[NCLUG] Re: DSL Throttling or General Congestion?

[Jim Hutchinson]

On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 11:52 AM, Ben West <mrgenixus at gmail.com> wrote:

> the fact is, DSL is and always will be a shared-access medium, it would be
> fraudulent for them to sell you a higher service level, considering they
> can't currently provide you with your maximum allocation...  You're
> proposing to pay for a bigger buffet at a restaurant where they can't keep
> all the food-stations full to begin with....  perhaps if you need more
> bandwidth, you should find out if they have any dedicated-access options
> available?


What do you mean by shared-access? My understanding is that cable is shared
and that if a lot of people in your area are online you will see a decrease
in performance. By contrast, DSL gives you a dedicated line to a point -
usually a junction box. The further to box the slower your connection can
be. As a result, you should not see changes in speed based on how many
people in your area are online. There may be other issues that affect speed
but my understanding was that it's not shared the same way as cable is.


-- 
Jim (Ubuntu geek extraordinaire)
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