Getting the Most out of your Bandwidth

[sickyourIT]

I’m sure that there is more to this than I am covering. This is just a few suggestions.

Getting the most out of your Bandwidth.

Many people pay for extra bandwidth, hoping to make their internet connections “faster,” and oftentimes see no increase. We’ll go into this a little, and discuss a few ways to make the most out of what you’ve already paid for in bandwidth.

We’ll cover both Broadband and Dial-Up

#1) The source. If your ISP’s switching office (for dialups) is more than a few (5 or 6) miles away from where you’re dialing up from, you’ll see a significant drop in connection speed. If you think about the distance of wire your signal has to travel, the longer the distance, the longer it will take for your signal to get there and back. Also, the longer the run, the more chance for added distortion and signal loss.

#2) The building. If your phone/cable lines are aged, your signal strength will be lowered. Plain and simple. Old crappy wiring = poor signal = lowered connection speed.

#3) The wiring. If you can afford it, buy the best quality wiring from the wall jack into your modem, and from the modem into your computer (if using an external like a DSL or Cable modem, use high quality CAT5, CAT5e or CAT6. Gold connections on high quality insulated cable provide long-term high-quality signal. Use the shortest length of cable possible.

Long cables, especially uninsulated ones, can serve as a weak electromagnet if wound in a circle, or as an antenna. Extra static and magnetic fields are bad for both computers and network connections. Avoid it.

#4) Surge protection. This is kind of a touchy subject. Everyone should have a surge protector on their electrical connections as well as their phone/cable/dsl connections. Every place where you have a connection (instead of a straight wire) is going to cause slight signal loss, but several connections can cause significant loss. You may need to fiddle around a little bit, but I definitely recommend putting a surge on either the incoming cable, or the CAT5 cable off of the modem.

#5) Background services. Things like KaZaa and Limewire (and other P2P clients) can eat up bandwidth. Even little programs like weatherbug, stock tickers and chat clients can eat up bandwidth, which is why most gamers will close all such clients before logging on to their favorite game servers. During normal web surfing, AIM or WB won’t hurt you too much, but get several clients running, and it can add up.

#6) Other computers. If you have several computers in your house, and someone ELSE is running a P2P client, or playing a game, this will also inhibit your connection speed. Also, depending on your ISP, your neighborhood, appt complex, etc. may only get a few connections, and bandwidth is divided between several nodes instead of getting your own. Thus, your 1.5 Mbps is divided between the other 3 appts in your building, or whatever. Cable is notorious for this, from what I understand, DSL is better about it.

#7) TEST YOUR SPEED.Use a bandwidth speed test. I tend to use www.thebandwidthplace.com , but here is a link to several test sites.
http://home.cfl.rr.com/eaa/Bandwidth.htm

They also have more information available there.

Some of what was discussed is basic electronics, and translates over to stereo installations, house wiring, etc.

If there is a similar tut that I missed, PM me, and I’ll remove this

[Networker]

www.thebandwidthplace.com is a real good site.
Thanx

BTW - here is a similar thread but they complete each one

[allenb1963]

www.dslreports.com has 2 publicly available speed tests, a third one for members only, plus links to 140+ other "speed test" sites. The key thing to remember is that your speed is going to be affected by network traffic, the load on the test server, and its physical location relative to a major backbone. To get a true picture of your connection speed, you need to test at different times through the course of the day, test on different days of the week, and then average your results.

Just my .02 cents worth....

[sectac]

i think if your dialup as i am, you dont really worry about the .2k/sec loss from your already crappy 3.2k/sec download lol

good post tho

[sickyourIT]

well, honestly, if you have a 3.2 kbps connection, .2 kbps is 1/16 of your connection, wheras on a 2 Mbps connection, .2 kbps is almost insignificant. In fact, since dialup is already slow, every bit counts.

It's kinda like if you only have 16 french fries, and someone takes one, you notice. If you have 400 or 4000 fries, 1 fry is negligable.

sorry about the wierd reference. Had mickey D's for lunch today.

[VictorKaum]

Long cables, especially uninsulated ones, can serve as a weak electromagnet if wound in a circle, or as an antenna. Extra static and magnetic fields are bad for both computers and network connections. Avoid it.

To add to that, I have seen other sources cause network troubles:
TL-lights, transfo's / dimmers for house lights causing modems to have problems with sync on high speeds, cables that are untwisted for a larger part than necessary.
When you don't get a proper sync, checked everything and have still no clue what's causing your problem perhaps it could be some of these causes. They are (very) rare but not impossible.

[PuReExcTacy]

I haven't seen anyone mention it here, but having a router instead of a hub or switch can greatly reduce traffic on the ip layer. Lots of network broadcasts that don't need to see the light of day. The router can improve the speed of your network by providing traffic control.

Another good place to test your bandwidth is toast.net


--PuRe

[bugsthecat]

While we are on the subject of bandwidth , any ideas why there is a HUGE difference when using windows or linux/bsd on the speed test sites , on windows i get ~1-1.5 Mbps and with linux or freebsd iget ~ 2-3 Mbps (cable connection on the same computer) Is it valid to say windows is really slooooow? , does everyone else see this difference?

[bombayofpigs]

just got winforst/surewest connection at the house. they install a fiber connection to the outside of your house and punch a hole through the outside of your garage to install a lucent Fiber to ethernet converter. When everything is said and done you (are supposed to) get 10mbps i nternet connection along with your telephone over the same cat5 pair. Unfortunately they havent been able to bundle digital cable over the same facilities, and run coax just like your other digital cable providers.

When I ran DSL reports, I was pleased to see that I clocked 9.4 mbps down, but the upload stream varied from 2mbps up to 8 mbps. the upload stream was not constant, but i seemed to report better upload speeds if i would run the tests right after I finished one...

Not sure why that happens - i thought my speeds were supposed to be symmetrical and constant, but hey im not complaining - sure does beat dialup.

[cheyenne1212]

When I ran DSL reports, I was pleased to see that I clocked 9.4 mbps down, but the upload stream varied from 2mbps up to 8 mbps. the upload stream was not constant, but i seemed to report better upload speeds if i would run the tests right after I finished one...

*cough cough* *chokes on food*

8-9 MBPS....Can I live with you. I Have 56K at home and DSL at a friends, but even on the dsl I only get 512Kbps, with 256 Kbps on the upload.

Who do you use as your ISP, I mean my gosh almost 10mbps download. I would die for that kind of speed. WOW.

I'm moving to where you live. PM me with you address.

*cheyenne1212 presses the send button while still in shock.*