I've got a question about making modem connections via ppp. I want to be sure I'm configured for establishing the fastest possible connection, and I'd like to ask those of you who know to check my numbers with me.
I have a V.90 (56K) capable modem (Xircom RealPort if you're wondering), and I *think* the receiving modem (my university's modem pool) at the other receives 56K connections, though I'm not absolutely sure. I'm able to establish a connection using wvdial, it's all working fine, but I want to confirm the speed, and I'm not completely sure how to do that. Now the Linux ppp tools don't seem to talk in terms of "14K", "28K", "56K" modem speeds. They seem to refer directly to the serial port rate, which I have set at the apparent maximum of 115200 baud (so here's the first question: is that 115 kilobytes or 115 kilobits? The former, I believe.) The difference in speed jargon makes it difficult for me to be sure I have a proper V.90 connection. No log data (eg /var/log/ppp.log) seems to tell me what speed connection I have. xnetload tells me that my maximum throughput is about 14745 B/s. So does this mean I only have a "14K" connection? Or do I multiply by 8 to find I have a throughput of 115 kilobits (and am achieving the maximum speed)? (I'm aware that with compression I can get a 115Kbit/s information flow on a 56Kbit/s modem). I suspect here it's the latter, but the question still remains of whether the carrier speed is "V.90 (56K)" or "34K" or what. Can anyone spare a short word to explain this business a little more clearly? The PPP How-To doesn't really go into these questions. Thanks, Drew Parsons
