Ics Concerns

[openletter]

I have a PII 500 MHz w/ 256MB RAM running only XP Pro, Norton and DirecWay satellite utility.

The satellite plugs into a PCI USB 2.0 port.

I used the Network Wizard to set the computer up to share its internet connection.

The computers are all connected to a 10/100 Mbps switch and all have 10/100 Mbps NIC's.

At 2Wire, the server gets about 800-1200 Kbps. The clients consistently each get 250-500 Kbps, 130-200 Kbps, and 85-95 Kbps.

I am wondering if ICS does something to prevent full sharing of the internet connection? :unsure:

Thanks!

-Paul

[Agent Smith]

Hello openletter, and welcome to the Forum. First if I may, I would like to ask some questions. What is the actual download connection speed for your satellite? I have had a quick search for DirecWay, and the first three links I have looked at all offer connection speeds of between 512Kb and 1Mb.

The thing to bear in mind here, is the difference when quoting your transfer speeds. Network (and for that matter modems, broadband and satellites) connections are quoted in bits. The actual transfer rates are more usually quoted in bytes. the main difference is that bits are 8 times greater than bytes, hence a 56kb dial-up modem has a theoretical maximum download of 7KB, although in practise it is very unusual to get even 6KB. It is possible to see "higher" figures, because of the way some operating systems start to download and cache files before you tell them where to save the files. For example, on a website you right click on a .mov file and select "save as", this file then starts to be downloaded, so as you go through the process of browsing the boxes to your chosen save directory, and clicking on the save option, a chunk of the file has already made it to your machine. When you then click the save option, the little box goes "cor, look! I've just got 100k in the last 1/2 a second", and works out an unrealistic transfer rate of 75Kb on a modem!! :blink: Of course, as the file continues to download, the transfer rate decreases to a more realistic figure quite rapidly.

Bearing this in mind, even at the quoted maximum I found of 1Mb for the satellite download, the maximum speed you should be able to obtain is in the region of 128KB, the speeds you are quoting would be in the region of an 8Mb connection, very nice if you have it!!

Now as far as I am aware, ICS does not in any way "throttle" connections to other machines, but transfer rates can be affected by an enormous amount of factors. It may be helpful if you could let me know which operating systems are on each of the machines. This is because they will handle the traffic differently. I assume that the figures you are quoting for the different machines are for when you have no other traffic occurring. Ideally you should turn off the other machines to get a true figure for each one. Another problem to bear in mind, is that the actual transfer rates from the internet will vary depending on traffic and the connection speed for the site you are connected to. It is no good trying to download the same file to each machine from the same site, because it is highly likely that at some point in it's first download, it will get cached somewhere and thus download at a different rate (probably faster, but not always) the next time.

Another thing to check, does moving the connections on the switch (ie move the current slowest machine to the port that is being used by the fastest machine) have any effect? Have you carefully checked all you cables and connections, preferably using something like a fluke meter? Do any of the cables pass any source of electrical interference (It may be that you have a power conduit behind a wall)? Have you ensured that all other services and protocols, which are not need on your machines have been disabled?

The above list could go on for several pages, but those are the most obvious things to check. Personally, I would not be too worried about a transfer rate of 85-95 Kb if you are running a 1Mb connection.

Please post back with some more information, and if all of the above check out and you are connected at 8Mb, we can investigate further. Thanks.

Regards. Mr. Mouse.

[openletter]

Go to:

http://www.2wire.com

and click "Test your broadband speed."

This is the only method I have used to determine connection speed.

The tests were performed within seconds of each other. I tried overlapping tests and running tests independently. I've swapped cables, computers and cards. Even tests with only one computer on the network are consistently the same.

My understanding of network nomenclature is Kb = Kilobit and KB = Kilobyte.

The only thing I think I have learned about ICS is not many people seem to use it. So I'm going to try a proxy program and see if the results are any different.

Thanks!