Re: ADSL again

[Jonathan Q <jq@example.com>]

jshore@example.com (jshore@example.com) wrote:

> Just out of curiousity what sort of sustained bandwidth are eaccess or ntt
> flets users getting downstream.  I know 2 people with eaccess service in new
> buildings near me who are getting rates far below the rated 1.6Mbps/s,
> whereas with Tokyo Metallic I regularly get 150-160Kbytes/s (very close to
> 1.6Mbps) for sites with adequate bandwidth on my lines (one in setagaya-ku
> and the other in shibuya-ku).

This is hugely variable.  What matters more than anything else is the
capacity of the download site itself.  If it's at all popular, chances
are you won't hit the theoretical speed of the line.  After all,
it only takes a few DSL users to saturate a 10 megabit link.
FTP site operators gotta hate that stuff :-)

I have switched 100baseT to my desk at work, and you better
believe I never get anything close to the capacity of that line :-)
I have gotten about 20 mbps out of the jp7 FreeBSD mirror a couple
times, though.  That puppy's on a big pipe.

How close you are to the CO makes a difference, too, as does the
general quality of the line.  I know people on eaccess who
get pretty close to wire speed, and others who see much less
performance, but the DSL provider doesn't make much difference.
There isn't a huge difference between one vendor's DSLAM and 
another's (I don't know whose DSLAMS eaccess and and Tokyo
Metallic use, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were from
the same vendor; it's not a crowded market) and either way
it's NTT's copper.

The only eaccess users I know usually get as near to wire
speed as can be reasonably expected, but I've heard about others
using the same ISP who often get far less than that.  It could
be the FTP sites they use, their distance from the telco CO,
the condition of the wires, interference on the lines, 
the way they have their software configured (some people 
think they're smart to do stuff like changing the MTUn
to 296, but that *doesn't* get them faster downloads.  Usually
it will make them slower.  Foot, gun - arrange a meeting), the
phase of the moon (kidding) and solar storm activity (not
kidding).

If you're using TM and happy with them, there's no reason to
switch unless they go belly-up (and I hope they don't).  If
that does happen, you'll probably see similar/same performance
from eaccess.

Jonathan