Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking
Date: 1999/09/08

> I recently fell prey to the need for a faster internet connection and
> signed up for PacBell's DSL.  However, it seems that I'm not getting
> anywhere close to the connection speeds advertised (surprise, surprise,
> eh?).  Using FTP in the dead of night as a gauge of max speed possible,
> I got the following speeds for a 6.5 Mb file (done in triplicate):
>
> download - (384 Kbps advertised) 147.83 Kbps, 151.56 Kbps, 150.69 Kbps
> upload - (128 Kbps advertised) 13.22 Kbps, 14.03 Kbps, 13.28 Kbps

The 384/128 guarantee is only from your home PC to where your connection at the CO finally hooks into their internet pipeline. Beyond that, you truly are at the mercy of the rest of the internet which Pacbell has no control over.

However, I am assuming that you did try a variety of different web sites to test your connection from. From a good site, I get over 1,100,000 bps down and over 120K up. This is with SWBell's lowest cost DSL service, which I understand is identical to PacBell's. From a bad site, I can crawl on my hands and knees with the best of them.

The best web site for testing I've found is http://speedtest.mybc.com.

One possibility is that your copper line has some bridge taps or other impediments which should be removed. However, your speeds are slow enough that I wonder how you passed the line test to get the service in the first place! Fully 50% of the people I personally know who have signed up for ADSL locally have been rejected as having inadequate connections.

Testing line quality is something that is impossible for you to do yourself directly, but you can conduct a polite campaign of contacting them and following up to see if they will do a better test of your line and correct whatever defects they find. I understand this is a slow process, however.