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1. DSL 101
Because it is the most user friendly place on the Web. It provides the most informative Tools. It provides the most Knowledgeable Individuals. All in All. Its so easy to find the answers you are looking for. - submitted by 2kmaro Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by KeysCapt DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) is an always-on internet connection that normally terminates in a socket on your wall, one that looks much like a phone socket. In the US, the socket is exactly a phone socket, and, for the popular residential DSL, (ADSL), the same housewiring does indeed carry both phone and data. DSL is billed on a monthly basis, usually for a fixed price, and for the majority of providers it includes unlimited usage. In other words, whether you use it for email once a day, or you are a net addict and use it constantly, your bill is always the same. Once you have a DSL line, you can use all the resources of the internet in the same way as you did from a regular modem and a dial-up account. The difference is now you can use them 24 hours a day with no connection delay, and usually (although not always) without a 'username' and 'password'. You need not worry about busy signals or any connection/disconnection process. The key advantage of DSL over a dial-up modem is speed. DSL is from several to dozens of times faster than a modem connection. A complex web page that could take up to a minute to finish loading at 56K can appear in just seconds over DSL. Connection speed, reliability, and the 'always-on' nature of DSL are the main reasons it is so popular. For small businesses, DSL is also a great way to save money compared to pay per minute ISDN service, or expensive T1 lines. by KeysCapt This is a question that is asked everywhere you look. Which do I want ... DSL or Cable? DSL service shares bandwidth amongst ALL users connected to the same DSLAM. Cable shares bandwidth amongst ALL users connected to the same CMTS. DSL's advantage? The dedicated circuit prevents other users from affecting your connection to any significant degree. (In most cases.) Cable's advantage? Generally cable can support higher bandwidth rates, and can usually provide service to a larger area than 18,000 wire-feet, DSL's limit. Cable modems are typically faster for downloads than most if not all DSL lines, when the cable infrastructure is new or well maintained. One of the most common complaints seen in our cable forums is that of increased latency and other problems as more subscribers in a given area come on line. Additionally, cable has a few other disadvantages when compared to DSL. The first disadvantage is that cable is an RF network -- this means that it is vulnerable to transient problems "within the network" from RF interference. Since cable is a shared media, there is a possibility that performance may degrade over time as additional households plug in, connect additional devices (videos, game machines etc.) to the TV lines. A cable company may react slowly to decreases in performance if it reacts at all, as they never sell access by speed, or promise consistent speed or latency. Another of the disadvantages of cable over DSL is the upstream (return path). Cable companies are using a very narrow band for return signalling, and this is positioned below all the space allocated for TV channels. This band is prone to RF interference and is very limited in capacity. Upstream transmissions may therefore compete with others in the area, get delayed (suffer high latency) due to noise fighting techniques, and cable TOS (Terms Of Service) typically prohibit any kind of constant upstream use. Internet use is shifting away from central servers broadcasting to many individuals and some interesting peer to peer applications are appearing (games, voice and video applications, communal libraries). These applications need a strong upstream channel. As the years have passed, the bottom line has basically evolved to personal preference or availability. Both DSL and Cable have their idiosyncrasies and consumer complaints. The best advice really is to check the various forums on this site which are relevant to the options available to you, and make an informed choice based upon what you learn. Ask questions in the forum ... there are some very knowledgeable members willing to help. Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by KeysCapt There are a lot of variables to consider with answering this question. Maximum speed depends on the DSL technology and distance. ADSL2+ might achieve 20 megabits down - if you are close to the Central Office. VDSL2+ with pair bonding has a sync rate of 120 megabit if you are within 2000 feet of the VRAD, and that might equate to a promised minimum speed of 45 megabit down and a 6 megabit up. AT&T U-Verse has offered this product already in some areas. A more reasonable expectation for many in urban areas is 12 megabits down and 1 megabit up. Some DSL modems allow you to decrease the ISP recommended safety margin on signal to noise, and achieve higher speeds at the expense of possible drop-outs. The speed increase available by playing with this feature is rarely more than 20%. Fiber connections or cable (coax) connections are now better than copper twisted pair DSL technology by one or two orders of magnitude! Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by 2kmaro See »DSL FAQ »My neighbor has DSL, why don't I? and »DSL FAQ »Why is distance important with DSL? for explanations. Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by KeysCapt The speeds above are the same factor for Upload as well. It's worth noting that some of your bandwith is eaten up by packet headers. Your upload and download speed are dependent upon each other, so if you use a lot of upload it can affect your download speed. Note: 1 Kilobyte = 8 Kilobits. Or, To calculate kilobits from kilobytes, "multiply" by 8. Example: 1 Kilobyte = 8 kilobits What's this mean to me?  In the image above, the download speed is indicated in KBps. Using the chart, that translates to an actual download speed of around 1250 kbps, or 1.25 megabits. For example: 1500 Downstream is equal to 1500/8 (1500 divided by 8) Which gives you 187.5KBps maximum downstream. Reaching That speed with a 1.5Mbps connection (1500kbps) is theoretically minimal, although you may come close. Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by Fender250 edited by KeysCapt DSL can be good or bad for online gaming depending on the ISP. It is recommended that you go to the /search section and make some selections (ie: DSLE, SurfCity), and research your choices thoroughly. (Read Reviews, pricing, check out the speed test archive and enter their Domain to see how the speeds are for users in your area.) Also, get an idea what kind of pings you would see by posting a question in the forum relative to that provider. Others who game with that ISP will let you know what their experiences are. (Simple enough isn't it?) Next, after you have picked out the best option for pings, take a look at pricing. Concentrate on the best speeds, the company's reliability, (don't want a poor quality company, or one that may not last) and shipping time. (Nothing worse than having to suffer from anxiety while awaiting DSL. Done this way, you should hopefully have your DSL and a world of high speeds and reliability! Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by Fender250 edited by KeysCapt You cannot FAX over a DSL connection although Faxswitch.com says you can if you purchase their hardware, but you can still send and receive faxes over your regular telephone lines. Upgrading to DSL may add a DSL modem of some kind, but if you keep your old modem, you can still use software fax products like winfaxpro. You simply use your telephone line as before, by plugging a telephone line into your dial-up modem as before. This holds true whether or not you get ADSL over your home phone or SDSL on another line. You may also try the internet solution, and subscribe to a service like jfax.com or efax.com which provides your own dedicated fax number, and you may send faxes using a utility, and receive fax messages (and voice messages!) in your mail inbox. You might also check out faxbeep.com for a list of internet fax providers. Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by KeysCapt One of the most commonly misunderstood concepts in networking is speed and capacity. Most people believe that capacity and speed are the same thing. For example, it's common to hear "How fast is your connection?" Invariably, the answer will be "640K", "1.5M" or something similar. These answers are actually referring to the bandwidth or capacity of the service, not speed. Speed and bandwidth are interdependent. The combination of latency and bandwidth gives users the perception of how quickly a webpage loads or a file is transferred. It doesn't help that broadband providers keep saying "get high speed access" when they probably should be saying "get high capacity access". Notice the term "Broadband" - it refers to how wide the pipe is, not how fast. Latency: Latency is delay. For our purposes, it is the amount of time it takes a packet to travel from source to destination. Together, latency and bandwidth define the speed and capacity of a network. Latency is normally expressed in milliseconds. One of the most common methods to measure latency is the utility ping. A small packet of data, typically 32 bytes, is sent to a host and the RTT (round-trip time, time it takes for the packet to leave the source host, travel to the destination host and return back to the source host) is measured. The following are typical latencies as reported by others of popular circuits type to the first hop. Please remember however that latency on the Internet is also affected by routing that an ISP may perform (ie, if your data packet has to travel further, latencies increase). Bandwidth: Bandwidth is normally expressed in bits per second. It's the amount of data that can be transferred during a second. Solving bandwidth is easier than solving latency. To solve bandwidth, more pipes are added. For example, in early analog modems it was possible to increase bandwidth by bonding two or more modems. In fact, ISDN achieves 128K of bandwidth by bonding two 64K channels using a datalink protocol called multilink-ppp. Bandwidth and latency are connected. If the bandwidth is saturated then congestion occurs and latency is increased. However, if the bandwidth of a circuit is not at peak, the latency will not decrease. Bandwidth can always be increased but latency cannot be decreased. Latency is the function of the electrical characteristics of the circuit. Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by paul1238 edited by KeysCapt If you have heard even something about DSL, you will have heard about distance. Your phone lines normally terminate at a telco office, usually nearby. This distance, (the length of your line between your location and the telco office), is a very important factor in whether or not you can get DSL, and what speed you can get. The gauge of the copper lines may also be a factor. Here are some rules of thumb for distance ranges. Please be aware that especially with non Telco ADSL lines, distance limits for speeds can vary widely from company to company. There are cases where it is policy for "residential" DSL lines not to be offered as far out as functionally identical "business" products! The subject of distance and DSL is so important, we've added a special page for it, check this for detailed distance information per DSL network : Distance charts. Note: The information below is not recent, and is probably not accurate any longer.
PLEASE NOTE: I did not write the original material here, I simply updated the FAQ with info that was relevant at the time, around eight years ago. If you have updated valid info please use the link at the bottom to submit your remarks and updated info. by KeysCapt When you have a DSL connection, you also have an IP address. Consider this to be like your house address. The allocation of this address, and responsibility of delivering packets from the internet to your address, is normally the job of an ISP. (Internet Service Provider) The quality of your ISP will be a big factor in how good your DSL performance is, how reliable it is, and how much technical support you can get when you have problems. You are free to use an ISP as just an on-ramp to the internet, (including ignoring any email facilities they would provide for free, or their usenet news servers, or their home page disk space) but these services are available should you need them. If you get ADSL from the phone company, you may find they strongly suggest using their own ISP (for example, Pacbell has Pacbell.net, Bell Atlantic has BA.net), and that may be the simplest choice for you. However, with the large number of internet 'service companies' providing everything from mail (hotmail etc), DNS (easydns.com etc), web hosting, news (supernews, dejanews etc), it is possible to be almost totally independent from the ISP, once your connection is up and running. Apart from the Telco, the companies building large DSL infrastructures do not want to deal with residential customers directly, recognizing that this is often expensive and not their forte. So what they do is sell their lines to traditional ISPs, who now offer DSL, or to newer DSL-only ISPs, who are more marketing oriented. The ISP provides your gateway to the Internet. When data leaves your house, it is not immediately on the internet. Instead it travels to your ISP first, and then to their internet gateways (known as upstream providers). The ISP provides DNS service for your static IP address, if you were a small business, or handle allocation of dynamic IP addresses (DHCP) otherwise. They would also provide you with email, a usenet server and more IPs if you need them. They are also the first point of contact for installation, billing and technical troubleshooting. Pick a good one! (which is what this site is all about). by KeysCapt Yes. AOL has a product called "Bring your own access", which for $14.95 a month (pricing as of 2002) lets you use the familiar AOL environment, from any internet-connected PC, including over DSL and through from another ISP. You will end up paying a little more than you would if you just used the straight internet, and you are getting billed by two parties -- your ISP, and AOL ... but if you wish continuity with your AOL account, this would be the way to go. The AOL connection screen allows you to select another connection profile that assumes existing TCP access (a DSL connection), and does not attempt to use the modem to dial AOL. Once you set that up, you can change your pricing plan to move down to the bring your own access option. AOL also is offering "AOL Plus", which is AOL and a DSL line all in one. They are slow to pick DSL partners, so availability of AOL Plus is limited right now. To check AOL Plus availability, go to Keyword:DSL and click "Sign Me Up". Warning: AOL Plus involves an activation fee at present, and is only available if you are prepared to pay the $21.95/month unlimited access plan, plus the $20/month DSL plan. AOL Plus is not currently available to Macintosh users. See /faq/3055 for additional information. by KeysCapt Almost any popular email accounts (hotmail, MSN, AOL) can be accessed from anywhere, with the appropriate mail client setup, or via the web. AOL has the bring your own access option for external use of AOL via another (DSL) provider. Earthlink email can continue to be used without any reconfiguration, as can many other ISPs including MSN. Once you get your DSL line, you can continue to use and maintain your old email account, if you continue to pay them. Although rules for different mail systems differ, you may find you can purchase a minimum (MSN or AOL or Earthlink etc) plan that still allows full use of your mailbox, or email could be set to forward to your new address, while you tell people about it. by KeysCapt Your phone signal can run over an ADSL line. ADSL is a type of DSL pitched for residential use. (See splitter or filter in the knowledge base for more information on ADSL and phones). This can be more convenient, and in some cases, remove the need to do inside wiring, since you can nominate an existing number for conversion to ADSL. This form of ADSL is currently almost exclusively offered by the Bell Operating Companies. CLEC xDSL, such as the range from Covad, is currently offered as a dedicated line only, although this form of ADSL is required by the FCC to be implemented by the ILECs and the CLECs soon. There have been reports of interference problems between data and phone with ADSL lines -- a phone call may cause a data connection drop, or there may be unacceptable noise on the phone lines. This is usually related to the usage of microfilters, but not always. If you do have this problem, you will probably have to get your local phone company to install a splitter on the phone box at your house to fully separate the DSL and voice signals within your location. There is one other situation where voice is actually run over DSL, and this is called VoDSL. The largest current implementation of this is Sprint ION, where a phone gateway that puts your voice and internet service over DSL, but the deployment of this version is very limited. by KeysCapt That answer to this question is maybe. It usually depends on your local telephone company and DSL technology. In the majority of circumstances, the answer is "no"; A single phone line is all that is required (i.e. line-sharing). ADSL operates at a different set of frequencies than standard voice telephones. The difference in frequencies allows both voice traffic and IP (internet) traffic to co-exist on the same physical phone line. You simply need to obtain line filters (usually provided by your chosen service as part of your setup package) to plug in to the wall jacks you wish to use for normal voice telephones. Unfortunatly, in a few areas with different types of DSL (such as SDSL), the answer may be yes. Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by devin5 edited by KeysCapt The Macintosh computing platform accesses the internet through the same protocols that the Windows computing platform does. This means that theoretically, any type of internet service Windows computers can use, the Macintosh can as well. Two things to watch out for: One is the hardware. The DSL modems require your computer to have an ethernet card installed, and some computers don't have them already. If yours doesn't have one already, many providers will give you one to install. You'll have to make sure that it is Macintosh compatible (most are). The second is the software. Most providers will have the software to get you connected, but you'll have to ask them for it specifically, or else they'll probably assume you're on a Windows machine. See /faq/allthingsmac for more. edit: User tigirius says "All macs from the original iMac of 1998 until now are equiped with a DSL compatible 10/100 Port". by Copzilla$ edited by KeysCapt Dslreports ran a poll on this. It can vary widely, from a week in some parts of the country, up to 2 months or more, depending on what kind of problems there are between the DSL provider and the telco and the ISP. Obviously with time, the install process becomes more routine, and the delay drops. In some telco areas with straightforward ADSL installs, the whole setup can be done inside a week. A good suggestion is to identity who your potential provider will be, and ask in the appropriate forum here on the site. Current users will have a good idea of what to expect for install times. by KeysCapt Not necessarily. If you do not get DSL from the Telco, the telco may still have to provide the (new) copper line, then the DSL providing company (CLEC) comes to do any necessary inside wiring. In many cases, the communication between the Telco and the CLEC (Covad, Northpoint etc), is not great, and the line cannot be found, or is not left sufficiently close to the premise, necessitating further visits and delays. For Telco ADSL, however, an existing line can be converted to an ADSL line, and the Telco normally has an "install yourself" package where they ship you the necessary materials, provision your line, and you simply hook up your modem and computer. In some cases, they might have to visit to install a splitter or a filter, and/or upgrade the NID (which is the phone junction box in your premise. See this for examples of different NIDs). Puerto Rico Telephone Company offers DSL service under the name PRTDSL and offers user-installed ADSL. Their normal procedure is to qualify and convert the copper line and send you the ADSL modem by mail. You are still responsible for providing a NIC or USB port for the modem to use. For more, see the glossary on installation. by KeysCapt You should be able to get DSL service provided by the local phone company assuming your lines support it, and soon from CLECs once their line sharing agreements are in place in most apartment buildings. Whether you can get DSL that needs to be run over a separate copper pair depends on whether the apartment building management will allow a new copper pair to be installed into the phone box along with the wiring up to your apartment. by KeysCapt It may be hard to order DSL, whether it is ADSL from the telco, or SDSL, ADSL or IDSL from an ISP, without existing phone service, generally because the phone company may be reluctant to deliver a clean copper loop to a premise that they do not already have "in their systems" as a result of providing prior phone service. This may vary from region to region depending on the particular local phone company involved. One provider that does currently (3/07) offer this is AT&T under the name of AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Direct. Once you GET non-telco DSL on another line, it may be possible to cancel your local phone service. Cancellation may be harder or impossible if you are getting, or have got, DSL over your same phone line (Telco ADSL or line-sharing CLEC ADSL). Feedback received on this FAQ entry:
by KeysCapt DSLR is a more realistic representation of how your computer will work on a given connection out across the internet versus a ISP provided location because most ISP's have their test site/FTP within/under 3-5 hops, and often right after their edge router. This is done to reduce latency time and show you your connection to and from them, which is great, if that is your goal or your question is how fast you are connected to them. But if you want to see realistic tests DSLR is quite often 12-20 hops away, similar to the sites we go to and see every day. -- submitted by pivoman by KeysCapt A dry pair is a pair of telephone wires that does not have regular voice on it, thus no dialtone. It is a dedicated line usually used for internet. Dry pairs are now found in SDSL, ISDN, IDSL, or a T-1 type service. The following clarification submitted by NickNielsen  It is true a dry pair does not have dial tone, but a dry pair does not have any battery on it by definition. A wet pair has battery present on it. A DSLR user adds this note: In southwestern Ontario, dry loops (or pairs) do have a dial tone. This is so we can call the Bell# that identifies the number you are calling from. It's important to make sure you have the right pair when a company has 10+ copper lines. You can always try calling a regular local number and if it is a dry loop, it will tell you that the line must be activated. These lines are owned by Bell Canada. Also read About DSL for lots more information | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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