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Thread ID: 69272 2006-05-27 12:24:00 Super Fast Downloads on Dial-Up zqwerty (97) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
458288 2006-05-27 16:27:00 OH MY GOD! ROUGHLY 15 KILOBYTES PER SECOND DOWNLOAD ON XTRA DIAL-UP! I had never experienced such speed before; this is cool!

What's actually happening?

Took me around 7 minutes to download, but nevertheless, this is too fast for dial-up!

Cheers :)

[edit]

I tried downloading the file that you mentioned using Free Download Manager. The download speed has been bumped up to around 50 kilobytes per second! :horrified Download finished under 2 minutes
Renmoo (66)
458289 2006-05-28 01:54:00 So is someone else going to try this quirk of the internet? This is a verifiable test of the phenomenon that has been reported on these forums before, here is the proof that it does happen!

All the info you need is on this thread, read it, then try to do it and post the results back together with your explanation, please.
zqwerty (97)
458290 2006-05-28 02:07:00 So do it, but start running Ethereal, then start the browser and get the page. Examine the packets seen by Ethereal. You will probably find that the browser is busily pre-fetching everything on the page, including pictures. When you go explicitly get one, you've already got it. So the time from your request is very short. So the apparent "rate" is very high.

THE DIAL UP LINE CAN DOWNLOAD A MAXIMUM OF 56kbps. If the exchange sent it any faster, your modem could not receive it because faster would be not in accordance with the V90/V92 standard. It's tricky enough for the modem to handle signals in accordance with the standard. It CAN'T accept anything else.

When I use the library system here to download a large file, there is a very interesting speed thing. The file starts coming to the computer I am using at 4-5 kbps. It might be a megabyte or so. It comes at that rate until a bit over 10% has come, then, KABOOM, it's all there. The library, or the council, has a very fast line. It feeds a proxy server, which gets the whole file, then sends it to me, so I'm not seeing the "Internet speed".
Graham L (2)
458291 2006-05-28 02:30:00 I am using a download manager, Star Downloader, and what you have said is not what is happening, there is no pre loading, I can go to the page and immediately start to download a 7 meg file which then come in faster than usual by a large factor and shows on my HDD as 7 meg. I know that there are limits to a dial up connection but nevertheless even with your explanation (not correct) this would still not explain the fast speed. zqwerty (97)
458292 2006-05-28 02:44:00 it could well be the file is actually an uncommpressed file. modems can compress on the fly so it simply looks like your downloading fast. easy way to check, compress it with zip, rar etc and see how much of a difference in size it becomes. tweak'e (69)
458293 2006-05-28 03:47:00 I am using a download manager, Star Downloader, and what you have said is not what is happening, there is no pre loading, I can go to the page and immediately start to download a 7 meg file which then come in faster than usual by a large factor and shows on my HDD as 7 meg. I know that there are limits to a dial up connection but nevertheless even with your explanation (not correct) this would still not explain the fast speed.
Of course, he;'s totally wrong. You've found the magic server and your modem has had a hardware upgrade by connecting to it and is now actually a slow adsl device. :lol:
pctek (84)
458294 2006-05-28 03:57:00 Yes, tweak'e, you have the answer, thank you for explaining it to me.

Thanks for the genuine attempts to explain.

No thanks for any smart arse comments, you know who you are.
zqwerty (97)
458295 2006-05-28 04:48:00 Many web servers also support compression extensions, so it may also be getting compressed there too. How compressable was the file when you tried it? Erayd (23)
458296 2006-05-28 05:01:00 Very compressible, 7 Meg .tif > 108 K .rar, when I look at it there is lots of whitespace in the picture, ie the same data over and over again, cf:

"it didn't just appear by magic, maybe it is some sort of code where much data is duplicated and only seems as if it is downloading."

as I said earlier in the thread.
zqwerty (97)
458297 2006-05-28 05:19:00 Thanks for the explanation, zqwerty and tweak'e. You two have demolished my day-dream of having broadband-like speed at the price of dial-up. :D

Cheers :)
Renmoo (66)
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