[plug] ADSL speed

[Craig Ringer]

Russ Powers wrote:

>>Assuming you are on WAIX you could also download from another WAIX ISP's
>>fileserver (eg mirror.wa.3fl.net)
> 
> Yeah, that's pretty much how I do it. I usually get about 53kB/s. I just asked 
> the question because my brother in the us was accessing my server and he said 
> it wa very slow. 

That is to be expected. If you get 53kb/s you're probably on 512k ADSL, 
and since you have not mentioned anything to the contrary it's probably 
512k/128k. That means that your connection uploads at 1/5 the speed it 
downloads at - only slightly more than twice as fast as a 56k modem's 
download rate.

You should expect to be able to upload in the 10kb/s range.

If you want to be able to upload files faster (and therefore serve them 
faster) you'll need to upgrade to 512k/512k (symmetric) ADSL, or 
1.5Mbps/256Kbps .

>>>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.
>>
>>The number of machines will affect latency, it should not affect speed.

My understanding is that if the latency gets high enough, the TCP 
transmit window may not be large enough and TCP will sometimes stop to 
wait for ACKs before continuing. Am I totally mistaken?

--
Craig Ringer