[plug] ADSL speed

[Michael Collard]

On Tue, 2004-10-26 at 15:31 +0800, Russ Powers wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Is there any software to test the actual speed of downloads and uploads on my 
> adsl link? Or perhaps a website that can do it?
> 
> I assume the theoretical speed of the adsl connection is affected by the 
> application being used and the number of machines between my desktop and the 
> end destination. For instance my firewall/gateway. But I suppose even a 90MHz 
> pc with 100Mb ethernet is a lot faster than 512kb adsl. Anybody done any 
> testing?

The best way to test the speed of your connection is to download
something local as Matt said. I disagree with Matt on the maximum speed,
on a 512K connection it will be about 53Kb/sec maximum, anything more is
just compression of the data.

Its also worth noting that ADSL doesn't really have speed problems like
dialup modems, otherwise the modem will have difficulty maintaining sync
and will drop pretty often. I have seem some very rare cases where
modems will sync at a lower bit rate but this is almost always caused by
line problems.

Also, watch your upload, it will greatly effect your download speeds. 

Regards
Michael Collard

-- 
Michael Collard <quadfour at iinet.net.au>