ssshhh.....don't tell eircom

seamus

Tonight, my dad finally decided he was gonna use email in his business(only now), so I was recruited to get him online. I swiftly ripped out a modem from one of his comps and stuck it in his machine(the fastest).

It was sooo old, that it wasn't plug and play. and guess what, when I go to dial up - it's using pulse dialling!! So, I stop it, look for a way to tone dial, but that's not supported with this particular modem. On my way through the settings, I tell the comp that this modems max speed is 115200 bps, as I do with all my 56K modems. OK, so I dial up, and it's all working hunky-dory- to my surprise. Amoi, I check to see how fast it connected at, and I almost had heart failure - 115,200 bps!!!!!! I am not bullshítting. My own personal one always connects at 49,333 bps.

Anyone got any ideas on what is going on? And it's defo not software giving me wrong info, cos it was ripping along(for a modem). Maybe I'm very close to my local exchange(i.e. < 100m), but then how come my own comp only connects at 49Kbps??

OSiriS

Rest assured that the modem is not connecting at 115,200 bps, sometimes with older machines the computer just thinks it has connected that fast, but I think it just means it is communicating with the modem at 115,200 bps.

seamus

Damn. Knew it was too good to be true. Ah well...back to dreaming of cheap adsl............

BKtje

the line actually cant handle that much information so no matter how good your equipment was it wont go over the max ur line can handle.

SantaHoe

Most likely reporting the speed of communication between the modem and PC... as opposed to the speed between your modem and the remote ISP modem bank.
Find your connection string ('Additional Settings' / 'Extra Settings' / where ever) and slap a big fat W2 in there... then try connecting again.

satchmo

Ahhh, the wonder of obscure modem initialization strings...

SantaHoe

Yeah
You'd think they'd put a property page in there with check-boxes, drop-down menus and the like. :rolleyes:
So many things are so very wrong in software these days.

beaver

Originally posted by B-K-DzR
the line actually cant handle that much information so no matter how good your equipment was it wont go over the max ur line can handle.

Um, seeing as DSL will supposedly run over that copper, yes, the line can handle more information.

It's the essentially the modem that can't.

-Ross

logic1

As Santa quite rightly pointed out it's reporting the speed that your terminating equipment (DTE) can work at e.g. your pc rather than the speed at which your modem is actually communication (DCE speed).

This often happens when the modem string being used is set to report the DTE speed effectively the speed that the pc is communicating with your modem through the uart rather than the speed your modem is communicating with the outside world via your telephone line.

Anyone working in a call centre would have taken this call millions of times when members are convinced they are connected at 115,200 because "it goes so much faster".



.logic.

JustHalf

Originally posted by beaver
Um, seeing as DSL will supposedly run over that copper, yes, the line can handle more information.

It's the essentially the modem that can't.

The maximum rate of data transfer a standard telephone line at standard spec can handle is theoretically around 56k. To work with DSL, some modifications need to be made to the line.

Not my field of expertise though

po0k

Ok, I neither claim to be an expert on xDSL, or any telcoms stuff at all, but from my perusals of DSL post, sites and broadband-themed fetishes I can say that it is not the line that is changed.
xDSL was designed to use the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System).
The xDSl signal is just oin a much higher frequency range on the two wires. In the exchange the signals are sent down and a terminal in your house splits the xDSL signal from the ordinary phone signals.
The line is exactly the same one that's been in your house all along. Hence it's supposed to be cheaper to install then a full-blown leased line.
Also, according to telco engineers broadband only really starts at 1.5MBits.
Shame on eircom for marketing ISDN as broadband. For shame.

beaver

Originally posted by JustHalf
The maximum rate of data transfer a standard telephone line at standard spec can handle is theoretically around 56k. To work with DSL, some modifications need to be made to the line.

Not my field of expertise though

Indeed. Can you see Eircom making "some modifications" to all the copper in Ireland?

JustHalf

I'm pretty sure "ramping up the voltage" counts as a modification to the line, which is what they do, I think. That kind of thing.