clockman said:
With a dial up connection, what does download speed depend
on? When I connect in the first place I get a message that
reads "Connected at 40 kbps or 24 kbps" or whatever number
comes up. Why isn't this the same all the time? And
download speeds aren't even half that. And also the speed
starts out at say 10 kbps and quickly drops to 4 or 3.
Would someone tell me how a dialup connection works.
Help!!
If your connection speeds are varying from 24k to 40k you have
what's called a "dirty" analog line. A Very Good speed would be
in the order of 47k to 50k.
Pick up your phone and dial a number, just one digit; you're
not going to make a call. Listen to the phone: Do you hear
static or pops and clicks?
If the noise comes and goes, that's usually why you'll get
varying connection speeds; it's a timing issue with what's on the
line when your modem tries to communicate through the noise.
If you hear any noise, you can usually get the phone co. to
take care of that with a call to the trouble section.
Before you call though, disconnect your phone lines at the
demarc (where it comes into the house) and plug a phone in there.
If you still hear the noise, it's coming in on the phone lines
and it's the telco's job to bring them up to required standards.
If you do not hear the noise under this circumstance, then the
problem is in your home. Electronic phones, answering machines,
computers, all sorts of things can put noise onto the lines, but
this is not normally what happens.
The phone company can't charge you for working on the lines up
to your demarc point (the box where the wires come into the
house). Beyond that, it's your nickel, and if you let them work
on that, they'll charge you and it's likely going to be
expensive. Better to get a local guy to come in if you can't fix
it yourself.
The above takes care of over 90% of the cases of poor connections
and speeds.
The "speed" you mention is usually called through-put: The
actual speed of data passing through on the modem carrier. There
are often buffers involved in the modems which means the initial
"speed" will be high, until the buffer empties. As I recall I
used to see up to 17kBps at that point. On a good connection, I
think 5 to 7 k was the Very Good figure, not positive. I used to
figure anything above 5 was OK because a lot of other factors
contribute to thru-put speeds, including the server you've
connected to and the internet itself.
If the phone lines are audibly quiet and your house wiring it
good, then you should get pretty consistant connection speeds of
say 43.3 and up, to a maximum possible of 53.something, 53.6, I
think it is.
Also note the difference between units another poster mentioned:
One is measured in k BITS/S (kbps), the other in K BYTES/S (kBps)
Luck,
Pop
