Internet Accelerators

Post by **Neil B** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 6:28 am

I have a dial up modem and I wonder if any (especially UK) members have any experience of this product, or if anyone has any views on the subject.

It's a pain downloading large files!
(I know, get broadband but the product below is only £25)

http://www.onspeed.com

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 6:35 am

If you are into audio, you will need faster results than that. On the other hand, if you are a very,very, patient guy, it will work. I am paying 40 USD for lightning fast whalemail, 4 I am very impatient.

To Us, And Those Like Us,

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 6:51 am

I really doubt it's going to work very well. How much do you pay for dialup? It's really not much more for an ADSL connection. I'm paying about £21 per month for 4mbit down, 256kbit up, and you can pay less for slower speeds I guess. I'd say it's definitely worth it, because there's minimum hassle, and with a cheap router multiple machines can use it.

calippo · Post by **calippo** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 11:07 am

from their website:

"ONSPEED will not accelerate browsing over HTTPS (secure websites), file downloads or uploads such as QuickTime files, MP3, AVI, MPEG, exes or streaming media content (over FTP or file sharing programs)."

katano · Post by **katano** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:21 pm

On 2006-06-15 07:28, Neil B wrote:
I have a dial up modem...

you have my condolence

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 1:00 pm

I wish to extend my deepest sympathy to you and your family. This must be a difficult time for you.

On 2006-06-15 07:28, Neil B wrote:
I have a dial up modem

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 1:50 pm

dial-up is always more expensive than DSL
why ?
it doesn't cost the provider anything to 'piggypack' it on your existing line - but he can still charge for the service

crudely simplyfied, but that's the bottomline

cheers, Tom

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 12:09 am

Well, you can try out a 14-day trial apparently: "ONSPEED offers a 14-day money back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied."

So why not give it a go

The funny thing (I thought) about their site was that under the "Language" drop-down box they've got "U.S.A." and "English" as two separate entries

Royston

Post by **Neil B** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 12:32 am

Thanks folks
I hadn't been to the website at the time, simply seen an advert in a magazine.
No use then this accelerator, especially as I want to download more of your MP3's.

Thanks to all for the condolences too- it gave me a warm feeling to know that you all cared so much

Dialup - £6 per month
If I move to Broadband it'll be about £20 per month.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:57 am

you cannot simply compare fees and connection types without knowing their real performance.

On a supercheap dialup line you'll never reach a sustained 56k bitrate, as you'll get multiplexed with as many users as the provider needs to make a profit from the line.
The same applies to DSL, just the scale of the figures varies

Providers NEVER guarantee a bitrate, unless you pay premium business fees.

On larger downloads with a modem the chance of irrecoverable errors increases significantly - the infamous lock of the application in the last minute of a 1 hour download... ouch.

I've been on AOL dialup quite some time when living outside the city, and it was a fairly reliable service, but I paid for it accordingly...
In relation to DSL it was a ridiculuous amount, but I was able to make last minute bids on eBay (had to push the button 16-27 seconds before expiration, depending on time of the day), while people with a 'more affordable' connection couldn't even load eBay pages at certain times.

DSL is really worth the extra expense, as your connection will become more versatile - and it save the most precious thing one can buy - time.

cheers, Tom

Cochise · Post by **Cochise** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 4:12 am

Don't know if you're already using something similar, but a download manager like Flashget could help, speeding up a bit and giving you the chance for stop and resume downloads.
It will come in handy even if you will change to ADSL connection, and if I right remember there's a free version with advertisements on the top of the windows.
The Flashgot plugin is needed for launching it from the browser if you use Firefox.

It works good here. You've just to set the speed limit to manual when performing multiple downloads to avoid a 100% CPU usage for long times; but this is pratically an ADSL related issue.

[ This Message was edited by: Cochise on 2006-06-17 05:36 ]

Aries · Post by **Aries** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 4:50 am

I use free download manager with no adverts.:- http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/download.htm

it has resume downloads as well. Although the standard windows download does seem to do resume on some downloads, which was unexpected.

You can get TalkTalk Broadband for Â£10 a month with up to 8 Megabits per second download speed, if its available in your area (its going nationwide).

[ This Message was edited by: Aries on 2006-06-17 05:54 ]

Cochise · Post by **Cochise** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 2:36 pm

That it's. Afaik download manager entirely uses the available bandwidth, subdividing in frames downloaded files.
I've a considerable speedup using it with ADSL connection.
The first, concrete advantage however, using it with dial up is the resume possibility.

I don't know about the app suggested by Aries, but Flashget is a full featured software, although adverts in the free version could minimally engage some bandwidth every now and then I guess.

Switching the speed limit to manual in Flashget doesn't necessarily mean to decrease the download speed, it just mean to manually set the right bandwidth value for the download connections (a value easily noticeable when the app is operating in automatic mode; settings greater than its peak are the right choice); this way no CPU resources are needed for monitoring the links speed and calculating the amount of bandwidth the application must reserve for them. Lower settings of this value (if the whole avalaible bandwidht is enough, of course) are usefull when surfing the web or listening to radio stream while downloading.

[ This Message was edited by: Cochise on 2006-06-17 16:25 ]

Post by **Neil B** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 10:21 pm

More great tips and advice thanks.

56K - a dream with my ISP - I usually get 31200 max, with the odd 40K on a good hour!

Talk Talk sounds cheap & fast but I may simply swap to my ISP's broadband option - I can't face the hassle of telling everyone from friends to Native Instruments to other sites the change of email address.
At least if I stick with the same ISP I can keep the same email address.

Thanks to all anyway.

Aries · Post by **Aries** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 6:45 am

On 2006-06-18 23:21, Neil B wrote:
More great tips and advice thanks.

56K - a dream with my ISP - I usually get 31200 max, with the odd 40K on a good hour!

Talk Talk sounds cheap & fast but I may simply swap to my ISP's broadband option - I can't face the hassle of telling everyone from friends to Native Instruments to other sites the change of email address.
At least if I stick with the same ISP I can keep the same email address.

Thanks to all anyway.

Another thought.

You could change to Talk Talk for speed and keep your present ISP on a pay as you go basis, just for your emails. Then you could gradually change over to Talk Talk for emails if you wish.

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 8:02 am

Another possibility: as Orange have just brought out Wannado, if you're prepared to get tied in to a 18-month minimum mobile contract with them, you get 18 months free broadband!

The only catch that I'm aware of is that you're capped at 2GB per month.

I'm considering it myself, but usually d/l much more than 2GB per month, so I'm still thinking about it.

Cochise · Post by **Cochise** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 8:23 am

I've got an Adsl contract for 4Mbit/s as download rate. The average speed from the best servers abroad is 140Mbit/s, here.
I've read somewhere that even very fast connections are useless out of the provider net. Some ridges connecting states and continents are not that fast.
At today my provider offers the chance of 16Mb in ADSL2 at the same price I'm paying for 4Mb, but it's not usefull for me; personally I'd just get the chance for TV/video contents and some other service the ISP itself supplies (pay for view).
No intention of replace my modem; I just rarely watch TV. I'm instead looking for a cheaper contract too.
What doesn't appeal to me is the time I'll remain without connection if I'd decide to change ISP.
Last time I changed, it was more than two month..

Post by **Neil B** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 10:34 pm

That's another good idea Aries of having Talk Talk at £10 and Tesco at £6 but I'm not sure whether 2 modems/ISP's could co-exist. It may cause headaches.

The money isn't the problem - it's hassle I don't like.

Unlike Counterparts I'm not a big net user so 2Gb per month would be fine for me.
I'm just so conscious of the fact that I don't download and respond to other "Z" members tracks as much as I should because of my 31200 download speed.

I'm not sure how Orange will perform, Counterparts.
I used to be with Freeserve, which became Wanadoo and now Orange.
As Freeserve and Wanadoo the support was worse than a rubber crutch and the thought of having a mobile phone doesn't appeal to me either.

Like Cochise, I don't watch much TV either and this set me thinking about another thing looming on the British horizon:

If all TV has to go digital by 2012 or whatever, because the government say so, what is going to happen with the TV licence?

I could manage without a TV altogether but:
If TV is available on your pc over broadband-
If TV is available on your mobile phone-

surely this means that if you sell your TV, the government can say that you still have the ability to watch TV because you have a computer, and therefore you have to pay for a TV licence !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder what scam the people at number 10 will pull on this one?

Sorry, I changed subjects

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 12:18 am

On 2006-06-19 23:34, Neil B wrote:
...having Talk Talk at £10 and Tesco at £6 but I'm not sure whether 2 modems/ISP's could co-exist. It may cause headaches.

The money isn't the problem - it's hassle I don't like.

Unlike Counterparts I'm not a big net user so 2Gb per month would be fine for me...

usually you can handle all your mail accounts from one system (via DSL), as most providers use the same network backbones, so it's just a question of routing (automatically done by address/access codes).

I still have my old AOL account, one of my current DSL service provider and can even manage the office accounts (from a different provider) remotely from my home.

it may vary with contracts, but afaik those Gigabit/byte rates (carefully read the small print!) are 'bandwidth' which means everything that went down the line to your PC.

An eBay listing page is about 300 kByte, individual offers with pictures (in useless resolution) may easily exceed a few MBytes.
It seems generally hard to find pages below 150 KByte.
I've just checked 2 threads with nice pics/links from Huub and Zer where the respective pages are 400-600 KByte each.

this way 1 hour webbrowsing at 10 pages per minute may result in 100 MByte traffic.
The exact value is difficult to predict as it also depends on browser/cache settings and programming of the pages (and of course on subject and content)
the point is just to watch out how much you're charged - usually per addional MByte(!) if the free rate was exceeded.
There are some truely insane conditions...

cheers, Tom

Aries · Post by **Aries** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 3:12 am

On 2006-06-19 23:34, Neil B wrote:
That's another good idea Aries of having Talk Talk at Â£10 and Tesco at Â£6 but I'm not sure whether 2 modems/ISP's could co-exist. It may cause headaches.

In Theory you could use both at the same time as one (narrowband) uses the speech bandwidth and the other (broadband) allows you to use speech, but I would not advise it.

Provided you don't use both at the same time there should be no problems. You just have two ISP providers to choose in your system tray. Using the same firewall, antivirus ,etc.