Much faster downloads

[Frans]

Well here is a strange question

Did you guys at AW do something to dramatically increase my download speed from here in Europe? It doesn't look like a mirror as far as I can see but my downloadspeed went from 400KB/sec to well pretty much full-speed (1200 KB/sec) a week ago or so??

Not that I'm complaining obviously, just wondering

Traceroutes are about the same as when the London test was done (usefull historic thread;-).

And no, I don't use a ISP proxy or such

Thanks anywayz!!!

[peepingpom]

Wow, I've never had a download speed quicker than about 120 KB/sec and I have a 2MB connection (the fastest my BT line is capable of regardless of the ISP I use). Having been 'warned' by my ISP for downloading at peak times, I restrict this to off-peak, but the top-speed is still 120KB/sec or thereabouts. (I'm only downloading today as it's a public holiday, so I'm off work, it's cold and wet outside and I've got nothing better to do than spend the day on then net - sad, eh?)

[Frans]

Nah, besides if/when AW gets a London based mirror your speed should improve (up to 200KB/sec). Besides why would you go outside if it's cold and wet there??

[yusanord]

Frans, how fast your connection is ?

The speed of my connection is 8M/1M and last week when I was downloading from AW the speed was for a short while that same 1200 Kb/sec. I thought my connection was not suppose to be that fast ?

yusa

[Frans]

Frans, how fast your connection is ?

The speed of my connection is 8M/1M and last week when I was downloading from AW the speed was for a short while that same 1200 Kb/sec. I thought my connection was not suppose to be that fast ?

yusa

1200 Kb/sec is the maximum speed for ADSL1, it used to be 800 Kb/sec but (at least in the Netherlands) switchpoints have been upgraded in preparation of ADSL2. As a neat side-effect the highest possible ADSL1 speed is now 1200 Kb/sec (you might need an ADSL2 capable modem for that though) or higher (it's basically ADSL1 uncapped, minimum of 780 Kb/sec but can go as high as 1400).

[Abby]

nothing changed on our end...

[Frans]

Hmm.. ok, must be the new sea-line thing then. It lands up in north Germany I think. Could possibly make things better for Finland too

Well it's surely nice to have, so keep it this way

[canbboy]

downloads in aus

i waas going to ask if there was anything i can do to increase my download speed of 52kb per sec im using firefox, my provider told me that was the max i can download for your site

[Luxman]

i waas going to ask if there was anything i can do to increase my download speed of 52kb per sec im using firefox, my provider told me that was the max i can download for your site

It would be nice if you could tell us what kind of connection you use and if you have higher speeds on other sites.

52 KB (i hope it is kilobyte you're speaking about) would correspond to a standard 512 Kbit/s DSL connection.

It would also be interesting to know what's special with our site, we don't have a special limit, at least not at that rate.

Lxm

[canbboy]

It would be nice if you could tell us what kind of connection you use and if you have higher speeds on other sites.

52 KB (i hope it is kilobyte you're speaking about) would correspond to a standard 512 Kbit/s DSL connection.

It would also be interesting to know what's special with our site, we don't have a special limit, at least not at that rate.

Lxm

let me answer first by saying that i am asking this question with no knowladge of what im talking about. i spoke to my internet provider today to try and upgrade my plan in order to get faster download speeds. they told me it was no point as download speeds are governed by the web site providing the download. on fire fox i show a down load speed of 52kb per sec can i change anything on my browser or am i stuck with the speed i have now. im sorry if this doesnt make sence as i mentioned im a compleate novice on the subject

[Luxman]

...i spoke to my internet provider today to try and upgrade my plan in order to get faster download speeds. they told me it was no point as download speeds are governed by the web site providing the download.

That's simply not correct!

The first limit of your speed is your connection to the Internet, provided by your ISP (Internet Service Provider).
Usually DSL connections are at 512 - 16000 kbit/second, that's about 51 - 1600 Kbyte/second. It seems yours is at the lower end.

The AW servers are connected with a HUGE bandwidth. I get download speeds of 300 - 400 Kbyte/second and I'm far from being the fastest here.

Maybe your ISP has a slow backbone infrastructure.
Our servers a in the US, so a good access to the international backbone is needed.

The speed limit is clearly NOT at our side.

Lxm

[Frans]

they told me it was no point as download speeds are governed by the web site providing the download. on fire fox i show a down load speed of 52kb per sec can i change anything on my browser or am i stuck with the speed i have now. im sorry if this doesnt make sence as i mentioned im a compleate novice on the subject

Your provider seems very honest, what they probably meant was the the speed problem is not in the part between YOU and your provider. Look at it as a highway with ramps (ways to get onto the highway); your ISP provides you with a ramp to get onto the internet highway (call this #1), you then 'drive' over the highway (#2) via lots of curves and such to the exit ramp (#3).

#1 is the speed your interpackage has, do you know what your maximum downloadspeed is of the package you have?? (also known as 'downstream speed, download speed' and such).

#2 is the internet itself and it has lots of different sections with different maximum speeds

#3 is the AW ramp, this we know and it is VERY fast (It has to serve thousands of customers at the same time)

As you can guess, #2 is the most troublesome since it's variable. Your overall downloadspeed will always be at most the LOWEST speed any of those 3 parts can provide. Usually the problem is in #2 but if you have a very low speed internet package your max. speed could be 512 kbit/sec which equals about 50 Kb/sec.

So we need to know the max speed of your internetpackage first (possibly that package cannot be upgraded do to your distance from the nearest phone/dsl central).

[ham]

Just checked Flink. 1160.69 kbts/145.08kbts. I use sbcyahoo dsl in SO CAL, USA. It varies depending on time of day.

[canbboy]

So we need to know the max speed of your internetpackage first (possibly that package cannot be upgraded do to your distance from the nearest phone/dsl central).

thanks fran i currently have a 512 download package, so the way i read it i can increase my download speed, by increaseing to the next package of 1500kb ?

[Luxman]

If you have 512 kbit/second download speed, your theoretical maximum speed is 64 Kbyte/second.
So the 50 Kbyte/second is not bad at all.

You should upgrade your package to a higher speed and you will get a better download performance.

Lxm

[Frans]

thanks fran i currently have a 512 download package, so the way i read it i can increase my download speed, by increaseing to the next package of 1500kb ?

There is no way to know for SURE but it is very likely (a lot depends on the #2 part between your ISP and AW). Even worst connections (Midland UK;-) get around 120 Kb/sec so an upgrade to a 1500kbit (netto speed around 130 KB/sec I think) package sounds usefull for you.

The ISP-helpdesk must have misunderstood your question though, at your current package 50 KB/sec download is near max for your connection. So they should want to sell you a higher package, I wonder why they didn't ??