Digital Subscriber Line Can a lower speed DSL account actually be faster?

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Subject Author Date
Can a lower speed DSL account actually be faster? adlertom 08-13-05
Posted by on August 13, 2005, 5:01 pm
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I live in a rural area, and I'm probably at (or maybe even beyond) the
maximum DSL distance limit of my telco remote office.

It's likely that I'm pushing my rural phone line beyond it's speed
capabilities. The reason why I was even hooked up to DSL in the first
place is a long story, so I won't bore you with the details. You might
say that I have the service on a "trial" basis.

The DSL service plan I'm trying provides up to 1.5 Mbps download speed.
Most of the time I'm getting about 600 Kbps speed. Sometime however
the speed is much worse. It occasionally dips to < 100 Kbps, with
upload speeds faster than download.

My question is this: The DSL provider also offers lower speed (up to
384 Kbps) service plan. Would I get better overall performance by
switching to this plan? Does the phone company simply "cripple" the
throughput for their lower speed customers, or is there an actual
difference in how the slower speed customer is served DSL (i.e. lower
speed = fewer packet errors)? If I switched to the lower speed plan,
would I simply be limiting my higher upper end speed to 384 Kbps and
still suffer the occasional < 100 Kbps performance?


Posted by George Pontis on August 13, 2005, 10:03 pm
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adlertom@juno.com says...
> I live in a rural area ...
>
> The DSL service plan I'm trying provides up to 1.5 Mbps download speed.
> Most of the time I'm getting about 600 Kbps speed.

Not bad. At least some aspects of your line are usable if you can get that
download rate most of the time.

> Sometime however the speed is much worse. It occasionally dips to < 100 Kbps,
with
> upload speeds faster than download.

That is a bad drop. You should try to find out what is causing it. Some modems,
like the Efficient 5200 router model, have a web page that shows DSL and ATM
statistics. On the DSL stats, you can see attenuation and signal to noise ratio.
Some interfering signal could be the cause of these performance dips. If your
modem does not show you this information, you could ask your ISP if they can
access the stats. You might find www.dslreports.com to be a good place to visit
to
learn more about your modem and how to interpret these data. Also, you might
find
that a different modem would work better.

>
> My question is this: The DSL provider also offers lower speed (up to
> 384 Kbps) service plan. Would I get better overall performance by
> switching to this plan?

No

> Does the phone company simply "cripple" the
> throughput for their lower speed customers ...
Yes

> If I switched to the lower speed plan,
> would I simply be limiting my higher upper end speed to 384 Kbps and
> still suffer the occasional < 100 Kbps performance?

Yes, unless you can get control of the problem. In case you have not done it
yet,
you should at least make sure that your own home is reasonably well wired for
DSL.
A long line is more likely the problem, but you can make sure that you are at
least not further limited by your own wiring or by an interferance source in
your
home.

Posted by bakerjay on August 16, 2005, 7:01 pm
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The speed of your internet connection even when using copper
cables(PSTN)
varies along with distance.....
However what you need to know is that this distance is the distance
from your
premises to the actual DSLAM that is present at the telephone
operator's
"Exchange" premises and not the NOC centre. Now since your
telephone connection
is operative your telephone "exchange" would be in
a radius of appox. 5-6 kms
(thats where your dslam is); indeed you
should get a speed of atleast 1.4 Mbps
as per your connection plan and
if you are not getting it---- blame it on your
isp.

The reasons could be the following ::

1. Line parameters dont allow you to get the right speed --- check the
parameters (s/n ratio/attenuation in the line and the most common one
-- tell
the isp to see if there's any "touching" between two telephone
lines,obviously
one of which is yours).

2.The DSL jumpering may be faulty. --- Tell the isp to check the
jumpering for
faults at the MDF (main distribution frame).

3.Tell the isp to check on the main ports, whether sufficient bandwidth
has been
released for your account.

4. Line parameters must be set such that you can avail a bandwitdh as
per your
plans.--- some routers/modems enable you to check this one !!



I think you should get the speed as per your plans .....

----bakerjay----


--
bakerjay

Posted by glgxg on August 17, 2005, 12:21 am
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bakerjay wrote:

> The speed of your internet connection even when using copper
> cables(PSTN) varies along with distance.....
> However what you need to know is that this distance is the distance
> from your premises to the actual DSLAM that is present at the telephone
> operator's "Exchange" premises and not the NOC centre. Now since your
> telephone connection is operative your telephone "exchange" would be in
> a radius of appox. 5-6 kms (thats where your dslam is); indeed you
> should get a speed of atleast 1.4 Mbps as per your connection plan and
> if you are not getting it---- blame it on your isp.
>
> The reasons could be the following ::
>
> 1. Line parameters dont allow you to get the right speed --- check the
> parameters (s/n ratio/attenuation in the line and the most common one
> -- tell the isp to see if there's any "touching" between two telephone
> lines,obviously one of which is yours).
>
> 2.The DSL jumpering may be faulty. --- Tell the isp to check the
> jumpering for faults at the MDF (main distribution frame).
>
> 3.Tell the isp to check on the main ports, whether sufficient bandwidth
> has been released for your account.
>
> 4. Line parameters must be set such that you can avail a bandwitdh as
> per your plans.--- some routers/modems enable you to check this one !!
>
>
>
> I think you should get the speed as per your plans .....
>
> ----bakerjay----
>
>

Before looking too hard at the ISP, I'd also recommend checking his MTU
settings on his PC. Sometimes the solution is simple tuning.

When I first installed DSL I found that my download speeds were quite
slow; primarily because I hadn't tuned the system and reset the MTU
settings from dialup (500 something) to their current settings of 1492.
Once I reset the MTU settings (on both the PC, the router, and the DSL
modem, the downloads average the advertised 1.5MB and, depending on the
download server, they quit often exceed that speed.

In addition to broadband reports etc, I'd recommend the OP spend some
time on speedguide.net, and in particular check out tcpoptimizer:

http://www.speedguide.net/tcpoptimizer.php [documentation]
http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=156 (determining your
ISP's MTU}
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php (I had problems with version 2
of tcpoptimizer so I'd recommend sticking with version 1 to start)




--
2004/12/26 00:58:50 UTC 3.30N 95.78E Magnitude 9.0
http://www.google.com/tsunami_relief.html

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