You got DSL questions? I will try to answer them as best I can!

[N8Magic]

Seeing as i'm jealous of all the attention that Alphacowboy has been getting with his popular "Cable questions" thread, I figured I could put my knowledge and experience on the line.

I have worked with DSL since its inception here in Canada, from the installation and repair, to the NOC stuff.

Any questions? Feel free to ask.

 

[mk52]

why does dsl suck so bad compared to cable?

-MeliK

 

[N8Magic]

Suck in what regard? Sure, cable at its finest will beat most DSL lines sometimes. Remember that service that uses Alcatel equipment can scale to 8Mbps (and that is the first generation equipment). The telcos/providers just set it lower. You get what you pay for.

I didn't want this to become a flame war between cable and DSL. I was only trying to help.

 

[mk52]

j/k

all I m sayin is that I pay 20 bucks and get 5Mbit/1Mbit bandwidth.
if I wanted the same with dsl I d have to pay x10.

-MeliK

 

[lastig21]

damn MelikK and his cheap bandwidth.

 

[Mookow]

I'm not at home right now (college), but at home we have DSL. it seems like a lot of times it takes forever to start D/L'ing. Once it starts, its great, but seriously, in the (sometimes) 30 seconds I wait for it to decide to work, I could have downloaded most pages over a 56K modem. Whats up with that?

 

[polypterus]

Okay I have a question, I've had ADSL through Earthlink/Covad for about 9 months, never had a second of down time or anything, love it... anyway, a couple of weeks ago my downloads were topping out at a wopping 12kb/s (as opposed to 150kb/s). It was like that for a couple of days before I got fed up and tried unplugging the modem (I heard that you can "reset" it or something that way). I waited about 30 minutes and plugged it back in and it worked perfect after that. It was fine for a couple of days, then it happened again, once again I unplugged it for awhile, plugged it back in and it was okay... well it's been doing that once or twice a week for the past month or so and it's really getting annoying... I don't get it, it's like it gets slower and slower the more I use it, then resets itself after I unplug it for awhile. And like I said it never happened before... any ideas??

dc

 

[N8Magic]

MelikK -- Not everyone has that luxury though. I know people who's cable modem is VERY slow during peak periods. My own cable modem is quite good. (rarely slows down, but spotty connectivity)

MooKow-- I haven't heard of that before, the only explanation I can offer is that the telco DSL networks are usually based on an ATM backbone. I beleive cable uses a packet based system where packets generally follow the path of least resistance and start flowing fairly quickly. With ATM, when you connect to something, it will open a end-to-end connection (in the ATM network) and send the your ATM cells on that same path. What you could be seeing is that your provider has set the DSL backbone with a low QoS/priority on the ATM network, and it could be taking awhile for it to set up the "virtual path". But 30 seconds is unheard of.

Hope this helps.

 

[Mookow]

I have actually sat at my computer and timed it... 39 seconds was the highest I ever got. The other weird thing is that it gets really bad at anytime... sometimes at like 3AM... I dont think their network can be all that friggin busy at 3 AM.
EDIT: This BS does tend to get me really pissed off, too. I mean, apart from downloading high res pr0n movies/pics or file d/l's, 56K seems to be alot better than DSL when its having a bad day and the latency kicks in... I'd be really ticked if it even pulled this crap while I was playing a game... I havent had the chance to test it, but i have a feeling it might.

 

[N8Magic]

MooCow -- Wow. 39 seconds definitely has nothing to do with the backbone. It must be some kind of interference. Can you see the DSL modem while this is going on? Is it staying synced up? Also, it may be a defective modem. I have seen modems that sync up perfectly fine, but fail for a moment once put under load.

Other than that, I can't explain it. Sorry.

Dougcio -- What kind of DSL modem do you have?

 

[Mucman]

N8Magic, I will be living in Port Coquitlam (a suburb of Vancouver) and I am deciding on choosing between cable and DSL... I live in Burnaby right now and I have cable because I could not get DSL. I am happy with it so far. Here are my questions :

- When it comes to sharing a broadband question using a router, which connection is more benificial for this? Or does it really matter?
- How can I find out how far an address is from a CO?
- Do DSL ISP's really differ in connection speeds since they are all using the same infrastructure (phone lines)?

thanks

 

[Mookow]

Does DSL hook in through a phone line? Because over the modem I have often gotten really sh!tty d/l speeds... we are talking <1K for an entire day... i dont think i ever saw more than 5Kb/sec over my modem... Could it just be a bad phone line connection? Oh, BTW, I'm writing this from a 10Mbit-->T3 connection... HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHA... I might have a really bad computer, but my internet pipe is one of the biggest on this forum!

 

[Mucman]

Where I am starting work tommorrow I will have access to an OC-3

 

[N8Magic]

Mucman -- 1) When sharing a connection using a router, they are generally the same. (in terms of ease of use) Not using a router, a cable connection is far superior. The reason is, most residential DSL uses a PPPoE client to authenticate with a master DHCP-like server that assigns you and IP, etc. etc. If you use Linux to IP Masquerade and as a firewall, the PPPoE client for Linux sucks badly. That leaves you to share it with Win2K or WinMe. Not the most secure thing in the world. On the other hand, you can just treat cable like an ethernet connection, and its IP generally stays the same. My IP has changed once in 2 years.

2) The only way to find out how far you are from the C.O. is to have the telco look it up in the facility records, or to have them to a capacitance test that can ballpark the distance to within a few feet.

3) Not really. Your copper loop has theoretical limit, but your 1.5Mbps DSL isn't coming close to maxxing it out. The only difference in speed between the providers will be the speed of their backbone to the internet.

 

[N8Magic]

Mookow -- Yes it uses the copper loop to get to the telco central office, but DSL (unlike 56k modems) never sees the phone switch. It's signal is stripped off by a DSLAM (digital subscriber line access multiplexer) and routed to the data network.

On the 56K modem, you will never see faster than 56K (approx 5-7KBps), because that is the maximum speed of each of the &quot;virtual channels&quot; through the voice switch.

PS. I am writing this with a 100MBps connection to the 'net. And the OC-768 equipment upstairs is only a patch cable away!

 

[N8Magic]

I am going home now, but I will check your questions in ~1.5 hrs. when I get home.

 

[Mucman]

1 ) Hmm... I was thinking of using Freesco. So if the ADSL provider in my area uses PPPoE then that wouldn't be a good idea then? If I found a provider that doesn't use PPPoE, would it be ok?

2 ) What is an acceptable distance? I have heard people say that you must be less than a Km, and others say that less than 5 Km is acceptable.

3 ) Will they give info on their backbones? What should I look for? What are the best DSL providers in the Vancouver area?

 

[GTaudiophile]

Where can I get cable or DSL in GA for $30/month? Qwest can do it out West, so why can't AT&amp;T or Earthlink?

 

[Mucman]

OC-768!!!! What is that?

16 Terabit????

 

[Novgrod]

Why will my (crappy) DSL stall for a couple seconds randomly? Also, why can I sometimes be just fine on IRC while I can't check my email or load www.anandtech.com (or anywhere else), and sometimes I can be on IRC and check my email, but anandtech still won't load?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Mookow]

<< Mookow -- Yes it uses the copper loop to get to the telco central office, but DSL (unlike 56k modems) never sees the phone switch. It's signal is stripped off by a DSLAM (digital subscriber line access multiplexer) and routed to the data network.

On the 56K modem, you will never see faster than 56K (approx 5-7KBps), because that is the maximum speed of each of the &quot;virtual channels&quot; through the voice switch.

PS. I am writing this with a 100MBps connection to the 'net. And the OC-768 equipment upstairs is only a patch cable away! >>



Yeah, but do you sleep within 15 feet of that 100MBps? I sleep within that distance to my net connection... and sometimes even closer... but that sucks because I walk around all day with the imprint of my keyboard on my forehead...
Out of curiousity, what the max bandwidth on an OC-768?
BTW, I am aware of the max on a 56K modem... I said I was only getting a max of 5Kbit/sec, instead of 5-7KB/sec. Also, that 5 was rare. Good days had a peak of about 2Kb/sec

 

[COWWATCHER]

dougcio that happens to me sometimes..check to see if your modem is really hot cause thats what i think it is for me... also for anyone with dsl question a better place might be Dsl reports.com
or there Forum

 

[COWWATCHER]

i have dsl and am thinking about switching to cable..bt my dad thinks its a bad idea because on the peak hours it would be really slow so does it really slow down enough to not get it... i can get like 2mb cable for the same im paying for dsl 512k...

 

[bunker]

GTaudiofile,

All of the providers in Georgia raised their rates last month. I just looked at Qwest's site and they cap their download speed at 640K which is why they are cheap. I have Bellsouth and it's capped at 1.5 Mbps. I'm paying $45 a month with them. Earthlink is at $50/month

 

[N8Magic]

For all that asked, OC-768 is 34.357248 Gbps. It's pretty much brand new.

Mucman: 1) PPPoE is a pain in the arse. If you don't mind configuring Windows to share it, its not that bad. I just run Linux on my web firewall, and it is BRUTAL to set up. Most business class DSL doesn't use PPPoE (sets up like cable), but if you can find a provider that doesn't, it would be worth your while.

2) For acceptable distance, 18,000 feet is usually the limit, but my dad has his at 24,500 feet, and he gets full speed. Depends on the equipment they use, and the quality of the copper in your area.

3)They may give you a general idea, they may not. If they say something ridiculous like OC-48, unless they are a telco, they are probably lying. Just try to find a reputable provider, and not some fly by night operation. Although, the prohibitive cost of DSL equip vs. Dial-up eliminates most shoddy operations from entering the DSL market.

COWWATCHER -- Thanks for the vote of confidence. DSLReports is a good source of information though. I'm just trying to give info from a different perspective.