On Fri, 28 Mar 2003 09:43:40 -0600 John <yonaton@tds.net> wrote:

On Thursday 27 March 2003 18:14 pm, Bernd Koepsell wrote:

...

I am using a U.S. Robotics 56K Performance Pro V.92 PCI modem which is fully supported. My ISP supports V.92. I am using Kinternet to connect. Yet, when downloading files from http or ftp, my datarate is averaging 3Kb/s( yes it spikes to 10Kb/s and drops to 0Kb/s, but still averages 3Kb/s). I am locked on that one file that is downloading, and until it is fully downloaded I can't use my connection for anything else (even trading a slower datarate for further access or multiple downloads).

Welcome to dial-up. I, like another on this list, am way out in the woods, with no way of getting DSL or Cable. I've learned to just 'grin and bear it' when I start a download. If it's going to be a big one (usually more than 10MB), I start it just as I go to bed for the night. Nothing much we can do about dial-up.

Yeah, dialup speeds are related to phoneline quality, you don't get top v.92 speed just because you have that type of modem. One thing to try is have a direct shielded phone line from your modem to the outlet of the building. Going thru connectors can cost bandwidth, especially if they get dirty. Also route the phone line away from "electromagnetic interference sources" like kitchen blenders or furnace blowers. The interference can cause the modems to slow down and do more error checking. Keep them away from power cables too. A couple of feet is good enough. My download speeds average about 3.3k/sec. Some apps share bandwidth better than others. That is if you start a download, it will take all 3.3K, but if you make another request, it will drop it's bandwidth to allow some for the new request. Other apps just hog it all. You might try downloading big files with something like wget, it will share bandwidth nicely, and it will resume automatically on a bad connection (if the server supports it) -- use Perl; #powerful programmable prestidigitation

On Fri, 28 Mar 2003 11:23:15 -0800 Bernd Koepsell <bernd@covenantmail.net> wrote:

zentara wrote:

...

...

On Thursday 27 March 2003 18:14 pm, Bernd Koepsell wrote:

...

I am using a U.S. Robotics 56K Performance Pro V.92 PCI modem which is fully supported. My ISP supports V.92. I am using Kinternet to connect. Yet, when downloading files from http or ftp, my datarate is averaging 3Kb/s( yes it spikes to 10Kb/s and drops to 0Kb/s, but still

...

Yeah, dialup speeds are related to phoneline quality, you don't get top v.92 speed just because you have that type of modem.

*Would you consider "trying" (without success) to download a 100k file and a 50k file at the same time, taxing my bandwidth?

No, but 1 download might lockout the other until it's finished. I've noticed that with mozilla, it will wait until the first download is finished, then start the second. Under the old netscape, I used to be able to get them going simultaneously.(although both at a slower rate). I used to open up 10 downloads at a time, and they would all crawl. Now if I use wget to download some big file, then start a small download with mozilla, wget backs off and lets mozilla work simultaneously.

I'll read up and try wget. Thank you.

Although... let me tell you what I'm used to in the non-linux world. Previous to switching my os, I had download speeds (same modem, same isp, same phone line, etc., using Netscape 4.7, 6 or 7, or the dreaded IE 5.0 or 5.5) averaging 4.6Kb/s. Obviously, I "shared" that average speed with multiple downloads or further access with WWW or mail.

Well 1 thing to keep in mind is that windows might have been lying to you. :-) There are 2 speeds, the connection speed and the rate of data transfer. (I may not be explaining it properly) If you go to download an .exe file in windows which isn't compressed, you can get an elevated bandwidth report, because it's reporting how much of the file is being transmitted per second, not the bit rate. I've noticed that alot in linux, in comparing downloads of compressed files, and plain text files. My download rate for compressed files is around 3.3K, but when I get an uncompressed text file, the reported rate can jump to 4.5k . But compressed files top out at 3.3k/sec, and are often lower depending on the weather, time of day, isp-server-load, etc. Best times are in the morning.

Now that I'm using linux, and the Netscape 6 clone, my average speed has dropped all the way down to 3.0Kb/s, plus I am "locked" on that one download without further access or the potential of multiple downloads.

Yeah I get the same thing with mozilla, see above. I think it is mozilla's way of helping decrease server loads. It's probably easier for a server to send out files 1 at a time at top speed, rather than 2 files at half speed. Maybe the server notices it from it's end, seeing 2 files to the same destination address makes it pause on 1, until the first is completed. ???

I don't think the difference is Mozilla, because the same thing happens when using Yast2 for online updates from an ftp server. I am able to use other apps (that don't use my meager bandwidth) while downloading, so it isn't my cpu either.

Well the server may be detecting the same destination address?? Have you tried doing 2 downloads simultaneously, but from different servers?

Could it be my modem configuration (I used Yast), or my dialer (KInternet), or..., or..., or...?

Well you could try to use the setserial commands to change your com port to 115 Kbps. It should be setup properly for you nowadays, but in the old days the default com port speed was 9600, or some low value. You could put the setserial command in boot.local. Does you /etc/ppp/isp.options file have a line 115200 in it? As a test, I would use wget to download some big compressed file. If you get greater than 3K/sec you are doing alright as far as my dialup experience goes. The simultaneous download lockout is probably more of a software problem, than a modem or com port problem. The only way to tell if windows is downloading faster, is to time identical downloads of big compressed files, from linux and windows. Use a stopwatch. P.S. I love mozilla, but I wouldn't use Netscape anymore. They seem to automatically open up connections to their "help center" and "mail advertsing center". Maybe that is stealing some bandwidth, although windows does alot of that too. -- use Perl; #powerful programmable prestidigitation

The 03.03.30 at 17:05, Bill Wisse wrote:

Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 17:05:03 -1100 From: Bill Wisse <wiswp@niue.nu> Reply-To: suse-linux-e@suse.com To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: Re: [SLE] Slow dial-up

[...]

I'm in the middle of the south pacific ocean and the telephone lines here are from the ""dark ages"". Dial-up of course and the speed is 2.0 or less ( if you lucky, sometimes it just blacks out for no app reason) However , when I have the need to dl a program , I'm NOT using the browser's downloader, like Opera or Mozilla. I found that >>Prozgui>> is a lot faster , not only in speed ( av 2.6) but also in total dl time.

ym2c.

Greetings from /bill at 169 west , 19 south. (where the hell is that?).

I. Savage, perhaps? My map is not good enough, I'm afraid. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson