Cool tips to make DSL run faster.

[emad]

Cable is most popular in North America, while most people use ADSL here in Asia. I used Cable in the states, and it was nice and stable, rarely had any issues. Now I use ADSL here, 2MB down 512k up. Feels a bit slower, and kinda unstable, the connection gets all jumpy sometimes. But everytime I think back to the days of using Netzero free dial-up, with the freakin' banner, I feel satisfied with what I have now.

In the US maybe, but not so much in Canada. The dsl providers here have more than caught up and were the first to provide more than 1.5mbps service at reasonable costs. Right now, I pay $45/month canadian with taxes for my 3mbps/800kbps service. On the local cable provider, the 3mbps service costs the same but only offers a 400kbps upstream AND a 40 gig bandwidth cap. That 40 gig cap also carries over to the cable company's 5mbps service.

The whole reason why the US and to a lesser extent, Canada have it slower than the rest of the world is partly because of the age of the digital networks, and mostly to do with the size of the countries. Add in FCC regulations keeping cities and competing companies from implementing their own digital digital lines for towns that don't have them yet and you get yourself a nice mess of both expensive internet and sometimes shoddy service.

As for the 100mbps providers, it's more than possible on a fiber network. Of course, the cost of laying fiber over the entire continental US is an EXTREMELY daunting and expensive task - something which customers will ultimately have to pay for. Meaning they also won't get truly high speeds for several years after the service is made available. Even then, it may or may not be possible to see price drops due to the big telecom companies taking complete ownership of their lines.

 

[KieranMurphy]

Thats about the funniest thing I've heard all day today. The only way to make DSL run faster is to upgrade to Cable internet. DSL is just a fancy version of dialup.

BWAHAHAHA! My "fancy version of dialup" is about 50 times as fast as my old 56k dialup. That's some "fancy version"!

CAT-5 cable is rated for runs of up to almost 100m, so unless your PC is really far away from your DSL modem, you'll have no problems. You're more likely to suffer signal degradation on the phone cable running from the DSL modem to the phone socket, but I'm running a 100ft phone cable from my DSL modem to my phone socket and I've got no problems - I'm getting about 80% of my 2Mb bandwidth, which is about right.

If you want to significantly improve your bandwidth, you'll have to pay your ISP for a higher bandwidth connection.


KM.

 

[KieranMurphy]

For a country like the U.S., 5mbps is pretty crappy.

No it's not. Unless you're living within a very short distance of your local phone exchange, you'll be lucky to find any ISP offering more than a 5 - 6 Mbps speed. There's a limit to how much bandwidth you can squeeze out of the old copper cables that are on local loops.

5Mbps is an extremely fast internet connection - that's theoretically 100 times as fast as a dialup connection and practically probably about 150 times as fast because you never really get 56k out of a 56k connection. Cable is theoretically faster, but it's not always, and a bunch of people sharing the local cable internet service can slow it down considerably.

Unless you're with a company or a college with a very high speed internet connection, it's hard to find faster than that. And even a college with a 100Mbps internet connection isn't going to get you that kind of download speed off the internet because so many people are sharing the same connection to the internet. Unless you're there early in the morning or late in the evening when no-one else is using the internet, you won't get that kind of speed.

I think what he means is that in places like Sweden you can get 100mbps home connections for the same price that we pay for 5mbps connections.

Using any sort of DSL or other technology, there's no way you can possibly get close to 100Mbps out of a standard phone line.

I think I read something about them working on 1gbps.

Where did you here that? The super-high-speed fibre optic backbones that criss cross the globe and carry traffic for hundreds or thousands of simultaneous users have that kind of speed, but no ISP in the world is offering 1Gbps connection to it's consumers.


KM.

 

[Jmac279]

Well I was wondering, who else offers a 5mbps besides my ISP? So far I have not seen another company with that speed.

My iSP offers 7 Mbps download, 1.5 Mbps upload, 50 GB/month download limit for $47.95/month (Canadian $) ...

Mine is 5 Mbps download, 1 Mbps upload, 30 GB/month download limit for $37.95/month (Canadian $) ...

 

[crazyazn7412]

bah! no one should even complain without at least trying to live with dial up

 

[Jmac279]

You know, some of us did grow up in the 90s ...

Dial-up was painful ... I almost cried when my parents got cable because it was sooooooooo much better ...

 

[Omnis]

i still have dial up.

i'm a warrior.

 

[BAZZ]

Unless you're with a company or a college with a very high speed internet connection, it's hard to find faster than that. And even a college with a 100Mbps internet connection isn't going to get you that kind of download speed off the internet because so many people are sharing the same connection to the internet. Unless you're there early in the morning or late in the evening when no-one else is using the internet, you won't get that kind of speed.

Using any sort of DSL or other technology, there's no way you can possibly get close to 100Mbps out of a standard phone line.
KM.

Ive got 100Mbps right here and im at home, not sharing it with anybody. Greedy? Yes.

Edit: Its fiber optic not phonelines btw. Oh and isnt there 24-ish VDSL connections? They are phoneline based as far as i know. ( ?)

 

[zoxxy]

Ive got 100Mbps

FU!

 

[Solid Lifters]

I have Vorizon and they have a free upgrade in connection speed from the regular 1.5mbs to 3.0mbs. But, it ain't available, yet, in my area. Bah. I hear it's only 2.7mbs, anyway. But, my upload speed doubled, like I really care.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

I have Vorizon and they have a free upgrade in connection speed from the regular 1.5mbs to 3.0mbs. But, it ain't available, yet, in my area. Bah. I hear it's only 2.7mbs, anyway. But, my upload speed doubled, like I really care.

You're probably getting 1.2-1.3 now.

 

[Solid Lifters]

You're probably getting 1.2-1.3 now.

No, it's a bit better than that. It averages between 1.45 and 1.6Mbs. It dowloads at 185 to 195kbytes a second. That isn't bad.

 

[chinko]

i use AOL (ughhh) 576kb/s DSL, and when you run it without the pile of w*nk AOL browser it is quite nippy, stable, and the ping isnt too bad i guess. for £20 a month, and a free upgrade to 1mb/s (we had it for one night when they were testing, think they need longer tho it was jumpy as hell) its good. but there is no way to improve DSL speeds other than using high quality hardware and having 0 spyware, and then its only just improving

 

[KieranMurphy]

Ive got 100Mbps right here and im at home, not sharing it with anybody. Greedy? Edit: Its fiber optic not phonelines btw.

Just curious, what are you paying for a 100Mpbs Internet connection? I think fibre optic phone lines are still very rare so getting a 100Mbps connection is probably the exception and not the rule.

I doubt if the ISPs and telcos currently have remotely near the necessary backbone bandwidth to deal with 100Mpbs connections from the average customer. I'd say there's a lot of line upgrades to be done on their backbones, and even then there's a limit to bandwidth because there's a limit to what can be done with the copper cabling of most local loops.

Oh and isnt there 24-ish VDSL connections? They are phoneline based as far as i know. ( ?)

I've heard of 16Mbps+ VDSL connections, but they're only available if you're within << 1 mile of your local telco switch.

edit: I've got a 2Mpbs DSL connection which seems to be the fastest available for domestic users in Ireland. That's about as fast as you could want for web browsing.

Unless you do a lot of downloading of huge files, why would a domestic user want more than a few Mbps? Even with a 100Mpbs bandwidth today, would you regularly get more than a fraction of that speed from most online websites and services?


KM.

 

[BAZZ]

Just curious, what are you paying for a 100Mpbs Internet connection? I think fibre optic phone lines are still very rare so getting a 100Mbps connection is probably the exception and not the rule.

I doubt if the ISPs and telcos currently have remotely near the necessary backbone bandwidth to deal with 100Mpbs connections from the average customer. I'd say there's a lot of line upgrades to be done on their backbones, and even then there's a limit to bandwidth because there's a limit to what can be done with the copper cabling of most local loops.

I've heard of 16Mbps+ VDSL connections, but they're only available if you're within << 1 mile of your local telco switch.

edit: I've got a 2Mpbs DSL connection which seems to be the fastest available for domestic users in Ireland. That's about as fast as you could want for web browsing.

Unless you do a lot of downloading of huge files, why would a domestic user want more than a few Mbps? Even with a 100Mpbs bandwidth today, would you regularly get more than a fraction of that speed from most online websites and services?


KM.

Im paying 75US$/month for it and well, speed is more then enough and, i mean more then enough. I cant say that i have any direct need for 100Mbps but it is rather neat when (as you said) downloading bigger/more files from various places.

Yeah the speed is quite bad to some parts of the world but ive still managed to do

that speed from the US. It was done during the night but still one of the best results ive ever got from the US. Normally it goes around 20-60Mbps wich once again (as you said) is not really needed for everyday browsing. But, seriously, we arent all just browsing all day now are we?
However, in one day it is not all that uncommon that i transfer 30GB up and down through various p2p programs and that is when im happy about having it.

But yeah, ive said it to a couple friends of mine and i guess ill say it again. Its not really needed to have that much. I could just as well go for 10Mbit and be more then satisfied.. to some extent.

 

[Bryce305]

How much is a cable internet conection I just moved from dial up to DSL and I don't see only but a little of a change.

 

[standard235]

Cable for us is 40 bucks a month... or 50. USD. 3-4MBITS depending when it is.

 

[xcsti]

ughhh all you guys complaining about slow dsl. I'm still on 56k...

My college has a good network. Depending on where I'm dling from I can get more than 4mbs. Our IT service sucks so the network goes up and down alot.

 

[crazyazn7412]

I used to have dial up...now i have dsl!!!

 

[kon2oo5]

Shorter cable gets a better signal, not "faster speeds". For long distance cabling, you will need repeaters.

Do you know what speeds your current DSL plan offers? Just because you have DSL doesn't mean you can download anything you want in an instant. Most DSL plans are in the 512 to 768 Kbps range. Most cable plans are in the 1.5 to 3 Mbps range. Consumer DSL can't even come close to cable.

i just made u look stupid 💡

dsl = same as cable even cheaper and better...

http://www.sonic.net/sales/broadband/dsl/express_residential.shtml

http://www.sonic.net/sales/broadband/dsl/pro_residential.shtml

http://www.sonic.net/sales/broadband/dsl/enhanced_residential.shtml

look at the price and speed and upload rates just as fast as cable (18.95$) each month for 12 months then it will cost just like cable does, 50$ per month etc etc u get it...

 

[VT]

i just made u look stupid 💡

dsl = same as cable even cheaper and better...

http://www.sonic.net/sales/broadband/dsl/express_residential.shtml

http://www.sonic.net/sales/broadband/dsl/pro_residential.shtml

http://www.sonic.net/sales/broadband/dsl/enhanced_residential.shtml

look at the price and speed and upload rates just as fast as cable (18.95$) each month for 12 months then it will cost just like cable does, 50$ per month etc etc u get it...

Too bad you are wrong. DSL is not the same thing as cable, or it would be called cable.

1. DSL comes through a phone cord. Cable comes through your co-axial cable television connection
2. Cable speeds are fairly close to your actual internet speeds, DSL speeds are no where near the actual internet speeds (as in way over) because DSL is a shared connection, which means that if you and your neighbor both have DSL you share bandwidth, therefore slowing your connection speeds down. You do not have this problem with cable.

Read this

So, DSL and cable are not the same thing, and I just made YOU look stupid.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

Too bad you are wrong. DSL is not the same thing as cable, or it would be called cable.

1. DSL comes through a phone cord. Cable comes through your co-axial cable television connection
2. Cable speeds are fairly close to your actual internet speeds, DSL speeds are no where near the actual internet speeds (as in way over) because DSL is a shared connection, which means that if you and your neighbor both have DSL you share bandwidth, therefore slowing your connection speeds down. You do not have this problem with cable.

Read this

So, DSL and cable are not the same thing, and I just made YOU look stupid.

Actually, cable is the one that shares bandwidth. A handful of people share the bandwidth, and the cable company depends on the fact that not all the people are using it at one time. That is why cable companies don't want you running a server.

 

[dialated8]

DSL can be faster than cable, and cable can be faster than dsl. It all depends on the area you are in. If you're in a dense residential area i've found it best to go with dsl because you're not fighting for bandwidth with everyone else on your network, if you're in a less dense area, cable will be faster. BUT... I highly doubt that you will notice much difference in just surfing the internet, UNLESS you're downloading big files all the time (more than 20mb files). Anything under that size and the download time difference is only going to be a less than a minute. My dsl (SBC Yahoo! DSL in Michigan), downloads at between 2200kbps - 2600kbps depending on which server i'm connecting to, and I have no problem with it.👍

If you think your dsl is slow it probably has something more to do with having spyware or other bugs in your computer, not the line itself. Try testing your speed after cleaning out your computer or having someone else connect to your line with a (clean) laptop.

I've also heard of people thinking their line is slow because of the download speeds they get while using peer to peer software (napster, bearshare,etc.), this has nothing to do with your actual connection speed. If the person(s) you're downloading from don't have a high speed connection, you wont be able to download fast from them.

As for registry tweaks and things of that nature, I wouldn't try them unless you've already cleaned out your computer and it's a last resort, the ones that i've tried have done nothing but slow me down.

With my experience and budget, opening google.com 1/8 of a second quicker just isn't worth the extra $30 bucks a month for cable internet.

 

[crazyazn7412]

hey, i'm from michigan too! also with sbc yahoo dsl...how do you download that quick? and do you have your own router? not the crappy one that comes with?

 

[Eric.]

Ive got 100Mbps

:cough:

 

[Evolution.]

:cough:

Postdate

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

:cough:

Not necessarily

hey, i'm from michigan too! also with sbc yahoo dsl...how do you download that quick? and do you have your own router? not the crappy one that comes with?

That was the speed in kbps, divide by ~8.192 to get KB/s

 

[crazyazn7412]

Not necessarily



That was the speed in kbps, divide by ~8.192 to get KB/s

and there goes my hope lol

yeah...i wish sbc was faster

 

[guska]

Just a question,

In an attempt at getting my DSL connection to run a little more reliably, I have connected my PC to both the Ethernet and USB conectors on the router, and then bridged the 2 connections.

My question is...
Is this a good idea? Or not?

gOoSe

 

[Evolution.]

Just a question,

In an attempt at getting my DSL connection to run a little more reliably, I have connected my PC to both the Ethernet and USB conectors on the router, and then bridged the 2 connections.

My question is...
Is this a good idea? Or not?

gOoSe

No. You're only supposed to use either the USB or Ethernet. Not both at the same time. Your actually doing the opposite of what your trying to do.