connecting device is
not, strictly speaking, a modem.

When invictus says that "cable is faster than a modem," he's
apparently using the word "modem" in that stricter, more accurate
sense, and means that cable is faster than dial-up. It isn't
really ambiguous, and is correct.
 
Regardless if you have a Cable or DSL connection, web browsing *should* be
faster than with your dial-up. Call your ISP. It'd be silly to pay more
and have the same annoying slow dial-up speed.

--

Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike
 
Okay, I figured out the problem. There's another tab I never went into,
regarding time zones. Since it was selected to "Pacific" time, I
thought
everything was alright; but then I noticed dozens of other selections
and I
selected Taipei. So now my clock must show up okay.

Lorne said:
I'm not moaning about your time, but please check your timezone settings
anyway... This post of yours has a datetime of 26/07/2003 05:39 when it's
definately still the 25th!!

It's quite possible for your time to appear correct to you but with an
incorrect timezone setting. As the newsgroups use GMT, everything is
corrected for that and the correct post times show, but an incorrect
timezone will throw it off...

Personally, it doesn't bother me, but some of the experts in here
automatically block future posts so your hurting yourself by not fixing
it...

As for the speed problems you are having, it could be an issue with the
proxy server your ISP uses (or lack of one!). Have you tried contacting
them about it?
Click to expand...

That's a good suggestion. I'll see if I can inquire into this. But
it's very difficult getting help here (Taiwan). Apart from language
problems (don't forget, my software is in English while almost all the
people would have limited knowledge of English browswers). There's also
frequently an attitude that if it works it's good enough. A few years
ago, when I noticed there was no word wrap in my messages, I was advised
to scroll left/right to read them! It took me five minutes to locate
Preferences and select word wrap! Is there some way for me to
check for my proxy server? Maybe all I have to do is type in the name
of a proxy server!
 
Hi, Ken.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm an accountant, fer gosh sakes, not a
techie of any kind. ;<} I know that "modem" is short for
"modulator-demodulator", but I'm lost past that.

I've never had a "cable modem", but I've heard that term so many times that
I assumed it was correct.

My ADSL modem (?) came in a box from 3Com (3 years ago, before they stopped
selling them) labeled:
3Com HomeConnect
ADSL Modem PCI

I don't know about other phone lines, but my ADSL "modem" connects directly
with my POTS wall jack through an ordinary Wal*Mart phone cord. Well, it
worked when plugged directly, but now it actually runs through a simple "Y"
that routes the other side to my voice phone through a small filter to
screen out the computer tones. So I THINK that I have an analog signal into
the modem, but I'm not sure. I write my monthly check to the phone company
for my POTS line, just as I've always done when using dial-up. I write
another monthly check to my local ISP for ADSL; THEY deal with the phone
company for this. My former motherboard had ISA slots; both the ADSL and
dial-up modems were installed and happily co-existed. I could access the
Internet either way, which was very handy during those first few months of
getting ADSL working right. I can, of course, use the voice line and ADSL
simultaneously.

I'm not qualified to argue the point, so I'll just leave it here. ;^}

RC
 
In %[email protected], R. C. White wrote:

Thanks for the clarification. I'm an accountant, fer gosh sakes, not
a techie of any kind. ;<}
Click to expand...


You're welcome. Yes, I know (from the Quicken group) that you're
an accountant; but you're a pretty good techie too.

I know that "modem" is short for
"modulator-demodulator", but I'm lost past that.

I've never had a "cable modem", but I've heard that term so many
times that I assumed it was correct.
Click to expand...


The problem is that there's no commonly used term for "the device
that connects the line to the computer, regardless of how it does
it." So most of fall back on the term "modem" and use it in this
broader, but not quite correct sense. I know I do, unless I
specifically need to differentiate between such a device and a
real modem

My ADSL modem (?) came in a box from 3Com (3 years ago, before they
stopped selling them) labeled:
3Com HomeConnect
ADSL Modem PCI
Click to expand...


Yes, some manufacturers call it a modem; they don't have a better
name either. Mine is a Cisco. It doesn't say "modem" anyplace on
the device, and I no longer have the box to check.

But remember that the "D" in "DSL" or "ADSL" stands for
"Digital."
 
I tried going there, but all test servers are down, other then one that you
need TOOLPOINTS for and I believe that you need to pay for this. I am just
informing you all
 
Yea their site is often busy.
And yes you have to pay for the "tool points"

If your just looking for a simple speed test.
Go to my webpage and then to "utility" then
JasTek.net's Speed Test.

Keep in mind that all speed tests are just from where your at going to
the page were the test is at.

So even if you got good results from a speed test you may still get
slow service when you go to other sites.

Hope this helps.
 
Hey, whilst on the subject of speed, if I may side step a little, read this.
Movie downloads in five seconds!
A new internet connection that downloads movies in just five seconds is
being promised by a US technology centre. It's the kind of thing that
techies have been dreaming about: an internet connection so fast it will let
you download a whole movie in just five seconds, or access TV-quality video
servers in real time.

And it's being promised from a team at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, who've developed a system called Fast TCP.
Significantly, Fast TCP could run on the same internet infrastructure we
have today. Steven Low, who led the Caltech team, likens the way the
internet works now to driving a car while looking only 10 metres ahead. You
increase the car's speed until an obstacle comes into view, but then you
have to hit the brakes. "This is OK for driving slowly in a parking lot," he
says. But on the open road you need to be able to look further ahead:
"That's what we are doing with Fast TCP."

Today, all traffic on the internet uses a system called the Transmission
Control Protocol (TCP) developed in the 1970s by network engineers Vinton
Cerf at Stanford University and Bob Kahn at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency. TCP breaks down large files into small packets of
about 1500 bytes, each carrying the address of the sender and the recipient.
The sending computer transmits a packet, waits for a signal from the
recipient that acknowledges its safe arrival, and then sends the next
packet. If no receipt comes back, the sender transmits the same packet at
half the speed of the previous one, and repeats the process, getting slower
each time, until it succeeds.

Unfortunately, this means even minor glitches on the line can make a
connection very sluggish. Because Fast TCP uses the same packet sizes as
regular TCP, the hardware that carries messages around the net will still
work. The difference is in the software and hardware on the sending
computer, which continually measures the time it takes for sent packets to
arrive, and how long acknowledgements take to come back. This reveals the
delays on the line, giving early warnings of likely packet losses. The Fast
TCP software uses this to predict the highest data rate the connection can
support without losing data. Since the packets are the same size as those
used in TCP, none of the equipment along the internet itself will have to be
modified, and no new hardware will be needed on computers receiving the
data.

The first practical test of Fast TCP took place in November at a
supercomputing conference. Researchers from Caltech, Stanford and CERN near
Geneva in Switzerland, sent data 10,000 kilometres from Sunnyvale,
California, to CERN at an average rate of 925 megabits per second. Ordinary
TCP managed just 266 megabits per second on the same routes.
By ganging 10 Fast TCP systems together, the researchers have achieved
transmission speeds of over 8.6 gigabits per second, which is more than 6000
times the capacity of ordinary broadband links.

The improved 'Internet 2' infrastructure, currently being developed for
scientific data transmission between 200 universities around the world, will
use conventional TCP to run at around 350 megabits per second, but will run
even faster with Caltech's technology.
And the bandwidth-hungry entertainment industry is also looking at Fast TCP.
Caltech is already in talks with Microsoft and Disney about using it for
video on demand.
 
Hello. I'm hooked up to cable, apparently. And the email/newsgroups
certainly are much faster. Email attachments that used to take 2
minutes to send that rush through in about 2 seconds.
However, I don't understand why the Internet, including Yahoo mail,
should still be so slow. Is it possible to have a fast hookup for email
but a slow one for the Net on the same connection? Otherwise, I may be
in error in setting preferences, or something like that.
Is there some menu I can adjust to make my Net speed comparable to
my email speed on my cable connection? tia
 
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