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frazell
Tl Posts:
4

United Kingdom
Posted - 8/21/2000 1:04:13 PM  Show Profile  Email Poster  Edit Message
I have tested every possible combination of modems - system, time of day, ISP and phone line. In identical configurations differing only in the modem, I get about 10-15% worse performance with my 3Com modem than anything else, and that deficit is certainly noticable on big downloads.

For one setup, with my 3Com modem I get 45333bps connect and 4.5kb/s download; others connect between 49333 and 54666 (sustained connection seems to be 49333-52000), all with downloads of >5kb/s

Has anyone else found this to be the case? I am at a loss to explain it. Everywhere I see 3Com modems beating everything else, yet mine is not even equalling anything else.

frazell
Tl Posts:
4

United Kingdom
Posted - 8/21/2000 1:48:12 PM  Show Profile  Email Poster  Edit Message
Update... just disabled V.90 on my modem (hence x2 connect), had connects at 49333 and 52000, very slight improvement in performance on the 49333 connection (the 52k was in hyperterm. Oops) - 4.6kb/s

I read elsewhere in the forum that USR reckon you would get better throughput at a higher speed if you have <4000 Blers/hour.

My last connection was V.90 at 45333 (modem doesn't seem to budge from that speed) for 2h54m, and I had 52 blers (admittedly, quite low utilisation during that time - 4.6Mb down, 500kb up).

If you multiply the 52 blers by 20 - I could have downloaded ten times the amount if it was all compressed, so 20 seems reasonable - that's about 350 blers/hour, still well under that 4000 figure.

Anyone else see something that doesn't gel? Why doesn't the modem connect higher/upshift?

v.Richard
Tl Posts:
6222

USA
Posted - 8/22/2000 7:29:33 PM  Show Profile  Email Poster  Edit Message  v.Richards Homepage
The brand/firmware in the server modems you call will have an effect: what kind of modems ar you calling? Have you tried other brands at the ISP end?
www.808news.com/56k/trouble4.htm

Aloha,
Richard

frazell
Tl Posts:
4

United Kingdom
Posted - 8/23/2000 7:23:38 AM  Show Profile  Email Poster  Edit Message
I get (nearly) the same with *every* ISP - one ISP seems to cause every connect to be 1333 lower, regardless of modem and phone line (another bizarre thing I don't understand).

With a poorer quality phone line, the difference almost disappears, my USR connects at 38666/40k, others at 42666/44k (which then renegotiate lower), but throughput is about the same (4.1kb/s). Again, this goes against everything I read that says that they tend to do better on an impaired line.

My usual ISP uses 3Com Total Control (HiPerArc), I don't know what the others I have tried use, but it seems to make no difference. Except that an ESS chipset modem can't connect better than V.34+ to my usual ISP, but has no difficulty with anyone else (yet another oddity).

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