[jaws-uk] Re: Wireless Protection
- From: "Ankers, Dave \(UK\)" <Dave.Ankers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 09:17:44 +0100
Hi Phil,
Thanks for that, very informative.
Dave
Hi Dave and all,
The current speeds offered by ISPs are measured in megabits rather than
megabytes. Since a bit is one eighth of a byte, a provider offering up to
eight mb is actually offering up to one megabyte.
Remember that up to means just that, up to. There has been a change in the
technique used to provide these faster speeds and it is usually achieved by
making the speed variable. You are almost certainly sharing an ISP's line with
50 or 100 other users and your speed may be affected depending on how much band
width they are taking.
Also, it is worth remembering that your connection to a site from which you are
downloading is, in reality, a set of links from one computer or device to the
next and sometimes extends to tens of these hops as they are called.
At each stage or hop, there could be a delay albeit very short but these can
add up if the chain of links is large.
Another matter to consider is that your computer will be using some of the band
width on your line to do its housekeeping and error checking to ensure that
your file isn't corrupted when your download is complete. This constant
traffic on the line is not directly seen by you but does contribute to the
volume of data which your line has to carry and must be factored in to the
download speed.
If you use wireless, this is yet another link in the chain and its quality can
have a significant effect upon the speed. Poor quality of the wireless signal
can reduce the speed of your connection dramatically. Usually, this boils down
to one of two things:
1. Weak signal, where you are either too far away from the wireless
router or where something like a thick wall or even several walls are reducing
the strength of the signal;
2. Noise interference, where another device such as a domestic appliance
which is not suppressed properly is transmitting radio waves and blocking out
the routers' transmitions.
One final thing on security ...
Many newer wireless dsl modem/firewall/wireless routers incorporate mac address
filtering. A mac address is a set of hexadecimal digits which are unique to
the wireless or, indeed, any adapter which can communicate between computers.
Mac address filters can be used to allow only the mac addresses of the adapters
in your own computers and rejecting any others. This adds another level of
security over and above the password security provided by the methods known as
WEP or WPA.
For those not familiar with the term hexadecimal, it is a mathematical notation
used to describe numbers which are held in binary formats as a sort of
shorthand. The digits are 0 to 9 and the letters A to F.
I hope that this hasn't confused anyone further.
Regards,
Phil Medway
philmedway@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tel: 01869 347639
mobile: 07980 519990
Skype: philmedway
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ankers, Dave (UK)" <Dave.Ankers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 1:33 PM
Subject: [jaws-uk] Re: Wireless Protection
Hi George,
I am currently paying for option 3 which is supposed to be up to 8
megabites. Is there anyway of telling if someone is tapping into my
connection? Anyone know just how secure the BT home hub is?
Thanks
Dave
Hi Dave,
The only way I know to check out speed issues with any degree of certainty,
is to run some tests at decidedly nasty hours of the day or night, when
there are likely to be fewer users around.
I think some providers are pushing the "contention ratios"
just too far, and what may have been 50 to 1 when you got it installed may
be more like 75 or 100 to 1.
For example, I find that Saturday midnight to Sunday 8am, my download speeds
are close to 2MB, yet by mid-Sunday morning when all the kids get on line,
it's down below 1MB
George.
-----Original Message-----
From: jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ankers, Dave (UK)
Sent: 27 April 2007 12:32
To: jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [jaws-uk] Wireless Protection
Hi all,
I have seen some posts concerning wireless protection on wi fi etc I
currently use a BT home hub with my main pc wired to it and my wife uses her
works laptop pc wirelessly. In the last few weeks, the internet download
speed has seriously reduced and I have had concerns about the security of my
system. Could someone be using my connection and causing the slow
connection? My wife had to load a security code onto a memory stick and
transfer it onto her pc in order to connect to the hub. Has anyone else
noticed a general slowing down of broadband connection speeds?
Thanks in advance.
Dave
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