Archive for August, 2010

DSL2+ Upgrade and QoS Limiting Attainable Speed

A lot of people tell me, “Hey man, you’re really smart!” But times like these do make me question their judgement …

Some time back, our DSL line was upgraded from ADSL to ADSL2+. The reported downlink ADSL rate went from about 5,500bps to 16,000bps. However, the actual downlink rate as reported by speedtest.net barely increased at all. I figured, “Damn. They’ve put a limit on the back-haul at the ATM level and I’ll just have to live with it.”

But more recently, the guy who rents the cottage at the back of our property decided to get his own DSL connection, instead of sharing ours over the WiFi link. Low and behold, he gets the same ADSL rate (more or less) AND he gets more than double the actual download rate. Clearly, he’s using the same DMAC and on the same back-haul link. So what gives?

I use a D-Link modem, patched with latest firmware and a LinkSys WRT-54G, also patched for more features. He uses just the little ‘free’ box supplied by the ISP. He let me do some swap tests. Here’s what I learned …

  1. His modem on my line gives me 11Mbps
  2. My modem, connected directly to my iMac also gives me 11Mbps
  3. My set-up through the LinkSys WRT-54G limits me to just under 6Mbps
  4. If I increase the ‘total available downstream bandwidth’ setting in the WRT-54G QoS area from 6000 to 11500, then low and behold, I get 11Mbps through the LinkSys! :P

I use QoS (Quality of Service) because I have a couple of SIP telephone circuits in the house. This ensures that if someone on the shared network is doing a big download (or upload), any phone calls in progress don’t get adversely affected. But in order for the bandwidth management to work, the LinkSys needs to know what bandwidth is actually available in order to start limiting connections when it reaches its usable limit I simply forgot all about it! Doh.

Mystery solved. Solution? Turn off QoS, run through the speedtest.net thing, then set the QoS available bandwidths to just under what I actually have available. Now, it’s working a treat.

2010
08/22
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Podcasts — a Royal Delight

Call me slow, but I only just recently discovered podcastle.org and escapepod.org — two short story podcast collections, so far as I can tell so far anyway. Frankly. I’m enjoying listening to the stories so much that I haven’t even figured out entire what the two sites are mostly all about. *shrug* They both have About pages though, so if you don’t get hooked on the stories like I have, I’m sure you can read all about it for yourself. :D

While on on the topic of podcasts, just in case you don’t already know, there are some great Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel length story blogs at the following web addresses (also available through iTunes subscriptions) …

… and if you listen to those, you’ll hear promos for many more story podcasts, story writers, musicians and much more. If you’re at all like me, that list alone will keep your ears full of interest and intrigue for many, many hours. Have fun!

2010
08/19
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