Broadband speeds on dial up

[Steve]

I've just read a review of a new piece of software that speeds up your dial up (56k modem) to broadband speeds! The reviewers were impressed enough to award this product 10/10. So I checked at the website:

http://www.onspeed.com/

The only draw back for us as musicians is... It doesn't yet speed up the download of MP3s...   BUT they reckon by April, this should be sorted... I found this article in Internet Advisor (January) They have promised a demo in the Feb. Issue. Something to look into I think.

I checked the site and the reviews of other magazines seems to support the 10/10 awarded by Internet Advisor!

The basic idea is a compression technology first invented for the US military. You download a small piece of software, then, when you request a page from the net, it is compressed, you download it and the software decompresses it resulting in a substantial speed increase!

All this for £30 per year! Cheap if it works...

[Didier]

Hi Steve,

I checked their website. As I thought, there's no magic involved. What can be easily compressed, they compress.

But you cannot compress an already compressed file, it's useless. This includes nearly all heavy content (images, sound, programs).

As a result, since compressing text is trivial (and, besides,  modems are already partly doing that), they strip images of colours and/or pixels. Otherwise, they wouldn't get any speed improvement on JPEG.

But think about it: JPEG is already compressing by losing content and they supress content further. I'm no graphist, so I wouldn't care much.

But they clame they will achieve the same thing with MP3s. MP3s are already heavily compressed, including content suppression. I wouldn't like an algorithm that would suppress further content.

The connection will also depend on the speed of their server to yours (if they would compress on your PC only, it wouldn't make sense). I did a speed test with their servers (from their site). The througput I get is average, not especially impressive.

Cheap if it works...

I suppose it will work, sort of... But I wouldn't put too much hope in it.

Didier

[Steve]

I will await the demo next month and give it a try. As someone with a very slow conection, I would be happy for any speed increase. Even waiting for these pages to load takes ages on my computer! If they should manage to create an algorythm for MP3s? Then it may well be worth £30... They state that they already have algorythms for images including jpegs, gifs etc.. so why not MP3s?

One to keep an eye on I think. The only thing that would cause me concern would be the uptake. If this is as good as they claim, can their servers cope with a huge demand?

[Didier]

I will await the demo next month and give it a try.

Hi Steve,

I would be interested to know the results.

As someone with a very slow conection, I would be happy for any speed increase.

What do you call "very slow"? Is it less than (theoritical) 56K?

Even waiting for these pages to load takes ages on my computer! If they should manage to create an algorythm for MP3s? Then it may well be worth £30... They state that they already have algorythms for images including jpegs, gifs etc.. so why not MP3s?

Indeed. Provided they have fast enough computers, they can take a 128K MP3, apply a codec at 32K (for instance) and voilà, you have transfer time divided by 4. But you have a 32K MP3.

I may be wrong on that. Right now, that's the only way I can see how they can compress MP3s much more than they are already compressed.

The only thing that would cause me concern would be the uptake. If this is as good as they claim, can their servers cope with a huge demand?

I don't think there will be that much demand, but time will tell.

Didier

[Steve]

What do you call "very slow"? Is it less than (theoritical) 56K?

I have a 56k modem, but the download speeds are very slow. It takes about 30 minutes to download  a 3meg MP3. Thats on a good day. It once took me over an hour to download a 4meg file!

Indeed. Provided they have fast enough computers, they can take a 128K MP3, apply a codec at 32K (for instance) and voilà, you have transfer time divided by 4. But you have a 32K MP3.

I may be wrong on that. Right now, that's the only way I can see how they can compress MP3s much more than they are already compressed

The idea is to have software on your computer to uncompress the file once you've downloaded it! I'm not technically minded enough to know how that will work but they appear confident enough!

[Stefanos]

hmmm so i guess wathever you want to download is first packat at their server and then you download it?

Why not get a better connection. Can't be that much expensive then the phone cost of a dail up? Or are you one of those with nooo good connection in the neigbourhood............

[Didier]

I have a 56k modem, but the download speeds are very slow. It takes about 30 minutes to download  a 3meg MP3.

If my maths are correct, your connection should be (at least) twice as fast.

I can think of 3 reasons for that:

- your modem has an issue. Could you check with another one?

- your provider is the issue. You could check with another one, by borrowing a login from a friend, just for an hour or so.

- your phone line is definetely no good. If you let your mouse over the connection (in the "tray") it normally tells you the speed of connection. What does it says, there?

Didier