@Home Cable .....double your bandwidth! (sort of)

[Brainiac2000]

Are you sure it really works with 2 IPs (the bandwidth thing)? From my experience there is a certain amount of bandwidth the cable modem and cable itself can maintain without being bogged down with traffic. It might be slightly higher, but i seriously doubt without some actual real hardcore evidence that you can get twice the amount of bandwidth by buying IPs. IMO the @home guys are trying to take your money! (I use a win2k router )

 

[Zwingle]

Look, I didn't mean to start a fight amongst us.....I just thought it was good deal that I (stress in the I) was getting. I figured I would share my find......I know that I am getting twice the speed...that is a fact known to me and me only....no one on this forum can dispute this unless you are sitting at my pc looking at my screens. I know whatI see......so there. Now lets all get civil and all get our facts straight before we say any more.....cool?

 

[Ben88]

I just spoke to a friend of mine who is a network engineer with @home, and he confirmed that you DO NOT get twice the bandwidth with two ips. In your case, you may have so much bandwidth that splitting it does not degrade performance.

 

[Zwingle]

I said that I was on a low numbered node......this could be the reason...but the tech told me he thought people were stupid for using a proxy and splitting the bandwidth when you could double it by getting another IP. He even said that he got 2 ip's because of this.

 

[Mean Dean]

Remember @Home is charging you $10 month for rental of their cable modem.
Circut City has a $100 rebate on the Toshiba cable modem when you purchase the
@Home starter kit with it. Rebate expires 2/4/01

 

[Nutdotnet]

Do you guys want me to get my buddy to post on this board? As stated before he is a Tier Two Techie for AT&T @home. He knows his S*IT. You do get twice the bandwith. But what does it matter? I pay the extra $5 a month so my girlfriend can d/l at the same speed as me. That doesn't help my speed out at all.

 

[mastarecoil]

With NT load distribution using 2 nics, could you get 2x the bandwith with 2 ips?

Garrett.

 

[Z80]

I had 2 IP's for over a year with @Home/Intermedia in Nashville. I canceled the second IP and installed a Linksys router/4 port switch ($104) when I setup my third PC. I also purchased my own cable modem (Toshiba) at Circuit City ($199 - $100 rebate = $99). Using my own cable modem, canceling the second IP address and not having to pay for a third IP address saved me $30.37 a month ($33.99 a month vs $64.36 a month). The monthly savings will pay for the router and cable modem in 7 months. NOW THAT'S A HOT DEAL!

As far as doubling your connection speed with a second IP, no way Jose. I'd have to see that one in writing from @Home! I routinely have Napster running concurrently on two of my PCs and see upload speeds of 20K - 150K and download speeds of 100K - 300K...if I catch someone with a T1 connection

 

[Nutdotnet]

Hmm. I think some of u are confused. No, you are not doubling your speed. But when you get another IP address for another computer you are not hurting your speed either. Since getting the second IP for my gf's Laptop I have not seen ANY degradation in speed.

 

[Torchem]

I remember an old utility for MAC'S that allowed you to use two modems to double your dialup, but you needed two phone lines and either two accounts or permission from your isp. If there is such a thing for Windows, it might work for NIC-based internet access,

 

[namlook]

If it's true that by paying for a second IP that both IP's and both computers will be able to download at the same speed as when you had one IP and one computer then this IS a very hot deal indeed. I didn't know that. I thought the second IP would take bandwidth away from the first IP if they both use the same cable modem but apparently this is not the case. Apparently each IP is allocated a certain amount of bandwidth by @home.

Using a router to split a single IP among more than one computer is reducing the bandwidth available to all the computers if they are all downloading at the same time but if you just buy a second Ip for $5-6 or so the second computer isn't taking any bandwidth away from the first one. Awesome deal!

 

[LiQiCE]

I have Comcast@Home in New Jersey, I've had it for about 2 1/2 years now.

I don't work for Comcast, and I'm no expert in how their equipment works, but I do know a few things that I've been told...

First matter is, the cable lines can handle more than 128kbps upstream, they decided to cap this speed because by doing that, they could allow for a higher downstream. When I first got Comcast@Home, they did NOT cap our upload speeds, (I was getting between 60-100k/s upstream), but my download speeds were limited to around 200k/s. After they capped our upstream speeds, I was able to pull a much higher downstream speed, somewhere around 500-600k/s. This probably has something to do with load balancing the lines, and capping upstream speeds to allow for a higher downstream speed, I'm not an expert, so I don't know for sure, but thats what it seems like.

Second thing is that a router would not be able to give you double the bandwidth, because it only has *1* true @Home IP address (the other IP addresses are "fake" addresses assigned by the router). Therefore, @Home only thinks you have 1 computer connected, and will only give you the bandwidth for 1 IP.

It is also certainly possible that in different areas, they have different policies, or their equipment is set up differently. Therefore, some people may in fact get double the bandwidth when they purchase a 2nd IP address, and others may not. Just because they all carry the @Home label does not necessarily mean they have exactly the same setup.

Also, to the person from Connecticut that has a choice for their cable company, in New Jersey, and I'd presume in many other places, we don't have a choice. I have Comcast Cable TV, and Comcast@Home, and I have no other choice. My only other broadband choice is DSL, which is not available in my area. Thats probably why people like myself are choosing @Home, we have no other choice! (Although I really have no major complaints with @Home so far... Uptime is really good, and my downstream bandwidth rivals the DS3 setup we have at my college)

 

[Nutdotnet]

It is a hot deal. I just got done talking to my buddy again, and again he verified it.

I wish I had a choice in cable companies, but no go in Portland.
And yes, with the router thing it will not work. But if you get assaigned another IP addy from @home, then it will.

 

[Zwingle]

Why is this so hard to believe? And so hard for some to understand?

 

[TBP]

Wow!

 

[Z80]

Mean Dean

Current @Home subscribers get the Circuit City $100 REBATE on Toshiba cable modems without buying the install kit. Pickup the Linksys router cheap too! Take the wife to the movies each weekend with the $20 bucks you save! Look at the other threads.

 

[dkk]

hehe.. this is too funny.. guess i should just order a second ip since i'm gonna be puttin up an experiment server..

wonder if that toshiba will work with all the @home services and if the rebate will really come..

 

[namlook]

I don't see the Toshiba cable modem on the CC home page. Is it there?

 

[Wag]

Still, this doesn't sound right to me.

It would be one thing if you were renting a second cable modem, but just by splitting it up with a hub ultimately you're sharing the bandwidth from that single cable modem.

You do not get more bandwidth by adding more IP#s. That's not how it works. DOCSIS only allocates a certain amount of bandwidth per modem. If you have a modem status page you can check to see this is so. It should also mention how many IP#s are allocated to your machine and the make/brand, modem health, etc, etc.

 

[Shredfest]

GoldenTiger - People sign up for @Home because they don't have a choice. Cox@Home is the only cable modem service I can get in Southington, CT, because Cox is the only cable provider that services Southington. When I go to Optimum Online's website and put in my zipcode to find out if their service is available in my area, I get this:

Thank you for your interest in Optimum Online.
A Cablevision system was not located in your zip code.
The Optimum Online service is available only in areas where Cablevision Systems Corp. is your cable provider.
Please contact your local cable operator.

My local cable operator is Cox. And they are in bed with @Home. So that's what I have to get. Don't move out of your town, because you might get stuck with @Home too.

 

[lzpoof]

Well, I am up in Rhode Island. I;m not sure on upstream bandwidth, but I can give you a definite answer on downstream bandwidth. My coworker has Cox@home and we have cox@work at work. I have verifiably gotten speeds upwards of 300+ kilobytes a second download. I got this from www.holemusic.com among other sites. Don't ask, it was the first site that popped up under audiofind for some random word. Anyways ... The typical limit one-way on a 10 base-t connection locally that I have seen is somewhere around 700+ kilobytes a second. That's transferring to a computer like twenty feet away. I'm sure some people have gotten more (don't talk about duplexing, I mean ONE-way). Now someone please explain to me how getting a second ip address is somehow gonna give me more bandwidth than a local connection ? Or how 3 IPs would give somehow give me 900 kilobytes/second over a 10-baseT connection when I can't even get that much through my local networking equipment ? Seems kinda pointless to me , at least up here in New England with Cox. Either Cox up here doesn't follow these people's rules or this is all bs. The concept of saying that more IPS equals more bandwidth is ridiculous. The company next door to ours has 17 IPs. Does that mean they get 17*300=5100 kilobytes/second bandwidth ? I don't think so.
As far as upstream bandwidth, on Cox's site it blatantly states upstream limits for both cox@work and cox@home. On cox@work, it says you may order more IPs, but you don't get more bandwidth. Not that it would do you any good, since you share with all local businesses and probably at some point with the local neighborhood. I can verify that you get NO more bandwidth by adding IP addresses with Cox. Look at their site. The rated upstream bandwidth is one number for @work standard and one number for @work professional. there is no mention of IPs, and as it seems, the lowest professional service only has twice the upstream bandwidth for the standard. This obviously means that adding more IPs gievs you no more bandwidth on standard @work, as there would be no reason to offer the professional service. Why order a more exxpensive service (by far) when you could just order another IP ?
As far as I have heard, and this has been verified at one time or another , getting a second IP gives you a larger DOWNSTREAM allowance per day of downloads, but not more rated bandwidth. 1 IP = 500 megabytes a day before suspicion. 2 IPs= 1000 megabytes. the @work customers have no maximum daily allowances, only limited by the speeds they can get. I think the @work restriction is lifted because a company may have 15 computers sharing the 1 cable modem connection. Therefore it wouldn't make sense to limit 15 computers to a daily allowance total for 1. These 15 computers still however share 1 10-baseT connection and one allotted bandwidth. These were numbers quoted to me from a Cox technician, and he said by the way , your connection does not get any faster. Cox gouges a bit for their service by forcing you (with @work) to but IPs for all your computers, but not giving you any more bandwidth. Seems to be the same for cox@home. Maybe you guys have different setups, but that's what Cox is up here.

 

[sworshs]

I know for fact that adding an extra IP address does not double your speed for DSL. My friend have 5 IP address. They asked for the highest speed DSL lines and all they can offer was the 6Mbps/sec line. Having 5 IP addresses do not give you a 30 Mbps/sec connection.

 

[chemwiz]

I can also give you real world data: extra IP's add ZERO to your overall upload speed. I've had 2 to 4 enabled at various times, and my download stayed at a combined 800K max, upload at 30K max. Switching to a router (which has one IP) gives me exactly the same limits. Believe me, I've tested them, too! Anyone on @home, go back to page one and sign succubus' petition, please.

 

[Rendus]

I'd like to give this a giant "Um... No." Unless for some reason Zwingle's local Cox franchise deicded they're going to go against @Home policy, MCA (Multipe Computer Access, multiple IPs) doesn't do a thing to your bandwidth. The bandwidth is assigned to the cable modem, NOT the IP. Although, the mention of "up to 10 IPs" and such does imply that perhaps they DO go against standard procedure (normally it's up to 4), I seriously doubt this.

 

[abraxxus]

Hmm... The only time you will cut your speed in half is when u use a Hub. If you are using a switch, the switch(more intelligent than a hub) will allocate the bandwidth to the computer which needs it. Therefore, if one computer is only word processing, and the other is downloading something... then it will allocate the bandwidth appropriately.

This is my opinion, feel free to let me know if I am wrong