🚀 go-pugleaf

ericy@cais.cais.com (Eric Youngdale) writes:

>        That being said, the network is horribly congested in the early
>evening.  Maybe I notice it now because I have the fast connection,
>but I set up a cron job to benchmark ftp performance in 15 minute
>intervals, transferring a file from wauug.erols.com.  The peak transfer
>rate I get is about 120Kbyte/sec in the middle of the night.  Actual rates
>at other times are usually more like 30-40Kbyte/sec during the day, and
>it can drop as low as 5Kbyte/sec during the early evening.  Even at this
>lowest rate, the effective throughput is about equivalent to ISDN, but
>this is pretty awful for interactive because the data is transferred in
>quick bursts.

At least with ISDN, you don't "compete" for the line, so you can
be assured of your 64-128bps.

>        From what I can tell, the problem is somewhere on the MCI
>backbone. I did some ftp benchmarks to the mail server at jic.com, and I
>routinely get ftp transfer rates of about 400-500Kbyte/sec.  I believe
>that this is quite close to the theoretical maximum transfer rate you
>would expect from 10Mbit transfer medium.  Perhaps their gateway is
>slow or something, who knows.

Of all the backbones, I'd doubt that the problem would be with
MCI. They have the most technologically advanced 'net so far.
Now Sprint, on the other hand, I'd believe :) :)

Although you may enjoy 10Mbps on the cable network, the rest of the
'Net is not there. Most ISPs are T1 or possibly T3. So what good is the
pipe being capable of 10Mbps on the cable-side when, as soon as you
move over into the "real" part of the 'Net, the odds are very, very
good that the place you are connecting to has, at most, a T1, and
between you and them there might be who-knows-what.

That being said, cable is a fantastic medium for data transmission.
Most cable comps try to make the most of it by caching data on their
network and providing as much "multimedia" glitz on _there_ side.
Also, simply due to the design of the cable infrastructure, data over
cable-TV lines will never be as noise-and-interference-free as the
phone system (it's very easy for noise from a neighbor down the block to
leak into _your_ cable and drastically reduce throughput). Cable has
a place in the market, as do all ISPs. It's a very big "niche" market-
place :)
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