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Reproduction of all or part only with our permission..
This FAQ is edited by: removed  , state , rjackson
It was last modified on 2006-01-27 14:55:42
1 About this FAQWhy is this here?People usually want one thing from their broadband service -- SPEED. This FAQ is here to help you understand what bandwidth is, how to keep track of it, and how to tweak it (more speed = good :)).
I have a suggestion!You can submit suggestions for this FAQ here. 2 Bandwidth factsWhat's the difference between a kilobit and a kilobyte?OC-3? T3? T1? How fast are these?From http://yocum.org/faqs/bandwidth/:
OC-255 13.21 Gbps
OC-192 10 Gbps
OC-96 4.976 Gbps
OC-48, STS-48 2.488 Gbps
OC-36 1.866 Gbps
OC-24 1.244 Gbps
OC-18 933.12 Mbps
OC-12, STS-12 622.08 Mbps
OC-9 466.56 Mbps
OC-3, STS-3 155.52 Mbps
CDDI, FDDI, Fast Ethernet, Category 5 cable 100 Mbps
OC-1, STS-1 51.84 Mbps
T-3, DS-3 North America 44.736 Mbps
E-3 Europe 34.368 Mbps
Category 4 cable 20 Mbps
Token Ring LANs 16 Mbps
Thin Ethernet, category 3 cable, cable modem 10Mbps
E-2 Europe 8.448 Mbps
T-2, DS-2 North America 6.312 Mbps
Standard ADSL downstream 6.144 Mbps
DS-1c 3.152 Mbps
E-1, DS-1 Europe 2.048 Mbps
ADSL, T-1, DS-1 North America 1.544 Mbps
ISDN 128 Kbps
DS-0, pulse code modulation 64 Kbps
U.S. Robotics x2 modems, 56 Kbps 56flex
56flex, x2 modem communications rate 33.6 Kbps
V.34, Rockwell V.Fast Class modems 28.8 Kbps
Level 1 cable, minimum cable data speed 20 Kbps
V.32bis modem, V.17 fax 14.4 Kbps
modem speed circa early 1990s 9600 bps
modem speed circa 1980s 2400 bps
What is the maximum speed for ADSL?What is the maximum speed for SDSL?How fast does a file download at each speed/line?Where is the best collection of speed tests?What is my top speed?When you are networked to the Internet, or to your own network, the bandwidth given is the theoretical maximum. The real world, of course, doesn't work like that. There are many things which affect your actual bandwidth. This is a simple introduction to the basics: Bandwidth3 Managing bandwidthHow can I limit bandwidth on one machine?NetLimiter can be used to limit bandwidth, set restrictions per application, and view various statistics. Shunra Nimbus is another popular application used to do this. Some sites have cool bandwidth graphs. How do I set one up?Is there a tool that can show me how much I've downloaded?How can I optimize my broadband?4 MRTGWhat is MRTG?This is a perfect example of MRTG. DSLReports graphs incoming and outgoing traffic. This, however, is only one of many things MRTG can do. More from http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/mrtg/mrtg.html: MRTG consists of a Perl script which uses SNMP to read the traffic counters of your routers and a fast C program which logs the traffic data and creates beautiful graphs representing the traffic on the monitored network connection. These graphs are embedded into webpages which can be viewed from any modern Web-browser.
In addition to a detailed daily view, MRTG also creates visual representations of the traffic seen during the last seven days, the last five weeks and the last twelve months. This is possible because MRTG keeps a log of all the data it has pulled from the router. This log is automatically consolidated so that it does not grow over time, but still contains all the relevant data for all the traffic seen over the last two years. This is all performed in an efficient manner. Therefore you can monitor 200 or more network links from any halfway decent UNIX box.
MRTG is not limited to monitoring traffic, though. It is possible to monitor any SNMP variable you choose. You can even use an external program to gather the data which should be monitored via MRTG. People are using MRTG, to monitor things such as System Load, Login Sessions, Modem availability and more. MRTG even allows you to accumulate two or more data sources into a single graph. How do I set up MRTG on a Windows machine?This guide is the best way to start an installation. If you run into issues, feel free to start a thread about it in the forums. How do I set up MRTG on a UNIX machine?This page offers a very good walkthrough on setting up MRTG for UNIX. Is my device compatible with MRTG?MRTG relies on SNMP to grab data, so if your device can communicate using SNMP, there is a very good chance that MRTG will work. A compatibility list can be found at the official MRTG site. |
