I guess 'line conditioning' is probably testing the quality of the line, possibly by either bouncing something off the modem (if it can do that), or some other echoing - I remember the tech who connected the phone line for my ADSL did something like that. He went away for a moment to check from the other end (the switch or whatever). Then they can ease up the connection speed until it either reaches what you've paid for or it starts to fail. For myself it turned out that the distance to the switch was too far away to get 20Mbit/s (their maximum supported speed), I could only get 3.5 Mbit/s. (In Norway. In Japan I'm on fiber, and there are no such issues of course)
Rich, It is possible that the ISP needs to "condition" the line...
EDIT: If you want them to replace the cable from pole to house, have an oversized semi cruise through!!! My line use to get clipped about every two months. I finally told them to take it up as high as they could legally take it. But I did get new phone wires.
All our lines are buried. The new house is getting the speed paid for, our house is getting the speed that they say is the best we can expect due to the length of the line, a 3Mbs difference for an extra 50 feet of line. At this point I am done arguing with them. Our new connection is literally ten times faster than Century Link's advertised speed, so I think we will stick with that.
Line conditioning - Telco will insert inductors in the line to "condition" it for optimum VOICE - this is especially true for an old line that may run a long distance from the central office.
Way back when we had our first DSL line put in, the tech was having a terrible time getting a good DSL signal out of it. This went on for a while until an old tech came out and actually drove from point to point along the line and REMOVED all the "conditioning" that had been put in for the voice circuit. The data line was MUCH happier without all the added stuff.
Of course, being a new house in a new sub-division might deliver good service until the neighborhood fills up.
This is all a game of how you deliver services to win more customers... cost/benefit ratios. Different companies pay the game differently, but none seem to have 100% satisfied users as their endgame. When service gets bad enough, they offer a rate-reduction on upgrades to a higher data rate bracket, but it is more monthly cost to the subscriber. (I have been through one round of that).
Sorry I am very jaded. To me it is just a big repeat of American cable TV.
Can't say I don't blame you. If Comcast would quit trying to shove all their other services down my throat I might make the switch also.
Not sure what 'line conditioning' might entail, or if it is a bunch of nonsense.
Not sure either but I know it is not nonsense. I will ask my ISP later today. After he did what he had to do my speed jumped up to where it was suppose to be.
Several of my clients do since I host Offsite FTP Backups. I am pretty sure there are quite a number of users that now upload data to the Cloud at some point.
Of course, being a new house in a new sub-division might deliver good service until the neighborhood fills up.
We are rural, the neighborhood is pretty sparse. Again, the difference between the two homes is the type and age of cable connecting the houses to the pedestal, and 50 ft. The new cable is 50% larger in diameter than the cable that serves my house. I expect that there is a reason they are now using that type of cable over the thinner stuff, and it's not because it is cheaper.
The internet, or at least TCP/IP networking, is supposed to be peer to peer. (Yes, I know TCP/IP has clients and servers)
It certainly was not intended to be a broadcast medium, with central "content" providers and passive consumers of that content.
Things like dropbox are an abomination caused by the fact that you cannot get a good access speed to my computer even if you can see it from the internet at all.
My BT Infinity connection is fibre-optic to a street cabinet, and twisted-pair to my home. Since I am about 1/4 mile from the cabinet I only get about 20 Mbps download and 8 Mbps upload speeds. With the package I have, the maximum download speed is 38 Mbps, but I'd have to be a lot closer to the cabinet to get that.
Like so often, @Heater. has a point here, worth some discussions.
Why is download faster then upload as soon as tcp/ip hits your personal connection to the internet?
In your home network or company networks - even with all them dedicated server I am running in the wild - neither Ethernet nor the tcp/ip layer are per se restricting up- against down- loads. Not build for that at all. IPV6 has some 'features' for prioritizing traffic but IP4 not.
As far as I remember it started with ADSL (called DSL mostly but it isn't. It's ADSL. A for Async.). Modems and ISDN usually had not had that restriction.
Since that time the 2 way Internet Connection got restricted by most providers to ensure that the customer will be a content consumer, not a equally fast content provider.
Just keeping the consumer on a constantly/daily changing IP address did not cut it, since services like dyndns where able to circumvent that restriction.
Q: Providing equal access to the internet for ALL? Heck - ANYBODY can then run servers from home! No need for hosting fees and Data Center! HELL NO. This can't happen. How can we make money out of this. I need answers now!
A: Hmm - we could restrict the upload bandwidth? Would that do it?
And it does. Together with port restriction, not allowing you - mostly - to run webserver on port 80 or (oh NO) a own mail server.
It has not to be that way. Not from a technically stand point. The internet itself and the protocols used are not at all async. by definition. Neither is Ethernet and tcp/ip.
At the time we used MODEMS or ISDN we could connect to some friend directly via phone line or (later) over the web. Up and download on both sides where the same.
Now you are down to your UPLOAD speed, trying to do that. Both of you, sort of.
Comments
All our lines are buried. The new house is getting the speed paid for, our house is getting the speed that they say is the best we can expect due to the length of the line, a 3Mbs difference for an extra 50 feet of line. At this point I am done arguing with them. Our new connection is literally ten times faster than Century Link's advertised speed, so I think we will stick with that.
Way back when we had our first DSL line put in, the tech was having a terrible time getting a good DSL signal out of it. This went on for a while until an old tech came out and actually drove from point to point along the line and REMOVED all the "conditioning" that had been put in for the voice circuit. The data line was MUCH happier without all the added stuff.
This is all a game of how you deliver services to win more customers... cost/benefit ratios. Different companies pay the game differently, but none seem to have 100% satisfied users as their endgame. When service gets bad enough, they offer a rate-reduction on upgrades to a higher data rate bracket, but it is more monthly cost to the subscriber. (I have been through one round of that).
Sorry I am very jaded. To me it is just a big repeat of American cable TV.
Not sure either but I know it is not nonsense. I will ask my ISP later today. After he did what he had to do my speed jumped up to where it was suppose to be.
@
We are rural, the neighborhood is pretty sparse. Again, the difference between the two homes is the type and age of cable connecting the houses to the pedestal, and 50 ft. The new cable is 50% larger in diameter than the cable that serves my house. I expect that there is a reason they are now using that type of cable over the thinner stuff, and it's not because it is cheaper.
Tier one support will say anything to close a ticket.
Congrats on the cable ISP!
The internet, or at least TCP/IP networking, is supposed to be peer to peer. (Yes, I know TCP/IP has clients and servers)
It certainly was not intended to be a broadcast medium, with central "content" providers and passive consumers of that content.
Things like dropbox are an abomination caused by the fact that you cannot get a good access speed to my computer even if you can see it from the internet at all.
Shameful.
Nothing serious we hope, Amanda? There are robots who require your full attention!
Why is download faster then upload as soon as tcp/ip hits your personal connection to the internet?
In your home network or company networks - even with all them dedicated server I am running in the wild - neither Ethernet nor the tcp/ip layer are per se restricting up- against down- loads. Not build for that at all. IPV6 has some 'features' for prioritizing traffic but IP4 not.
As far as I remember it started with ADSL (called DSL mostly but it isn't. It's ADSL. A for Async.). Modems and ISDN usually had not had that restriction.
Since that time the 2 way Internet Connection got restricted by most providers to ensure that the customer will be a content consumer, not a equally fast content provider.
Just keeping the consumer on a constantly/daily changing IP address did not cut it, since services like dyndns where able to circumvent that restriction.
Q: Providing equal access to the internet for ALL? Heck - ANYBODY can then run servers from home! No need for hosting fees and Data Center! HELL NO. This can't happen. How can we make money out of this. I need answers now!
A: Hmm - we could restrict the upload bandwidth? Would that do it?
And it does. Together with port restriction, not allowing you - mostly - to run webserver on port 80 or (oh NO) a own mail server.
It has not to be that way. Not from a technically stand point. The internet itself and the protocols used are not at all async. by definition. Neither is Ethernet and tcp/ip.
At the time we used MODEMS or ISDN we could connect to some friend directly via phone line or (later) over the web. Up and download on both sides where the same.
Now you are down to your UPLOAD speed, trying to do that. Both of you, sort of.
Like @Heater. said. It is
Shameful.
Mike