ADSL BB-Are you wireless or ethernet?

darich

ok.....thanks for that info.

i guess then the fact that my laptop cannot pick up any other networks when i'm at home means that i only compete at adsl level? in other words, before the router?

fwor

I think it depends what you are using to check for other wireless devices. I ~think~ that if the other networks aren't transmitting an SSID then the wireless tool that's shipped with Windows won't display it.

IIRC, something like Netstumbler will, though.

weegie.geek

fwor wrote: »

Every residential user contends with other users at the ADSL level, with contention handled in the equipment at the exchange.

True to a degree. There's contention on both ADSL and Cable, and of course ADSL customers won't be sharing backhaul with Cable customers, but when you bring ADSL LLU into it...

If there are, for example, two LLU ISPs and of course BTW at an exchange, as long as you and your neighbour are on different services, you won't be contending with them specifically.

I also wouldn't say that it's academic. 54mbit wireless will never give full throughput. If you and a neighbour are both syncing at 24mbit, and both on the same channel...

Different hardware will vary, but doing a quick check there, I get 30mbit over a wireless link that syncs at 54mbit. One neighbouring network, on a non-overlapping channel, nothing else currently using my network.

fwor

weegie.geek wrote: »

If there are, for example, two LLU ISPs and of course BTW at an exchange, as long as you and your neighbour are on different services, you won't be contending with them specifically.

That's why I referred to "other users" and not your neighbours. I was simply referring to the fact that, for each of those ISPs, multiple users will be contending for a slice of the "pipe" onto the Internet itself.

weegie.geek wrote: »

I also wouldn't say that it's academic. 54mbit wireless will never give full throughput. If you and a neighbour are both syncing at 24mbit, and both on the same channel...

I did say "for internet use it's a bit academic", because most people probably don't get more than 2Mb/s downstream from their ADSL link. The wireless LAN would have to be contending with a lot of other users before it became the bottleneck rather than the ADSL line.

weegie.geek

fwor wrote: »

I did say "for internet use it's a bit academic", because most people probably don't get more than 2Mb/s downstream from their ADSL link. The wireless LAN would have to be contending with a lot of other users before it became the bottleneck rather than the ADSL line.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/news/EkFEukkElAAExZWBKB.html

The average is/was 3.6mbit. Considering there are plenty of people still on legacy 0.5mbit products, and plenty of people who would sync at the full 24mbit providing there's an ISP at their exchange that can provide it.

I live miles from the exchange, so get 2.5mbit or so. My girlfriend syncs at the full 24mbit. I can see a good half dozen wireless networks from her living room.

Then there's cable, I'd imagine that most people with cable see at least 50% of the possible throughput.

It depends where you live of course, but if you live somewhere relatively urban, you're likely to be sharing radio bandwidth with other wireless networks, and to be able to download as fast or faster than your share of that spectrum would allow.