RE: ISDN TA question.

SantaHoe

Ok, I've got two TA's...
One USB, one internal....
The USB TA gives horrible pings 80-100ms, yet gets great download speeds.
On the other hand, the internal TA gives sweet ping 40-60ms and horrible (worse than 56k modem) downloads, web-browsing included.
Is it usual for TA's to differ so much?
Does this sound at all fix-able?

I'll try a different driver later, but it's really starting to p!ss me off.... currently wondering which one to take back.

strat

Wot brand are these TA's ?
I assume u tryed the latest drivers for both
Running on wot spec machine - os
Any tweaking stuff u had on ur machine for 56k *might* be causing hastle in the machine also.

Ill be needing all this info my self when ever the fupp eircom install my ISDN

A shiny new ASUS ta shood arrive chez moi next week, afaik asus is up there with the eicon diva for low ping and general nyomness for much less dough

djmagra

Yeah man, there can be huge differences in the performance of different TA's. A lot of the time this is just driver/protocol issues, howeverm certian TA's are just muck, such as the WebFlyer that Eircom (used) to supply. My advice is stay away from anything Eircom provide, the Eicon Diva ain't bad, but there's a lot better for a lot cheaper out there!!

LoGiE

Have to disagree with you there djmagra web flyers might look like only being fit for use as a door wedge but I've found them excellent. It's basically a TA with out the bells and whistles attached... I run two OS's W2k and Win98se and there is a slight difference in download rate&Ping could be the reason for the strange occurance

bkehoe

I found the webflyers to be crap as well, and hard to control multilink, i.e. not controllable in the normal way. Just in general, any serial port TA is going to be limited to 115k, whereas dual isdn is 128k and probably some compression on top of that. Use Eicon Divas myself, ISA and PCI ones with no problems. Got one of their routers for a local business and it works great.

SantaHoe

Well, after about 3 Windows re-installs, 10 cups of coffee, and 12 hours later, I've narrowed it down to my creative soundcard drivers screwing up the PCI bus somehow, and in turn w0nking my download rates on the PCI TA.
(dowloading new soundcard drivers at 7K/s as I speak )

Now you'd think one of you people could have told me that instead of arguing over which TA is better.
Hmmm?

R. Daneel Olivaw

What sort of speed do you get using both channels? Do you get 14k/s?

Also, what are the call charges per line.....with the DSL price fiasco I am looking at ISDN for the moment to see if it may be OK.

SantaHoe

Yeah I get roughly 13-14K/s using both channels in good conditions.
The call charges are the same as a normal modem dialup ~1p per minute... enabling both channels uses both lines, and will thus - double the per minute charges to ~2p.
But then you can get an IOL subscription account which would lower the per-minute charge to something like 0.6p.

IIRC the ISDN installation was IR£98 (inc vat), and you should pick up a good TA for around £50.
Then you've got the extra line rental fee on every bill (something like an extra £15).
It took about two weeks from ordering - to installation, which wasn't bad at all, compared to some of the horror stories I've heard about.

As an alternative to ADSL though?!
Hell no!
As soon as reasonably affordabe xDSL comes along, I'm ditching this ISDN malarky all together.
But I suppose if you're really itching for that extra little boost in download speeds, or want a low ping for games - then give it a go.... but you'll be kicking yourself if real DSL turns up in a month or two.

R. Daneel Olivaw

Yeah but I am most likely not going to be in Dublin much longer at the moment, so DSL would be not an option anyway as they said it's only certain areas of Dublin at the moment.

IOL say it's 11.5p for 15 minutes off-peak using IOL Gold. So that's what, 46p/hour for 64k. 92p/hour for 128k damn that is still pretty expensive. Still I suppose in one hour at 14k/sec you can download 840kB/minute so 50MB in an hour, pretty nice. So for game demos and updates it's a lot cheaper (92p for 50MB at 128k, or around £1.80 for the 3 hours at 56k speed for around 4-5k/s).

So what, it's worth the dual channel for downloads anyway (with an IOL account). What are the pings like on 64k and what is gaming like at 64k? Better than 56k or not? Are you talking 100ms pings or down to around 40ms pings?

I can't really find much on quality of ISDN in Ireland at all, sorry if I'm asking too much...:P (ADSL will take some time to get to Cork I have a feeling)

PhilipMarlowe

I have an IOL gold a/c dating back from god only knows when... I find that I only use it for "light duty" stuff... sometimes it is even too pants for checking email and browsing.... thats using the same ISDN line, same TA, same settings - just using the 1891 number instead of dialing the node directly.... I don't find the 1891 number to be any use for gaming or downloading anyway... so if these are what you intend doing mostly, well......
eg. ping playing counterstrike for me (kilkenny) dialing the IOL waterford node (still a local call) varies from probably 40 at best to generally well under 100.... using the 1891 number probably at best at 150 but would even be too unstable to ever bother with...

djmagra

OK, trust me when I say I know what I'm talking about when it comes to WebFart's, they are pure ****e!!
As for ISDN, there is only one way to go in this country from what I can see, and that's Buyandsell.net, they provide FREE dual channell access. No, I don't mean you don't have free phonecalls, but it does save you about £300 per year in ISP fees.
Oh....don't touch IOL either, pure ****e, if you do want to pay someone a packet fro somethig you can get for free, then it has to be Eircom or Indigo

gurramok

As for ISDN, there is only one way to go in this country from what I can see, and that's Buyandsell.net, they provide FREE dual channell access. No, I don't mean you don't have free phonecalls, but it does save you about £300 per year in ISP fees.

not necessarily true, subscription accounts are only beneficial if u use over lets say 200 hrs/off-peak a month @ 46p/hr on 1891 no.

The 'free' isp's are only useful for light isdn net users @ 60p/hr.
Do the mathamatics, u would pay alot more @60p/hr off-peak for over 200 hrs/mnth access than u would on subscription.
It all depends if u are a heavy user r not

For a typical month on a 64k isdn off-peak hours

To 'break even' compared to when not subscribed it would be
200 hrs x 46p = £92 + £24 subscription charge = £116 !! + line rental on 1891 number

When not subscribed it would be
200 hrs x 60p = £120 + line rental on ordinary tel. number

peak hours it's about 92 p /hr on subscription or £2:40/ hr ordinary rate !!

ie...if u use more than 200 hrs/mth off-peak on a subscription it gets 'cheaper' than the normal call rates

so for a typical year, u might want a 64k isdn line just for 200 off-peak hrs/mnth access :
it would be that £116 + £35 = £151
x 12 months = £ 1812 (inc VAT)

i dare someone to work out peak-rate access

R. Daneel Olivaw

IOL sub is only £15 as well (or £11.99 if you do the 1 year in advance payment of £119).

Well what I was saying basically was that 64k access is plenty for game playing and browsing as you get it at cheap 46p/hour, and on big downloads (e.g., 50MB files), the dual channel works out around 1/3 cheaper because it costs twice as much as 56k but gives around 3x the speed (e.g., 4.5k/sec vs 14k/sec).

BKtje

tbh if you get 4.1 on a single line isdn ur modem/isp should be shot.
i get 7-8kb/s (9tops) on single line or 13 to a massive 17kb/s on dual.
4.1kb/s on single isdn? i got more than that on 56k.

R. Daneel Olivaw

No I meant aroudn 4-5k/sec on a 56k modem is about as good as it gets. I figure with ADSL being centuries away and I can't emigrate (yet), I'll go with an extra ISDN line. 17k/sec sounds pretty flashy to me after years of 5k/sec.......!