A little about the circuits.

In our shop we currently have a 2 Mb cable modem from TCA Internet and a 768K - Gold service connection from GTE with Alpha1. The 2 Mb advertised is actually a 1 Mb downstream / 128K upstream connection to the ISP where they have a 6 Mb connection to the internet. The GTE Gold service is a 768K downstream and 768K upstream connection. This connection goes to their ADSL modem rack which is then attached via a T1 to their cloud. A PVC, Permanent Virtual Circuit, is then made from the cloud to our ISP, Alpha1. Alpha1 currently has a single T1 connection that is backhauled from their Bryan-College Station location to their 10 Mb connection in Houston. The server that we are testing to and from is currently co-located at our ISP Cybercom which maintains three T1 connections to various backbone providers.

A little about the test script.

The test script is a simple REXX program designed to test the reliability and response time of the circuit. The test begins with 25 sets of three pings spaced in one minute intervals. An FTP transfer is then done from our remote co-located server. Another minute interval till we test another 25 three ping sets spaced at one minute intervals is performed before our final FTP transfer to our remote co-located server. Another minute passes and we cycle the process again. As for data, the number of dropped packets, response time, and maximum and minimum transfer speeds are logged.

Something about the hardware.

The test machines are similar. They are both clone 486 machines that I put together with spare parts. Each is running OS/2 Warp 4 with 16 megs of RAM. One machine has a 250 Mbyte harddrive the other 125. Each has a NE2000 clone netcard connected via cat-5 cable to our generic 10 Mb 8 port hub. Also, we have one other machine that is attached to the internet on the ADSL circuit and two more that are rarely used for net traffic attached to the cable modem.

About this page.

I wanted to do these live tests of each system to have documentation that my ADSL circuit was screwed up when they first installed it. Also, initially I wanted to show how unreliable cable modems are. The first ten months of owning a cable modem proved to be horrific with downtimes between 20 and 30% of the month, insufferable and non-existent support, and many lies told to us before purchase about the immediate system upgrades to a 45 Mb T3 and 14 Mb cable modem speeds I personally felt wronged. I am happy to say that while the system speed dropped from 8 Mb to 2 (actually 1Mb/128K) we now have a more stable line since TCA's lastest visit in late '98. I now estimate downtimes of only 5%. However, because they have oversold their bandwidth too much, transfer times become pathetic during peak times. ADSL is a superior technology to the broadband based cable modem. It is currently installed on one of our existing phone lines. We are still capable of using this phone line to make and receive calls while not interrupting our internet connection. The cost of the ADSL service will actually save us money over the current expense of co-locating our server. Cable modems are fine for the home/game user whose time has no value, but for those of us that make our living via the 'net ADSL is the only cost effective circuit available.

Related Links

ePlace a broadband cable and adsl testing info site.

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