FYI,

When they advertise saying "download speeds of 1.5 M," they mean 1.5
megabits/second. Which, when you do the math, is equivalent to 192
kilobytes/sec or 1,572,864 bits/second.

You say you're getting speeds only up to 393,048 bits/second (49
kilobytes/sec), which isn't all that bad.  The speed at which you transfer
degrades as you get farther away from the office the DSLAM is at.  For
example, both my friend and I have SWBell DSL, and I average at 50-100K/sec,
sometimes reaching 150K+/sec.  However, he hardly ever get above 50K/sec.
This is due to a variety of factors, including quality of wiring in his
house, distance from DSLAM, etc.  And not all of those issues are resolvable
by the phone company.

By the way, I'm new to this list.  Just wanted to send a "what up" to all
the fellow Linux users out there.  Right now I've got a Debian box I'm
eventually going to setup as a gateway/server, along with a Win2K box that
will be sitting behind it.  So, you can probably expect an iptables question
or two coming from me in the near future.

Charles K. Lee II
[email]> chuckx@cold-sun.com
[web]> http://www.chuckx.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "The Hoelschers" <mohoel@bigfoot.com>
To: <kclug@kclug.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 7:41 AM
Subject: DSL questions - Heads up Sprint guys....

> Well, I finally took the plunge and bought DSL.  Went with Telocity
> since they don't require a year-long contract.  So far, I'm mildly
> dissapointed.  The service has been solid, no complaints there, but
> while I have "up to 1.5 M" service, I have never budged from 393, 048
> BITS per second.  Something less than "screaming", wouldn't you say?
>
> I find myself wondering if Southwester Bell has any means of
> manipulating the service in order to drive business to themselves
> directly as opposed to using the VAR's (yeah, call me a conspiracy
> theorist!)
>
> My main question is about Sprint ION.  According to their web page, it
> only works with Windows and Mac.  Does anyone know if this is a "real"
> restriction (i.e.: it won't work without the PC side software) or is it
> just that Sprint has not seen the market for Unix/Linux based installs,
> so they have not explored it yet?  (This was another reason I went
> with Telocity - they weren't afraid of big, bad, Linux users!)
>
> Also, since ION is advertising as "up to 8 M", is there any market data
> available that would indicate Xbps on DSL = Ybps on ION?
>
> Thanks  -
> Chris H.
>
>
>
>