quote:

Originally posted by Orbax itll just be slower and shitty. same speed both ways. Havent you ever used a home network? same speeds if your computers are fast enough... attenuation and interference have nothing to do with the transition from upload to download.

Actually, ADSL is slower upstream due to hardware issues. It has to due with channel frequency density - upstream data takes place on a different part of the spectrum from downstream data, and in particular, channel losses/noise are more prevalent for that upstream frequency.

With computers we tend to think of bandwidth on software terms - however, you have to keep in mind that it still has a physical meaning in the hardware world. When we say that the upstream bandwidth is smaller than the downstream bandwidth, we literally mean to say that upstream data occupies a frequency range that is not as wide as that for downstream data - i.e. your uploads are going through a "narrower pipe" and therefore you can force less water (data) through it at the same speed. Also note that "speed" is the time it takes for the signal to get from point A to point B, whereas "bandwidth" is simply how fat the pipe is. I know you know this Orbax, but I'm explaining for those who don't.

SDSL, or Synchronous DSL, operates on a different principle, that being that downstream and upstream data both take place on the same portion of the frequency spectrum. So although you technically have the same bandwidth for downloads and uploads, the bandwidth is shared between the two of them so if you're downloading and uploading then your average transfer speed will be reduced.

Hope that clears it up.

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