It was the router that was slowing my download speed

When I couldn't get the higher download speed that
RCN was now providing to cable customers, I was
passing it through my 10-year-old Linksys router.
Oddly enough, I still got the new, higher upload speed.
When I plugged the modem directly into the computer's
Ethernet card, I got the higher download speed, too
So now, what to do about the router? New ones that I
find for sale online appear to have the same specs
as the old one (i.e. 10/100 MBps, etc). Should I go
ahead and replace it anyway?

--
Charles Packer
http://cpacker.org/whatnews
mailboxATcpacker.org

On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 04:29:34 -0700 (PDT), Charles Packer wrote:
> When I couldn't get the higher download speed that
> RCN was now providing to cable customers, I was
> passing it through my 10-year-old Linksys router.
>
> Oddly enough, I still got the new, higher upload speed.

Yep, new upload speed still below router's top end.

> So now, what to do about the router? New ones that I
> find for sale online appear to have the same specs
> as the old one (i.e. 10/100 MBps, etc).

You want the speed, you need a new router.

> Should I go ahead and replace it anyway?

Do keep in mind IPV6 is just around the corner. :-D

I bought a wireless Internet Web camera. Kind of nice to be able to place it
anywhere there is a power plug.

Charles Packer <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> So now, what to do about the router? New ones that I find for sale
> online appear to have the same specs as the old one (i.e. 10/100
> MBps, etc). Should I go ahead and replace it anyway?

Processing a packet requires CPU cycles. There is no a priori
guarantee that a device with 10/100 ports actually as the CPU cycles
to drive those ports at 100 Mbit/s. Particularly as one adds-on
things like NAT or firewall or... Similarly for a device that has
10/100/1000 ports...

Chances are, had your "router" provided a way to look at CPU
utilization, it would have reported CPU utilization at or very near to
saturation (100%) in the case where you were not achieving the
advertised download speed.

In some contexts, interconnect devices will report their maximum
forwarding rates in packets per second and/or bits per second, but I'm
far from certain that home "routers" do so.

rick jones
always read the fine print
--
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

On Mar 16, 4:29*am, Charles Packer <mail...@cpacker.org> wrote:
> When I couldn't get the higher download speed that
> RCN was now providing to cable customers, I was
> passing it through my 10-year-old Linksys router.
> Oddly enough, I still got the new, higher upload speed.
> When I plugged the modem directly into the computer's
> Ethernet card, I got the higher download speed, too
> So now, what to do about the router? New ones that I
> find for sale online appear to have the same specs
> as the old one (i.e. 10/100 MBps, etc). Should I go
> ahead and replace it anyway?

Your router probably doesn't have the CPU horsepower to NAT at
100Mbps. I've seen early 10/100 small routers that had a maximum LAN-
to-WAN speed of 16Mbps.

DS