TP> Just today I have received this (only fragments quoted):

[deleted to save space]

 TP> Doesn't look like simple rules (you get what you've paid for, big US
 TP> brand name against cheap Taiwanese company) apply.

Ah, but stop and think for one moment.

With the Dynalink, you had to turn off V42bis data compression to have any
sort of reliable, steady link, (a friend of mine owns one. If he turns
V42bis on, the modem preforms worse than the 14.4kb one it replaced). This
limits the Dynalink to a throughput of only about 3900 cps, connecting at
33.6kb.

However, with the Sportster using V42bis, the throughput can be, using a
2:1 compression ratio, about 6600cps, (or more likely just under 5760cps,
considering most people would lock their port at 57600), for a connect
speed of only 28.8kb.

So what, you might say, nearly everything on the web is already compressed,
right? Well, not quite. Forgetting Email and News, which is mostly straight
text, the overhead introduced by, say, PPP and FTP put together can be
quite large, and this data can be compressed.

Using Win95's System Monitor, I have seen my modem receive data at over
4300cps, yet WSFTP was only reporting 2800cps, (on a 31.2kb link). In this
case, there is some 1500cps of protocol overhead! If I did not have V42bis
on, the actual throughput reported by WSFTP could have been as low as
2000cps.

If you download large multi-megabyte files, an extra 800cps can make quite
a difference in the end, (it's actually 29% faster in this case).

So before your friend goes off the deep end over a connection that's only
2400b slower, (or even 4800b), he might be interested to know that with
working V42bis compression, he should be seeing actual throughput speeds
greater than before.

Of course, this depends greatly on his ISP, so his milage may vary, a lot :-)

Regards,
Frank


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