we just got a t-1 installed and i am disapointed with the performance of it.
our cable modem was just as fast or faster.
are there any settings in the computer that we can tweek to try and get better performance?
or any other tricks?
what is the best site for checking download speeds?
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.
Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
There's not much (if anything) you can tweak on a PC or computer side to improve T-1 performance. That's typically an issue dealt with at the physical level such as the CSU or the router serial port. Aside from scraig84's queries, do you know if the T-1 is running error free? What kind of response are you getting to indicate that it's slower? Any hard data at this point?
Good luck.
Steve
That can still mean a lot of different things. My point is that a T1 is just a serial cable. What is running over it makes a huge difference. For example, you may be using all channels of the T1 (full T1), be using Frame, and have a 1.544 port and only a 16k CIR. This means you can transmit up to the full T1, but are only guaranteed 16K of bandwidth. With many providers, this is enough because they don't oversubscribe their circuits. With others, you need to guarantee much more and performance may be spotty. Saying you have a T1 is roughly the same as telling someone you have a CAT5 cable going from your computer to the server room. CAT5 cable can have a number of different protocols running, such as Ethernet or Token Ring. Each of those protocols has different speeds at which they can transmit. Also, the number of users utilizing the network makes a difference as well. This is why I asked the questions.
As to your question about site performance, I don't know that there is any specific site that always gives consistent performance. No matter who it is that's out there, they are equally subject to high usage delays and transient Internet performance issues.
i do have a full t-1 not a fraction
my guarantee is for full t-1 speed not a fraction of a t-1 speed.
my cable modem usualy did about 768K
i don't know how to check for errors.
i would like to discuss some settings on the computer.
like one i changed today which seemed to speed things up for me was to remove the check mark from auto detect settings on explorer. also there are all sorts of settings under ip dns wins and options in the advanced tc ip settings. anyone familar with the optimum settings for that?
Hey, sdieken . . .
I hope you are making progress in getting the speed you want from the internet, but the "detect settings" check box under IE doesn't have anything to do with your T-1. What else changed? Did you change ISPs? Do you have different gateway settings or DNS entries now that you've change services? Have you called the ISP to verify the settings you are using?
Good luck.
Steve
sdieken,
When you say your cable modem did about 768K I assume you maen 768 KB (K bytes). This is the equivalent of around a 6-7Mb data rate on your cable, which is very achievable if you are on a cable modem in a Metro area. You have replaced this with a 1.544Mb T1 connection. No matter what you do, you will never be able to get the same data rates off of your T1 as you did from cable, whether its frame, point to point, or whatever. It is simply not possible.
what?
how does 768 = 6-7mb?
then 1.544 mb should = 10-15mb
you are not making any sense.
it is quite clear that a t-1 is a dedicated line and is not shared with anyone
it is twenty times more expensive them a cable modem and i expect at least service that is two to three times faster and more consistent.
When you measure download speeds, most MS stuff will tell you the speed in KB (kilo-BYTES).
1 KB (bytes) = 8 Kb (bits)
Your line rates are measured in Mb (mega bits).
so 768KB * 8 = 6144 Kb (or 6.144 Mb)
6.144 Mb would be about the usable portion on an unlimited bandwidth cable modem (you could get up to 10 Mb since that is the speed of your ethernet port on your cable modem).
A T1 maxes at 1.544 Mb (mega bits). That is about 25% of what you were getting with your cable modem (6.144 Mb).
no
i am talking bits for both types of connections.
the top speed for our t-1 is and should be much faster then what we were getting on our cable modem. i have contacted local computer experts who have worked with both the local cable modems and t-1 lines and they said t-1 lines are faster OK! i will not entertain this discussion anymore.
I am looking for assitance with the settings i have discussed. not a discussion on the speed of a cable modem vs a t-1
It is not unusual to see a cable modem connection run faster than a T1 in download tests. The major performance gain for T1 circuits over broadband connections are in the upload speeds. All cable providers that I am aware of limit your upload speeds to much less than 1.544Mb/s (I think my home connection is something like 384Kb/s).
Other advantages of T1 connections (point to point) over broadband connections include _dedicated_ bandwidth (and thus, security) and business class support. Conversely, broadband connections excel in lowering circuit and equipment costs while increasing the _potential_ for faster download speeds.
You should take the time to decide exactly what is important to you and pick the circuit type that best suits your needs.
sdieken,
You said you changed a setting on your browser to not automatically detect settings. Again, that has nothing to do with the available bandwidth of the T-1. There are no settings on your PC or your browser that will alter the performance of the T-1. There are settings on the router that could conceivably alter the performance. But you need to answer some of the config questions posted above . . . like:
Is this a frame relay T-1 or a point-to-point circuit?
What measurements have you made to test the up or down load speed? Are your observations purely subjective?
Did you change ISPs when you installed the T-1?
Good luck.
Steve
i have said before this t-1 is a point to point ok.
yes we did change isp's (of course) the cable modem company does not offer t-1 service.
i have run tests using many download sites and just genral browsing of the interenet. my two other co workers have confirmed with me that the t-1 speed is disapointing.
so lets concentrate on 2 things
#1 router settings
#2 advanced tcip settings on the computer.
p.s. this is my last mention of download speeds of a cable modem. most of you guys are talking about the highest download speed possible for the cable modem. there is only two times that you can take advatage of that high speed connection which is basically the same as a 10mb lan connection.
#1 getting your email
#2 downloading items from your local isp server (for example if they have a twocows site hosted locally on the cable lan network)
otherwise any time you connect to the internet you are stuck sharring your bandwidth wiht everyone else and since the cable company has to buy
i have said before this t-1 is a point to point ok.
yes we did change isp's (of course) the cable modem company does not offer t-1 service.
i have run tests using many download sites and just genral browsing of the interenet. my two other co workers have confirmed with me that the t-1 speed is disapointing.
so lets concentrate on 2 things
#1 router settings
#2 advanced tcip settings on the computer.
p.s. this is my last mention of download speeds of a cable modem. most of you guys are talking about the highest download speed possible for the cable modem. there is only two times that you can take advatage of that high speed connection which is basically the same as a 10mb lan connection.
#1 getting your email
#2 downloading items from your local isp server (for example if they have a twocows site hosted locally on the cable lan network)
otherwise any time you connect to the internet you are stuck sharring your bandwidth wiht everyone else and since the cable company has to buy T-1 OR OTHER HIGH SPEED CONNECTIONS TO THE INTERNET that are very expensive they are not going to give you 10mb download speed to the internet
1. Router settings: Set the MTU on the T-1 serial interface of your router to match the MTU of the far end router. If you can't find out whether or not your T-1 is taking errors, there's not much else to suggest. You can't really misconfigure and get slow performance; generally (GENERALLY) it either works or it doesn't. So unless your router shows that the interface is continually going up and down, there's not much else to configure.
2. Advanced TCP/IP settings on the computer: Forget this. This has nothing to do with the performance of your T-1. That's NOT saying that your settings aren't the cause of your problem. For example, if your DNS settings are goofed up, your slow response could simply be waiting for DNS timeouts. You already found that "auto detect settings" was causing a problem.
The reason that all the EE guys keep pounding on the bandwidth issue is that your comments about slowness were purely subjective. You said you usually got 768K and we all know that a T-1 is appx 1.5mbit; that's the only hard data we had. THEN you found a setting which has nothing to do with T-1 performance (auto detect settings) and has everything to do with browser configuration when you change ISPs. If your ISP can't tell you 1) how to configure your browser for their setup or 2) how to configure the serial interface on your router for their T-1 setup, then your ISP is just like most ISPs. You just have to keep pounding on them until you get to the ONE person that SORT OF knows something.
Good luck.
Steve
I only have a few things to say before I unsubscribe from this question so that I don't keep getting emailed on it.
Sdieken,
First - your inability to answer questions in a straight manner and argumentative attitude isn't going to get you anywhere on here. We are not paid to help you. If we take the time to ask questions to get more details on your problem, the least you can do is answer them to the best of your ability and do so politely. As someone who has taken the time to try and help you, I am personally insulted by some of your cutting remarks above. If you aren't going to cooperate, do us a favor and close the question.
Second - Your question is highly subjective to opinion and speculation. Whenever you are talking about performance issues you need to take everything into consideration, no matter how trivial you may think it is. Leaving everything in the air and not giving details gets you nowhere. If I went to my mechanic today with my car and told them that my new car isn't as fast as my old car, but refused to tell him any details other than the year and model of the car, he would laugh me out of the shop. He would want to know the size and type of engines and transmissions in both, maintenance history, what EXACTLY I could tell about the differences in speed, and about a hundred other details - especially if he can't look them and drive/test them himself!
Third - there are very few things to configure on true point-to-point T1's and hence less to go wrong with configuration. There are also very few things that can be done with the TCP/IP stack on a Windows box to improve performance. There may be some things that can be done in the event of a specific problem, but more details of your issue would be needed and you have refused over and over to provide details.
Fourth - does the fact that your ISP isn't helping you possibly tell you something? Maybe they are simply oversubscribed and your ISP sucks. Certainly wouldn't be the first time.
One last thing - your last comment states that you told us before that this is a point-to-point T1 and this is not true. I did a search on the word point on this page and although the word came up many times, it did not come up in that context from one of your previous comments.
That's my 2 cents.
Oh and p.s. - please don't make any more ridiculous attempts to educate us on cable modems and the use of bandwidth. Your comments there only show that you should be spend more time listening and answering our questions rather than telling us why you shouldn't have to.
this question was not updating properly for me i did not mean to post the same answer twice.
i am sorry but i did not know that there was such a thing as full t-1 frame relays. i have a full t-1 point to point. when i said (full t-1) that is what i meant.
frame relay is a short of shared connection and would not really be a full t-1 in my opinion. but i guess that is not correct.
aloha
scraig84
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.
all the questions you asked in your first question were assuming i did not have a full t-1 so i ignored them.
"Also if Frame" was your statement before the majority of questions.
when i said i don't understand the question that was your que to come in an explain it in easier terms. right??
i won't make any ridiculus attempts if you guys dont give me math that says 768 = 6mb is that fair?
I'll take the bait and respond to your two concerns.
1. Router settings. This is entirely dependent upon the router brand/model, whether or not it is using a firewall feature set, access-lists, etc that impact on performance. Maybe your router is too underpowered for all it is being asked to do. Also, the T1 circuit could be "noisy" showing CRC/frame errors on the router interface.
Example (very few errors here, but I have seen them in the thousands on bad connections):
Received 0 broadcasts, 0 runts, 0 giants, 0 throttles
6 input errors, 1 CRC, 5 frame, 0 overrun, 0 ignored, 0 abort
4392081 packets output, 308211300 bytes, 0 underruns
The CSU/DSU that connects to the circuit--whether internal or external--could be misconfigured in the Line build out settings, or the clock source settings. SteveJ is correct in that generally, it either works or it doesn't, but there are settings and circuit issues that can cause lower than expected performance. Whether or not the T1 circuit is point-to-point or frame-relay refers to the layer 2 transport protocol. UUNET Internet connections are always frame-relay, while some smaller ISP's use PPP or even HDLC. You are 100% incorrrect in your assumption that frame-relay means shared connections.
#2. "Advanced" settings for TCP/IP. As everyone has stated, these settings have absolutely zero effect on the speed of the T1, but you have found out 1st hand that some settings can make the "user experience" seem faster.
Un-checking the block to automatically detect settings helps your browser open faster because it does not have to check the network for proxy servers so that it can self-configure to use that proxy. That is all it is doing.
Other Advanced settings include DNS servers. Using proper DNS servers - usually provided by your ISP, can help speed things up. If your DNS server entry has the server of your last ISP listed first, then it will take longer to resolve queries.
Advanced settings also let you bind more than one IP address to your NIC card. If you do that, then you can really slow things down by confusing the route table.
Other Advanced options include WINS, which simple does NETBIOS to IP address name resolution which is only relevent to your local network anyway.
Check your default gateway setting. Make sure it is the explicit IP address of the router, not the local NIC address. If it is the local address, then every time a packet needs to go somewhere other than the local network, then the system must ARP for the address of the router to forward it to- not very efficient.
Are you using DHCP to assign addresses, or doing it manually?
How many users is this T1 connection supporting?
Do you have a firewall between you and the T1? I would be much more concerned with security than perceptions of performance.
Having said all that, there are utilities that "may" help tweak your system (through registry hacks, not advanced settings) to better performance. Use them at your own risk:
http://www.speedguide.net/
thank you very much lrmoore
that is the kind of info i was looking for.
i will check into it tommorow and get back with you within a day or so. thank you so much!
here is a copy of my order from cdw with the router and other info
QTY. ITEM NO. DESCRIPTION/MFG. PART NUMBER UNIT PRICE
EXT. PRICE
1 140639 CISCO 1720 MODULAR ROUTER 860.00
860.00
CIS-CISCO1720
1 111362 CISCO 1600/2600/3600 1PT-T1 DSU/CSU 730.00
730.00
CIS-WIC-1DSU-T1
1 093252 CISCO SMARTNET PK CAT 2 140.00
140.00
CIS-CON-SNT-PKG2
1 203126 WATCHGUARD SOHO FIREBOX W /10U LIC 350.00
350.00
WTG-WG2500
1 141956 NETGEAR 8PT 10/100 SWITCH FS108 70.00
70.00
NTG-FS108NA
Subtotal 2,150.00
hey sdieken,
Just want to throw a few number conversions and abbreviations here that you should really know and understand. All I really want to stress here is that when you said 768K, did you really mean 768Kb or 768KB... There is a big difference.
1 Byte = 8 Bits
1 KiloByte (KB) = 1000 Bytes
1 KiloByte (KB) = 8 KiloBits(Kb) = 8000 bits
1 MegaByte (MB) = 1024 KiloBytes (KB)
1 MegaByte (MB) = 8 MegaBits(Mb) = 8192 KiloBits (Kb)
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: scraig84Posted on 2002-01-24 at 12:41:42ID: 6754586
When you say T1 - what exactly do you mean? Is this Frame Relay or point to point? Are you using the whole thing or a fraction? If it is Frame, what is the port (access) speed and CIR? Also if Frame, how many PVCs are using this T1 and what are their port and CIR sizes? Also if Frame, are there multiple PVC's sharing the T1 on the other side? If so, what are their port and CIR sizes? What is this circuit used for? Internet, I am assuming? Were there other reasons for the T1, such as guaranteed throughput and better uptime etc?