been thinking about upgrading my pos 56k dial up boat anchor, to a pos adsl boat anchor.

got my hands on all of the glossy brochures, either iinet or telstra.
all of them tell you that the data rate is 256 kay, or 512 kay blah blah blah.

what i want to know is what is the real download rates of adsl?

my modem is supposed to download at 56,000 bits per sec. yeah right. im lucky to get 4,000 bytes which is only 32,000 bits.

so, by my precise fudge-o-meter, that means a 256 kay adsl really gives 146,000 bits per second.
so, is this about right, or am i dreaming?

no, your dreaming, im on 512kb dsl and i download and around 52kb/sec. 256kb gets about half that! ONce you get on DSL u will NEver wanna go back to Dial-up!

im on telstra cable, and cable just craps all over my boyfriends adsl connection, i dunno how fast it is- but its crap...

btw, look into dodo or tpg coz telstra adsl is craphouse!

Audible check out www.westnet.com.au for ADSL in perth aswell. Also http://www.arachnet.com.au they both a couple of the top ones in perth.

I am on Westnet and no problems. 6 gig peak unlimited off peak. 512k 79 bucks

well worth it. I could never go back to 56k

/me pats his Optus Cable modem

further u are from the exchange, lower "real-world" data rate, 56k suffers from error, and serial bandwidth etc issues, id imagine 512kbit ADSL to be about 55k bytes per sec, not far off the "rated" vaue of 62k bytes per sec

Thebidmeister, u do realise that 512kbit/s = 62kbyte/s, so 52kbyte/s isnt that much under when u think about it.

but yeh, cable still owns adsl in my opinion

im also looking into broadband

what i want to know is when you sign up you have to get a modem of them, well how do i run 2 computers off the same adsl connection?

do i need a second modem or can i somehow hook it up over a lan?

mike

If you get a router you can run it off a LAN. Alternatively you can get routers with multiple ports built-in.

Check out Billion modems, cheaper than the ones that ADSL providers bundle in and pretty damn good. Most provider will allow you to use a modem you get yourself.

Oh, and cable would own adsl if you could actually d/l a decent amount...what good is the speed if you cant use it

Or u can get 2 network cards and share the connection between 2 computers via LAN.

I recently got ADSL through TPG (tpg.com.au). They let me bring my own modem (Netgear DG814, I bought for $296 new) which is also a 4 port router/switch so I can connect up to 4 computers to it directly and share internet through that.

The main advantage I see over cable is that adsl providers are allowing unlimited downloads, which makes all the difference.

Cable(in oz) has the problem of data limits, ADSL is way slower but lots of companies are selling unlimited downloads, so "It wont happen over nite but it will happen" speed hahaha.

Cable can get upto 6mbit/s compared to ADSL set limits of 256/512/1.5mb. Its interesting that other speeds are not offered in oz, like 640 or 720 which is very common in Europe.

Really depends how much u think your going to d/l, less than 3gb get cable, more get adsl. But it also depends on how far from your exchange you live, if its more than 2-3km then you might have troubles getting ADSL.

Wireless is another way(very fast too) but currently quite expensive, hopefully the price will come down soon.

i bought a router for home recently and would never look back - all 5 computers sharing the internet connection - and no need for the 'host' computer (or one with 2 network cars as listed above) to be on.

you can get the Netgear Firewall / Router / Print Server (the non wireless ones) for under $300 I think these days - very good investment if you have broadband and more than 1 computer.