why do they call it 56kbps when its only 5?

spiroth10 · Post by **spiroth10** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:26 pm

I was wondering for a long time now -- why do they call 56kbps dial up 56k?
its FAR from that, and you know if youve ever used it. it only downloads at about 5kbps. 7 at most. I mean it moves at about 56 KILOBITs per second, not KILOBYTEs... or is it measured in kilobits and not bytes? I think its bytes, but Im not sure...

just wanted to know the answer to a question thats been plauging me.

butters · Post by **butters** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:30 pm

The connection speed is 56 kilobits per second, which comes out to 7 kilobytes per second. In actuality it's just about impossible to connect at that speed due to line conditions.

Post by **|darc|** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:30 pm

It's 56 kilobits, not bytes. 56 kilobits = 7 kilobytes.

(EDIT: Gah butters >_<)

Post by **Roofus** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:30 pm

Kbps means Kilobits Per Second. The best you can get is about 48 Kbps, though 56k is the theoretical max over standard phone lines. The 5kb/second transfer you referred to is not solely dependant on the connecton speed. There are other things that need to be taken into account: protocol overhead, network congestion, line quality, etc.

(EDIT: Gah darc and butters >_<)

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:34 pm

The theoretical maximum data transfer speed across a standard phone line is 56.6 kilobits per second. That's where the name comes from. In practice, it's never that high because of line noise, signal degradation, how the hardware is connected to the phone system, and other factors. Here, we can get a maximum connection speed of 44 kilobits per second, which is around 5.3 kilobytes per second. Due to the overhead of the various protocols used for transferring the data across the line (like PPP and IP), the maximum speed we've ever managed was 5 kilobytes per second, and that was using BitTorrent, and it only happened for a few seconds.

Post by **Roofus** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:39 pm

BlackAura wrote:The theoretical maximum data transfer speed across a standard phone line is 56.6 kilobits per second. That's where the name comes from. In practice, it's never that high because of line noise, signal degradation, how the hardware is connected to the phone system, and other factors. Here, we can get a maximum connection speed of 44 kilobits per second, which is around 5.3 kilobytes per second. Due to the overhead of the various protocols used for transferring the data across the line (like PPP and IP), the maximum speed we've ever managed was 5 kilobytes per second, and that was using BitTorrent, and it only happened for a few seconds.

Did I not just say that, nearly verbatim?

butters · Post by **butters** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:40 pm

Roofus wrote:
BlackAura wrote:The theoretical maximum data transfer speed across a standard phone line is 56.6 kilobits per second. That's where the name comes from. In practice, it's never that high because of line noise, signal degradation, how the hardware is connected to the phone system, and other factors. Here, we can get a maximum connection speed of 44 kilobits per second, which is around 5.3 kilobytes per second. Due to the overhead of the various protocols used for transferring the data across the line (like PPP and IP), the maximum speed we've ever managed was 5 kilobytes per second, and that was using BitTorrent, and it only happened for a few seconds.
Did I not just say that, nearly verbatim?

He's decided to be redundant today.

Strapping Scherzo · Post by **Strapping Scherzo** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:45 pm

It is worth noting here that it's a convention to use "b" for bits and "B" for bytes.

Post by **|darc|** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:47 pm

Butters wrote:
Roofus wrote:
BlackAura wrote:The theoretical maximum data transfer speed across a standard phone line is 56.6 kilobits per second. That's where the name comes from. In practice, it's never that high because of line noise, signal degradation, how the hardware is connected to the phone system, and other factors. Here, we can get a maximum connection speed of 44 kilobits per second, which is around 5.3 kilobytes per second. Due to the overhead of the various protocols used for transferring the data across the line (like PPP and IP), the maximum speed we've ever managed was 5 kilobytes per second, and that was using BitTorrent, and it only happened for a few seconds.
Did I not just say that, nearly verbatim?
He's decided to be redundant today.

Right, as we've already seen just a second ago

butters · Post by **butters** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:49 pm

|darc| wrote:
Butters wrote:
Roofus wrote:
BlackAura wrote:The theoretical maximum data transfer speed across a standard phone line is 56.6 kilobits per second. That's where the name comes from. In practice, it's never that high because of line noise, signal degradation, how the hardware is connected to the phone system, and other factors. Here, we can get a maximum connection speed of 44 kilobits per second, which is around 5.3 kilobytes per second. Due to the overhead of the various protocols used for transferring the data across the line (like PPP and IP), the maximum speed we've ever managed was 5 kilobytes per second, and that was using BitTorrent, and it only happened for a few seconds.
Did I not just say that, nearly verbatim?
He's decided to be redundant today.
Right, as we've already seen just a second ago

Exactly what I was referring to

Vchat20 · Post by **Vchat20** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 12:20 am

ive actually been able to connect @ 50kbit here on dialup according to XP. and this is on a phone line i jimmy rigged in the basement.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 12:32 am

He's decided to be redundant today.

Well, stop posting mere while I'm typing!

curt_grymala · Post by **curt_grymala** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 8:26 am

I thought it was kilobauds. I could have sworn that modems always referred to baud, rather than bit or byte.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 9:35 am

I thought it was kilobauds. I could have sworn that modems always referred to baud, rather than bit or byte.

They were, but that hasn't been the case for a long time. In general usage (like marketing stuff) it just has the mysterious letter "K" stuck to the end, but I think it's been kilobits since before 33.6Kbps modems were around. It was a 9600 baud modem, but I don't think I've heard that term used for anything above that.

toastman · Post by **toastman** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 9:50 am

And here in the U.S. even if you have a 56kbps modem and a 56kbps connection, the most you'll ever connect at is 53kbps because that's the highest they'll let you connect at.

farrell2k · Post by **farrell2k** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 11:18 am

Does anyone remember that petition in 2000 that hundreds of thousands signed to ask the fcc to lift the 53kbps limit? Imagine being able to connect at t-1 speeds through a dial-up connection. Thanks to the broadband initiative by the gov't, and greed on behalf of telcos, that never came about.

Post by **Roofus** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 11:47 am

farrell2k wrote:Does anyone remember that petition in 2000 that hundreds of thousands signed to ask the fcc to lift the 53kbps limit? Imagine being able to connect at t-1 speeds through a dial-up connection. Thanks to the broadband initiative by the gov't, and greed on behalf of telcos, that never came about.

That, and it would be technically impossible. The frequency range for voice lines is about 200-3000hz (about the same as the human voice.) DSL works over the same lines because the phone company modifies the line at your house to open up another range of frequencies (I forgot exact what it is they do.) which is why you need to add the filter to your phones. Since the DSL and phone use completely different frequency ranges, they can coexist on the same wires.

And in some places, the line quality is pretty shi.tty (in some really, really far-out places, the lines are over 100 years old) so you could never, ever get "T-1 speeds." Then there's the disadvantage of dial-up connections tying up the phone line. Do you really wanna *completely* cut off your contact with the outside world while you're downloading all that porn at 300k/second? Or you could get a second phone line. But it might be cheaper/easier to get cable internet and settle for slightly-less-than-T1-speed.

Rev. Layle · Post by **Rev. Layle** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 12:35 pm

plus cable seems more stable to me these days, at least around here.

i know there is that sharing-bandwidth thing that DSL touted as the disadvantage of cable (which i guess technically it is), however adding extra nodes to distribute more bandwidth across cable users has become such a cheap and quick operation, it has become a non-issue these days

area · Post by **area** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 2:18 pm

BlackAura wrote:
I thought it was kilobauds. I could have sworn that modems always referred to baud, rather than bit or byte.
They were, but that hasn't been the case for a long time. In general usage (like marketing stuff) it just has the mysterious letter "K" stuck to the end, but I think it's been kilobits since before 33.6Kbps modems were around. It was a 9600 baud modem, but I don't think I've heard that term used for anything above that.

Baud rate referred to the speed the voltage could change at. However, once more than one bit could be transmitted with a single voltage change, bit rate and buad rate ceased to be the same, and bit rate (the speed of data transfer - the useful value) was used exclusively.

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 2:24 pm

What speeds could be achieved if two modems were directly connected to each other, competely bypassing the actual phone lines?