Extension Cables for Broadband Connection

[AdamW]

My parents have had ADSL since before the "wires only" products came out. Back then, a BT technician actually replaced your master socket with a new type that had the microfilter built in.

The technician then ran a cable from the new master socket to an RJ-11 outlet near the PC (around 10m)

I just have a 10m RJ11-RJ11 cable plugged into my master-socket filter... works fine with my 1mbps broadband.

I suspect that the recommendation against extensions is largely to guard against people moaning they can't get it to connect reliably with a badly-assembled pound-shop lead, or through the extension socket they (badly) installed themselves.

 

[Allenm]

You are correct. The filters are only required for the phone connections.

Merv

 

[johnny_t]

OK - Last question, I think. I'm all signed up with a Wanadoo 1Meg service and when I download files using IE, you get the box coming up with the progress (2000kB of 4.03MB, that sort of thing).

It also includes a transfer rate, which will be something like 115 KB/s, which seems low if its in bits, but OK if its in Bytes (as I think the 1Meg refers to bits per second, doesn't it). Does the fact that its a big B mean Bytes ??

I did see it down at 21KB/s the other day - what could cause this ?

 

[breezer]

not sure about the bits and bytes, but you can have an umpteen speed adsl line but you can only get it at the fastest speed the sender can send it at, also they can limit the send ing speed too.

Mate of mine belongs to a file sharing site, and he says if he doent like the "look" of you, he slows down the rate at which you can download waht ever you are downloading

 

[Igorian]

A 1MB service is approximately 1000000 bits per second (max).

8 bits to a byte so 1000000 / 8 = 125000 or 125Kb/s. (sometimes mistakenly written 125KB/s)

However, lots of things affect the final throughput.

With broadband, you are sharing a pipe with up to 50 other people. The more users online = reduced bandwidth.

Your upload speed is only a fraction of the download speed, which slows the overall process.

Errors often happen and have to be corrected.

You maybe competing for access to the data you are downloading, so you will experience a "wait" period, which again lowers the figure.

Finally, the numbers being calculated and displayed and being done by software on your PC, which is not necessarily going to be completely accurate.