Re: Home networking - tuning

[patrickl@xxxxxxx]

--- In ukha_d@y..., "Robin Edwards" <robin@j...> wrote:
> Has anybody any recommendations on tuning a home based LAN?
Currently have pc with ISDN card, hub and two further PCs.  I've got
ISPEED from HMS installed but not used for a long time.  Wend to find
their website and it no longer seems to exist.  I needed that as it
had some suggested test sites for timing transfers.
>    My plan is to switch from hub to switch an 10 to 100Mbps, but
not until early next year.  In meantime I wanted to see if I could
improve internet resp times especially for the PCs without the ISDN
card.  Any suggestion on ways to improve resp time, or anyone using
ISPEED that could give me a test site?  All current changes need to
be tuning (ie no new hardware this year).
>

Tuning a 10MBps network with ISDN access isn't going to result in a
significant improvement in internet connectivity response times
because the bottleneck is the 64k/128k ISDN connection. Indeed, I
would be surprised if you see any significant improvement from moving
from a hub to a switch, unless your PC's are currently used very
intensively. May be you could borrow one to try before splashing out?

You seem to imply that the PC's on the LAN seem to be significantly
slower than the PC with the ISDN router on board. This is a bit
curious, and suggests that maybe there is a fundamental
software/routing configuration issue. You may want to consider
switching to Microsofts Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) product -
but that may involve upgrading the OS on your ISDN connected machine,
depending on what you run today.

I'm not familiar with the ISpeed product - so I can't comment on that.

Other thoughts are:
- install a local proxy server if you do simultaneous web browsing.
Your ISP may also offer a remote proxy service, which will offer some
improvement, but not as great as that of using local proxy.
- choose a mirror site which is located geographically close to you
if your are doing large downloads
- consider channel bonding, if your ISDN card and ISP supports it.
This will of course double your call charges and give an engaged tone
to incoming analogue calls on the line.

HTH
Patrick