My take on Cable/DSL is simply this. Kazza. For nearly everything else a person typically does on the Internet, a properly configured V.92 connection is really pretty good. A correctly configured v.92 modem should web-browse, email, online-bank, chat, etc, all with really good speed that are not all that much better on Broadband. Don't get me wrong, certainly DSL will still be a bit quicker, but the difference is relatively small. However, once these guy's are into large downloads of compressed files (and that spells Kazza et all) then they feel the need to go to Cable/DSL, and these accelerators won't do a lot to stop that I don't think. So, in my opinion, it's all about MP3's. If your users want them, they will switch to Cable. If they don't, they'll be fine with V.92, and these Accelerators should prove valuable. :-) - Todd Chamberlain ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Farber" <farber@admin.f-tech.net> To: "Discussion relating to the 3Com/US Robotics Total Control modem systems." <usr-tc@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 8:28 AM Subject: Re: [USR-TC] OT: Accelerators
Now the REALLY big question.. would you buy it and do you think it would stem the mass exeddus to Cable/DSL?
-- Paul Farber Farber Technology farber@admin.f-tech.net Ph 570-628-5303 Fax 570-628-5545
On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, VCI Help Desk wrote:
I got a lot more than 5x. The thing to remember is your speed
depends on
the content you're viewing. My test was done with a US Robotics modem dialed into a Venturi enabled ISP in Charlotte, NC. My actual connection speed was 45,333. Since the Venturi client software communicates with a Venturi server it's best to have them near each other. SlipStream's demo was done by having the client connect over the internet to a SlipStream server in California. There is a public Venturi server but they recommend the server and client be near each other for the best test results. That's the way it would be normally anyway.
On bandwidth.com with Venturi I got 487kbps and 34kpbs without.
On DSLreports.com I only got 31kbps with and without Venturi. Something about the content DSLReports uses for their test gives lower results. It reported much higher with SlipStream though.
On toast.net I got 261kbps on the image test, 151k with the text test, 2.4meg with the compression test and 539kbps with all 3 tests combined. Without Venturi I got 39kbps with the image test, 84kbps with the text test and 80kbps with the compression test.
I can't find the SlipStream test results at the moment so I can't give you those. They were comparable though except for the DSLreports test which yielded higher results with SlipStream.
Something else interesting is that NetZero (aka Juno & United Online) sell Venturi also -
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ibd/20030402/bs_ibd_ibd/2003_
4_2_tech & http://www.netzero.net/signup/faqs-accel.html
Another technical article about Fourelle is at http://www.networkcomputing.com/1208/1208sp2.html
Bill Dunn
----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Farber" <farber@admin.f-tech.net> To: "Discussion relating to the 3Com/US Robotics Total Control modem systems." <usr-tc@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 7:00 PM Subject: Re: [USR-TC] OT: Accelerators
What were your speed test results? Did you get anywhere nead the 5x 'experience' that some of these companies claim?
-- Paul Farber Farber Technology farber@admin.f-tech.net Ph 570-628-5303 Fax 570-628-5545
On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, VCI Help Desk wrote:
IMO Earthlink's "accelerator" is crap. They use a software called
Propel
installed on the client machine. It doesn't require anything special from the ISP. IMO Propel is just that $29.95 garbage that people see in a banner or popup and install on their computer because it says it'll make your connection faster. It probably does DNS caching and a little better web page caching and that's about it.
Earthlink does use the Fourelle service but only with their wireless service.
I've been evaluating the software from Fourelle and SlipStream Data and they do work as stated. BUT, it's very dependent on the content you are viewing. It doesn't help speed up compressed files, although in theory it does due to the removal of TCP overhead with Fourelle's software. I didn't notice any significant improvement while downloading a 17 meg copy of Netscape 4.5. General web browsing was faster though.
I ran speed tests at bandwidth.com, dslreports.com and toast.net and most importantly just plain old browsing and there was an improvement. The type of content determines the speed increase. The method the speed tests employs will determine the speed test results. With the accelerator software the speed tests were around 300k to 400k. DSL Reports.com didn't yield any improvement because of the method they use to test. Like I said, it's content specific.
Bill Dunn
----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Farber" <farber@admin.f-tech.net> To: "Discussion relating to the 3Com/US Robotics Total Control modem systems." <usr-tc@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 1:34 PM Subject: Re: [USR-TC] OT: Accelerators
I love when comapanys get the fur of ISPs ruffeled with promises of accelleration.
'Remove the whitespace' from web pages? You mean compress the text? Don't modems already have some pretty good compression protocols to handle text? JPEG/GIFs could be compressed... but a good web site already does that. .ZIP files? compressed. MP3's? compressed. exe files? compressed. Where do the 'big savings' come from?
Moving from TCP to an encapsulated UDP client/server protocol sounds like you would save some time with protocol overhead... but what would it break?
Earthlink etal are trying some sort of 'broadband lite' service (no, not v.92.. the OTHER broadband lite) for like an additional $7/mo. That would take a dail up account to almost $30. Cable/DSL services start at $39. The accerator companys name starts with a 'p' if I remember correctly.
-- Paul Farber Farber Technology farber@admin.f-tech.net Ph 570-628-5303 Fax 570-628-5545
On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Support(at)inet2000.com wrote:
Hi. I hope this isn't deemed off-topic, since I'm very interested in the discussion and people's experiences as well. This topic deals with dialup, and in particular, extending the lifeline of our Total Control dialup products, so I for one consider it to be very ON topic. If anyone uses or has tried these new compression, optimization, acceleration products, I'd be very interested in hearing your results / comments. :-)
- Todd Chamberlain
----- Original Message ----- From: "VCI Help Desk" <admin@vci.net> To: <USR-TC@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 9:12 AM Subject: [USR-TC] OT: Accelerators
This is slightly off topic but related to dial up in general.
Does anyone use or have tried the acceleration services from
SlipStream
Data (www.slipstreamdata.com) or Fourelle (www.fourelle.com) ? These are acceleration services that require you to put a special server on your network and a client on your PC. The software on the PC acts as a proxy (usually transparent) which communicates with the server to compress web pages and alter image files. Fourelle uses a proprietary protocol called "reliable UDP" to communicate with the server because TCP takes longer. Fourelle can proxy (speed up) all the common internet protocols while SlipStream Data only does HTTP at the moment. Fourelle will have a Mac client available soon whereas SlipStream Data only works on Windows. Both of these can work over dialup, wireless, DSL, cable, etc.. Fourelle actually got started with this as a wireless application. I believe a major hotel chain started using it to compress data being sent to via satellite.
Also, something else intriguing. On our network we have a CacheFlow server (known as a client accelerator). After researching these two services I have discovered that the CacheFlow is kinda out of date because there are other accelerators that clean the web pages and images. These accelerators are intelligent because they know where in a web page the white space can be cleaned. They can also reduce the sizes of image files. For example SpeedWise (www.speedwise.com) sells proxy software for Solaris that intelligently removes the white space from web pages, reducing the overall size of the web page. There are similar products or appliances from RedLine, Packeteer, Boostworks and FineGround.
I just thought these new ideas were incredible. Fourelle has been around since at least 2001 and I don't know about SlipStream Data. Some of the reviews I read were from 2001 so the products should have been improved.
A couple of ISPs using this software are www.madbbs.com, www.gladenet.com , www.net1Plus.com , www.trellis.net
Bill Dunn
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