|
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
|
Re: [PLUG] DSL: Questions to ask?
|
I've had cable at home now for (maybe) 3 years. We were probably the
first in the neighborhood to get it. As more of our neighbors got
connected, thing were supposed to slow down. I suppose they have, in
theory, but on our P166 machine download time is never the issue. Page
rendering is generally the bottleneck with complex nested table
formatting taking a while to render. Most times, the pages download
almost instantly, but the cpu struggles with the rendering.
I've had no experience with DSL, and my experience is limited to hearing
complaints about Verizon.
I thought that there were Linux specific issues that made you choose DSL.
Art
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
On 8/8/01, 10:28:51 AM, gabriel rosenkoetter <gr@eclipsed.net> wrote
regarding Re: [PLUG] DSL: Questions to ask?:
> On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 07:00:57AM -0400, Arthur S. Alexion wrote:
> > I've been considering a cable connection in my small office. The cable
> > modem would be connected to a Linux machine, with 2 windows & 1 other
> > Linux machine accessing through that server. Are you saying that cable
> > is not a good way to go with Linux? What are the problems?
> Don't think I said that exactly.
> I feel that cable modems are not a good way to go under any
> circumstances. They are shared bandwidth right from the point of
> access. All internet connections will eventually be forced through
> a pipe somewhere that is, under peak usage situations, probably
> smaller than the sum of all the theoretical speeds of the
> connections running through it. But with cable, this happens right
> at your wall. With other solutions (DSL, ISDN, leased line/frame
> relay, fixed wireless) it happens upstream where there's an
> "intelligent" router [1] conneting your copper (or whatever) line
> into the fiber backbone. It takes a lot to slow this down. With
> cable, on the other hand, you need to keep in mind that the claims
> of 2 MBps transfer speeds apply only if no one else on your segment
> is connected to the network at that time. In any urban environment,
> the chances of having a whole cable link to yourself (we're not
> talking "several houses" or "block" here; we're talking as many
> connections as would go through the same CO under DSL, which has a
> radius of about 18,000 feet) is pretty unlikely. What's more, your
> connection is slowed (and latent) to the immediately upstream hop,
> rather than considerably later in the path.
> With my fairly low-end DSL connection, I almost never see latency.
> When I do, it's often because of the size of the touch point between
> my ISP's upstream provider and the upstream provider of the site
> to which I'm trying to connect. Perhaps the SpeakeasyNYC<->Alter.net<->
> Yipes!<->Swarthmore (the connection I most frequently make) path
> is just wider than your average path and I'm getting lucky, and I
> haven't investigated who owns what caliber OC lines between me and
> various important places, but the fact that my connection speed is
> actually dependent on this backbone infrastructure further up rather
> than on how many of my neighbors are downloading pr0n is kind of
> nice.
> Maybe you'll go with cable and maybe you'll be perfectly happy with
> it. Having played with other people's connections of both cable
> and DSL, it was clear to me which I wanted to have for myself. You
> might want to try doing the same.
> [1] In quotes because they aren't very. Yet. Go read Wired 9.05
> for some interesting stuff on where switching is going. The short
> version is that routing could be far more intelligent than it is.
> Also on the horizon (maybe even mentioned in that same issue of
> Wired, actually) is true optical switches. Not the kind that Cisco
> wants to sell you, which are optical in that they have fiber
> connections inside but NOT in that they never transfer light
> signals to electrical signals, which is the only real way to see
> the tremendous speed boost over existing switches that optical
> switching will provide.
> --
> ~ g r @ eclipsed.net
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Philadelphia Linux Users Group - http://www.phillylinux.org
> Announcements-http://lists.phillylinux.org/mail/listinfo/plug-announce
> General Discussion - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mail/listinfo/plug
______________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group - http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements-http://lists.phillylinux.org/mail/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mail/listinfo/plug
|
|