On Apr 19, 2008, at 9:23 PM, B. Eric Bradley wrote:
What he's asking is, can the upload server outrun the download? The answer is in many cases, of course, yes, but servers don't upload faster than your computer (cable modem/router/etc.) is asking for the data. On a 20.0 connection, the upload machine will send data at the lesser of 20.0 or what it is capable of uploading. If somebody at Google's server farm is asking for a YouTube video, on the other hand, the transfer speed is likely to be something awesome.
OK... I see the question now.With a TCP connection the server isn't going to outrun the client because each packet of data has to be acknowledged. A TCP connection is designed to be error free, so there are checksum and acknowledgements built into the protocol. Most Web surfing, mail and program downloads are done with a TCP connection.
There is another connection method called UDP where the server just pushes the data into the pipe without any error correction. This is how streaming audio and video are usually sent. It is possible to get overrun errors with a UDP connection.
I connect to the Internet over a 100 Mb/s symmetric connection in my office. Most of the time for Web surfing and email it doesn't seem any different than the cable connection I have at home.
The difference is very noticeable when I upload and download big files. For example, I downloaded the DVD image of Ubuntu Linux using BitTorrent in my office a few weeks ago and it took about 15 minutes. I forgot the disk in my office and decided to do it again at home that evening and it took several hours.
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