Modem capacity and pppstats

[subb3 at ibm.net (Subba Rao)]

I have a 56K modem on my machine, which means that I cannot
download/upload higher than 56K bits or 7000 bytes per second.
In real life FCC limits the downloads to 52K and uploads at a
much lower level, on a 56K modem.

Usually, my connection to my ISP is established at 50K or 52K.
There are many times, based on the pppstats command output on a
second by second basis, where the inbound is between 80K and 120K.
The same is true for outbound throughput. I checked the man pages
of pppstats, which say that the IN and OUT numbers are the # of bytes.
There are many times where it averaged, for a minute or so, at 10K bytes
to 15K bytes per second. That means, the modem capacity is at 80Kbps
to 120Kbps.

How can this be possible? The output is higher than the physical limit
of the modem. Does ppp use compression and the output of pppstats,
is the uncompressed output?

Subba Rao
subb3 at ibm.net
http://pws.prserv.net/truemax/
==============================================================
Disclaimer - I question and speak for myself.



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