What throughput can I get with my ADSL service?
Answer
The throughput rate, at which you are able to download from the Internet, via your ADSL line is affected by a number of factors, including:
* The speed of the Telkom line you pay for (384, 512 or 4096 kbps),
* The speed of the ADSL line between your home or office and the local telephone exchange. This could be an absolute maximum of 4096 kbps downstream and 512 kbps upstream, although it is not guaranteed by Telkom;
* Any crosstalk or interference on the copper cable between your home or office and the local telephone exchange may impact on the speed of your ADSL connection;
* The amount of bandwidth available, and any congestion between your local telephone exchange and Telkom's central BRAS (Broadband Remote Access Server). The BRAS is a device that aggregates traffic from different exchanges, and performs functions such as user authentication;
* Available bandwidth on the IP links to Telkom's BRAS infrastructure; and
* Any congestion elsewhere on the path across the Internet to the server from which you are downloading data.
NB - File sharing applications on the capped Adsl service have been severely restricted, as well as gaming, pop3, VPN and SSL. International traffic is shaped to ensure that bandwidth hungry applications such as peer-to-peer connections including Kazaa, Fasttrack, Napster & Pop3 etc. do not adversely affect other applications.
On the Uncapped ADSL services, no traffic shaping is implemented.
Bandwidth is normally measured in Kilobits per second (e.g. Dial-up = 56Kb/s, ISDN = 128Kb/s and DSL = 512Kb/s). Windows will normally report speed in KiloBytes per second (KB/s).
You have eight Kilobits in one KiloByte (8Kb/s = 1KB/s) therefore if you download a file, Windows will report a download speed of say 23 KiloBytes per second and this will translate to 184 Kilobits per second in bandwidth throughput obtained on your DSL access line.
* The speed of the Telkom line you pay for (384, 512 or 4096 kbps),
* The speed of the ADSL line between your home or office and the local telephone exchange. This could be an absolute maximum of 4096 kbps downstream and 512 kbps upstream, although it is not guaranteed by Telkom;
* Any crosstalk or interference on the copper cable between your home or office and the local telephone exchange may impact on the speed of your ADSL connection;
* The amount of bandwidth available, and any congestion between your local telephone exchange and Telkom's central BRAS (Broadband Remote Access Server). The BRAS is a device that aggregates traffic from different exchanges, and performs functions such as user authentication;
* Available bandwidth on the IP links to Telkom's BRAS infrastructure; and
* Any congestion elsewhere on the path across the Internet to the server from which you are downloading data.
NB - File sharing applications on the capped Adsl service have been severely restricted, as well as gaming, pop3, VPN and SSL. International traffic is shaped to ensure that bandwidth hungry applications such as peer-to-peer connections including Kazaa, Fasttrack, Napster & Pop3 etc. do not adversely affect other applications.
On the Uncapped ADSL services, no traffic shaping is implemented.
Bandwidth is normally measured in Kilobits per second (e.g. Dial-up = 56Kb/s, ISDN = 128Kb/s and DSL = 512Kb/s). Windows will normally report speed in KiloBytes per second (KB/s).
You have eight Kilobits in one KiloByte (8Kb/s = 1KB/s) therefore if you download a file, Windows will report a download speed of say 23 KiloBytes per second and this will translate to 184 Kilobits per second in bandwidth throughput obtained on your DSL access line.
