adsl speeds

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

This one's for all the DSL techs out there.

When you get customers calling in about slow speeds, at what point do you stop troubleshooting and tell them it's as high as it's going to get?

Example: 1536/768 dry ADSL line through Covad. Guy is complaining that his upload is only 600 and it should be 768. I try explaining that 600 is a good speed, there's not much else you can tweak to get it higher than that, etc.

So for an ADSL connection with a 768kbps upload, how close do you think the connection should be to that?

(and yes, I understand why the speed is never what is advertised, I've been doing this for a while).

Comments

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

I'd say 600 is close enough. I'd suggest they be happy with 500. If they pushed it I'd ask why they needed such a heavy upload and if it was for a business or a server, perhaps they should look into alternate connection methods or higher (costing) plans.

[kallell.livejournal.com]

Having also SOLD it I had explained to customers and made it clear that the top speed was NOT the speed they where gonna get. Maybe thats why i didnt sell many and lost that job.

[normal1.livejournal.com]

Well, where I work there is no way to accurately check someone's speed. I mean if you use a speed test website those are never always accurate for many reasons so I personally stop troubleshooting when I've made sure that the cache on IE is cleared the pc isnt 50 thousand years old other than that.. I tell 'em "We advertise a speed UP TO *speed here* it has never been guaranteed because it is not possible to do so."

[darkblade1.livejournal.com]

Speed tests vary in so many areas. I ended up doing a couple at broadbandrepots.com I ended up testing the Speakeasy server and it came back fairly accurate. Came back with 4600kbps. Which is close to my 5mb connection.

However, I ended up testing the other server that they had listed, and it barely hit the 1000kbps. The connection was still solid regardless. So when people call me up and say, "I can only get so and so..." well, I hardly believe them. 9 times out of 10, their computer is the one to blame...not the internet.

[jeffreycornish.livejournal.com]

put things into perspective.

keep this rule in mind:
1.5mbps = approx 10MB/minute
( this is ((1500 kbit/sec) / (1024 kbit/Mbit )) / (8 bits/Byte) * 60 sec/min
so 768kbps = 5MB/minute.

It's actually 10.98 MegaBytes per minute, but I've used by BOTE for a while

I really don't know anyone other than customers who are uploading massive files for webdev, or streaming who need this much bandwidth.

Also, remember that a portion of your bandwidth is eaten by TCP/IP overhead. The more routers/hubs/switches you get, the worse that can get.

Speedtests LIE. They lie like a rug. At the ISP I bob for I don't trust our speedtests to give a result better than 70%-80% of the actual port rates shown at the DSLAM

[gholam.livejournal.com]

I really don't know anyone other than customers who are uploading massive files for webdev, or streaming who need this much bandwidth.

Eh, that's easy - P2P users eat up however much bandwidth you can throw at them.

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

Speed idjits are never happy, which is funny because they can never grasp what they're bitching about or how little it matters from their perspective. I explain the encapsulation overhead to them as well as the fact that they're running speed tests on massively popular websites on the INTERNET.
I have them run a tracert on the speed test site as an example.
Explain the 'up to' part of their contract.
Explain that there's a big difference between throughput and latency, if they've got a latency issue.
Usually at that point my internal test tells me their modem is connected well and they're getting good speeds on both upstream and down to the modem. Usually they're also windows XP users. Usually if I ask them 'in task manager down on the left where it says processes and a number, what's that number?' I get an answer that makes me think they're attempting to fit every piece of spyware in existance onto their box and then run Office and IE.

I explain that connecting their crapped out Hewlett-Packard box that their 14 year old daughter spends oodles of time on AOL with to DSL is the equivalent to trying to put a Pinto that spent it's last decade in a field on a NASCAR track. More than likely all it does is provide a slow-moving hazard to the other drivers, and attract dangerous flying objects from the stands full of relatives.

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

Hahaha I like your Pinto analogy.

[jecook]

Outstanding analogy.

Yeah, All the speed numbers mean is that you're connection will be capped to that speed, IF the line supports up to that speed.

The only ones that will show you actaul link rate and throuput is a T-1/Frac. T/ISDN/56K frame, because those are dedicated lines, and have a fixed/guaranteed bandwidth. (I used to be a field monkey for a tier 1 ISP)

The tests are only useful if the machine you are using the test is on the far end of the link. Anything else will throw the test off and make the results useless.

[jahbulon.livejournal.com]

Hey for my future reference, what exactly is a T1 line? ADSL ISDN Cable? Does a T1 line have a fixed speed? As in, are all T1 lines 1500? What's the deal?

[jecook]

A T-1 line is a dedicated circuit that connects two endpoints. The distance is mostly irrelevant between the CO and the endpoint. It consists of 24 bearer channels (D channels) and a control channel. Each D channel is 56/64K worth of bandwidth. the control channel is 8K, and is used by the line itself for data integrity, testing, and signalling

The bandwidth is fixed at 1.544mbps symetrical (both up/down have the same rate)

It's what Businesses used to use before the age of DSL. Some still use it because it's guaranteed bandwidth, or because they are using a private link bwtween offices (my current company had a point to point T-1 between my office (in Phoenix, AZ) to the headquarters (in TUcson ,AZ). IT was basically an extension of our internal network.

A fractional T (Frac. T) can also be called a PRI. It It's a T-1 with only some of the channels in use. You can also split Voice and data on a fractional T1. A PRI is the ISDN flavor, and is used mostly for Dialup access.

an ISDN line has two flavors: PRI (see above), and BRI (Basic Rate interface). A BRI consists of two 64K channels, and is essentially a digital phone line. You can make calls on it, use it for data, or both at once. It's falling out of use for the mode part, because it's expensive (Mine was right around $120 a month when I had one). IT's sister currently in use is IDSL, which is 144K symectrical, and has a longer distance limit then DSL.

A frame relay is a simple data circuit that passes data frames from one point to another point. IT uses a cloud configuration simular to the current internet, only the clous is within the phone companies infrastructure. It's fixed at 56Kbps.

Here's a handy chart that shows how fast what is in comparison.

[fatesplaything.livejournal.com]

This is the point where you load up Covad's CFI DSLAM Stats and say, well, I'm showing your actual upload speed to be , I also see that you are only using % of that bandwidth (yay for Covad puting in that auto-%-calculator on that page so we don't have to do it by hand anymore). If the percent is high, recommend an upgrade to an sdsl account (with guarenteed connection rates, as they can -not- connect at other speeds). While your at it, you can suggest extended DSL, so he has the 4-hour response time if his connection drops.

[madd-trinity.livejournal.com]

That's when you say: "Sir, meet my friend the dial tone."