Mark, I wish I were more knowledgable about this than I am. Let me tell you what I do know.
Currently, our only high-speed connection option is Sprint DSL. We could purchase a T1 or partial T1 from sprint, but my understanding is that it's something like $300-$500/month. When we decided to get the DSL line, we found Sprint to be very customer UNFRIENDLY. It took us several weeks of leaving nagging messages just to get a *sales* person to call us and sell us the service. Our support has gone down from there. When I talked to them initially, they quoted me (as I recall) three categories of business-grade DSL lines. We went with the middle category I believe. The upload and download speeds were different. I seem to remember the download speed to be something like 1.5 Mbps and the upload 800 kbsp. I could be way off on these numbers. We are using a Netgear VPN FV318 (http://www.netgear.com/products/details/FV318.php). I too have wondered about the overhead of the VPN. There are various levels of encryption one can choose. Being concerned about security of patient records, I didn't choose the lowest level. I may, after hours, check a bandwidth meter behind the VPN, then take out the VPN and check again. This might give me a overhead assesment. I'm not sure if connection to and from the internet (i.e. not connections to another computer behind the VPN on the other side of town) utilize the encryption overhead. I wouldn't think so. I found one way of measuring bandwidth (download at least) at C-NET (http://reviews.cnet.com/Bandwidth_meter/7004-7254_7-0.html). On a Saturday night (~10pm) I ran this meter from my home (cable modem) running only one internet application (a VNC connection to my office), and found my speed to be 1,700 Kbps. At the same time, I ran the connection from my office (connecting there via that same VNC connection), and I got 287 Kbps! There should have been no one else in my office, or in the building, using bandwidth. I just repeated it (Sunday morning) and got 299 Kbps (download). Still miserable in my opinion. We are in the process of trying to get cable modem. But the company is dragging its feet about pulling a line to our building. Anyway. Thanks for listening. Kevin --- Mark Street <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > OK, you have peeked my interest. > > What are the specs on your 'commercial grade' DSL. > Symmetrical or > Asymmetrical, 768Kbps? > > What VPN are you using? > > 1. There is an overhead with VPN. > 2. Pushing data UPstream on a DSL circuit that is > capped at 128Kbps can be > painful. > > > > On Saturday 07 May 2005 19:08, Kevin Toppenberg > wrote: > > --- Thurman Pedigo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > ... There was a time I ran POTS and 56k modem > with > > > excellent performance. > > > > Hmmm... I am having a hard time figuring out all > this > > bandwidth stuff. We are also running a billing > > software package which could be eating up all the > > bandwidth. Someone suggested that I set up some > > bandwidth monitoring. This is really what I need > to > > do. But I'm not quite sure how to do it. > Currently > > our confuration is like this: > > DSL modem-->VPN firewall/router-->PC's > > > > I think that to run sophisticated monitoring, I > would > > need to insert a linux box with two network cards > > between the DSL modem and the VPN firewall. > > -- > Mark Street, RHCE > http://www.oswizards.com > -- > Key fingerprint = 3949 39E4 6317 7C3C 023E 2B1F > 6FB3 06E7 D109 56C0 > GPG key http://www.oswizards.com/pubkey.asc > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by: NEC IT Guy Games. > Get your fingers limbered up and give it your best > shot. 4 great events, 4 > opportunities to win big! Highest score wins.NEC IT > Guy Games. Play to > win an NEC 61 plasma display. Visit > http://www.necitguy.com/?r=20 > _______________________________________________ > Hardhats-members mailing list > Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members > Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: NEC IT Guy Games. Get your fingers limbered up and give it your best shot. 4 great events, 4 opportunities to win big! Highest score wins.NEC IT Guy Games. Play to win an NEC 61 plasma display. Visit http://www.necitguy.com/?r=20 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
