[G4] DSL Speed

[Amir 'CG' Caspi]

On Sat, 13 Dec 2003, Richard Kriss wrote:

> I found Sandor's comment interesting.  How do you know the speed of your
> DSL connection?

You should know based on what you purchased from SBC what the rated speeds 
are (min-max).  Then you can go to a test site or just download a large 
item (e.g. 100MB movie trailer) and figure out your real speed.
	I am on the "standard" SBC DSL and I get the maximum 1.5 Mbps 
throughput, and have been for 2.5 years now.  They are ultra-reliable and 
my connection has gone down literally only 2 days out of the last 2.5 
years.

> I am new to SBC DSL sbcglobal.net and they said nothing about the speed
> of the DSL; however, I have heard comments from relatives in other

That's very weird, because they explicitly mention the DSL speeds on their
web page (sbc.com/dsl).  The speeds noted on the site are the rated
speeds, i.e. min/max possible speeds.  Your actual speed will be somewhere 
in between.

> speed. This sounds like a giant rip off.  Can they really put a governor
> on the DSL?

They certainly can put a governor on it, yes.  It's not so much a rip-off 
as simply tiered pricing.  If you pay more, you get more bandwidth.  Since 
you are in essence "renting" the bandwidth, it makes sense to limit it 
based on price.  As long as the price is *reasonable* for the bandwidth 
you get, then it's not really a problem.
	However, the "standard" DSL for only $26/mo allows up to 1.5 Mbps,
which is the usual maximum for most companies.  You can pay extra to get
business-grade DSL, but it's not worth the money for home use.  I'm quite 
satisfied with my DSL, where I get maximum throughput very reliably.

> The DSL may not be as fast as cable but for half the price it is a good

Actually, it all depends on what cable you have.  Comcast around here 
sells only 1.5 Mbps cable, and yes, they do actually cap it.  Thus you get 
the exact same bandwidth with cable modem than you do with DSL.  DSL tends 
to be more reliable and more consistent in speeds vs. time of day (i.e. 
you don't have slow speeds at peak times), in my experience.  You should 
ALWAYS look at the fine print regarding speeds before signing up.

> speed depends on the servers.  I just did a Safari download from Apple
> and was getting about 160 KB per sec and did another at 210 KB per sec.  

The downloads from Apple aren't all from the same server.  They use 
load-balancing technology so your downloads may be coming from two totally 
separate servers that may not even be in the same part of the country.  
That may explain the difference in speed.  Another explanation may be that 
the traffic pattern changed between your two downloads... there's really a 
whole host of possible reasons.

Happy holidays!
-- 
						--- Amir