ADSL Bandwidth Monitoring

[Bahman M.]

Joao Barros wrote:
> On 9/8/07, Bahman M. <b.movaqar at adempiere.org> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have an ADSL connection at home.
>>
>> When I'm _uploading_ files the whole upload bandwidth is consumed; so
>> far so good.
>>
>> But when _downloading_ no more than 30~40% of download bandwidth is
>> consumed.
>>
>> The guys in the ISP say they've granted me the requested bandwidth but
>> this is not what I see in action.
>>
>> How may I know the real bandwidth limits of my connection?  Any tool or
>> trick?  Or maybe I'm misunderstanding something about ADSL bandwidth?
> 
> First of all you have to take into account that with an ADSL
> connection, I'm guessing PPPoE, you have overhead due to protocol
> tunnelling.

The connection is a simple ethernet connection (sorry, I don't know the 
exact technical name) which requires no authentication and setup (I have 
a valid static IP address).  On a fresh system, I just need to specify 
gateway IP and my own machine's and plug the cable in and it starts working

> Next you must verify that you don't max out your upload while testing
> download speed. From my tests, up to 90% upload bandwidth usage is
> safe and shows no impact on download performance.

Tested while not uploading and the results were the same.

> And for last, use multiple download sources as only one may not be enough.
> Find http or ftp mirrors close to you (on your ISP for ex) and start
> downloading multiple ISOs for example.
> 
I tested the connection by downloading 2~3 files simultaneously and used 
'bmon' as Mel suggested in another reply (thanks to him).  As I'd 
already guessed the RX don't get bigger than 30~40% of the expected 
bandwidth.  I performed the test with some other files and there was no 
difference.

> Note: Make sure the device taking care of the PPPoE connection is
> powerful enough to support your bandwidth. For example, I still have a
> Linksys WRT54GL as router and I can easily see 100% cpu usage and load
> 1 and thus I can't use my max contracted bandwidth. Use the modem or
> a powerful enough machine running FreeBSD of course :)
> 

Don't worry about that! My connection is such slow that even the 
primitive NICs and CPUs would handle it :-)

Thanks,

Bahman