Dec
15
What are packets? And what does “connection speed” mean?
Posted by pelf in Blogging Challenges & Tips, Site NewsDoes anybody know what “Packets” are?
J always checks his Local Area Connection Status window whenever he’s online. He claims that the bigger the packets number, the faster the connection is. However, we both cannot tell what are the factors that limit the packets.
- How high will the packet figures go, considering the speed of the connection is 100.0 Mbps?
- What does the “speed of 100.0 Mbps” mean anyway?
- What causes the packet figures to increase and decrease?
- What are the factors that cause our connection speed to decrease? For example, my housemate left his PC switched on overnight - he was downloading something I assumed was a movie - and when I connect to the Internet in the morning, is it normal to assume that the connection speed will be drastically reduced?
Experts, anyone?
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I think that means the total speed that your Ethernet can run gua? Either 1MB package or 512KB package, I see the same thing always…
pelf: Aha… What does that mean anyway? *scratched head*
a packet is a strip of data being transfered over the ethernet to the internet or vice versa, from internet to your ethernet to your pc, packets is packaged at your pc, and when it receives it, it will also unpack it, a packet will contain, your ip data as headers, the info on how ur packet is packed, so when unpacking it, the destination computer will know how to unpack it, the sequence of the packet … normally all packet size are fixed … say a 100KB file, to be sent over the lan over a 1kb packet, the comp will generate 100 packets and send it over the lan, the receiving comp will gather that 100 packets and reassemble it …
just think of it as your packet of stuff la, normally the theoretical speed and physical speed is different, say now u see there is a 100MB connection but thats in LAN, most probably by best calculation, more or less thats what u get in a LAN which is spanned correctly.
go google it la … more details
pelf: WOW.. I’m impressed. I had to slowly read the above comment to fully understand it.. OK, I consider Question #2 answered
and no, a bigger figure for the “in” and “out” does not indicate you having a fast connection … check your internet connection with something like testmy.net …
pelf: Thanks
But what will the results show?
Basically, the packet means the amount of data… Packet sent = Amount of data sent, packet received= Amount of data received. This is the basic layman explanation. It will not show how fast your connection is. To answer Q1 , how high depends on the amount of data received/sent. To answer Q3, just send more data to increase?
pelf: Understood
To the experts, please correct me if I’m wrong.
The speed 100Mbps is not the same as 100MB/s. It’s the theoretical speed of your LAN connection; not your internet connection speed. To check your real internet connection speed, you have to run connection speed test like testmy.net (suggested by earlku) or the crappy TMNet test at god-knows-what-address. So Q2 answered.
For Q4 - not enough details. Are you sharing your internet connection with your housemate? If it’s a shared connection - he’s downloading something and you are trying to access the internet at the same time, you will most probably get a slow connection.
Hope that helps.
:mrgreen:
pelf: *nods* Thank you very much
As for your (last) question, yes, four of us (my housemates and I) share the same broadband connection. Thanks heaps *smiles*
Looks like all the tech gurus have answered you. I can save my power typing
pelf: Hahhaha.. You should exercise your fingers also, you know
Wah sis u got so many techies in your blog lei, it scares me LoL…. Andrew and Earl covered most of it liao la. If you want to know where your Internet connection speed is going (which protocol is utilizing your bandwidth etc) you can download utilities like Wireshark.
pelf: WOW, and I never knew the existence of such utility!
For Q4 you can actually segregate your Net speed between the four of you to be fair, but there will be wasted bandwidth (kinda like a switch vs hub issue)… a switch allocates speed dynamically, meaning if got less people accessing the network, or in this case, the Net, you get more bandwidth.
pelf: I guess no need la, since they don’t download movies ALL THE TIME (thank God!). The new semester will start tomorrow and they’ll be super busy with their Final Year Projects (thank God again), hahaha
Also I am not sure if your friend is aware of this or not, but TMNet has basically cut down the speed for movie and song downloads using BitTorrent format.
pelf: I am not sure whether they know about this, but it’s not important I guess
Hope it helps..
Mail me or something if you need more info, but I imagine the gurus here have covered all points
pelf: Thanks, EJ *smiles*
No need to answer anything already … =)
pelf: No, no need.. You just need to get me something from Hanoi, very simple task
Wah… So many techinical explanations. Lemme try layman terms. A packet is an envelope. “IN” means the number of envelopes you receive while “OUT” is what you send.
And how do you know how fast your connection is? Very the simple. Depending on how well Stimyx behaves. If Stimyx d*mn cock up that day, you get a slow connection. If Stimyx loves you, you get a good, fast, and steady connection. Mwahahahah
pelf: Whoa!! Told you I love Merv!! Muahahha
Yea and basically Wireshark is used as a pre-hacking tool as well.You can use it to sneak on ICQ Conversations (as ICQ is not encrypted) and capture MSN/YM packets and even account passwords, and download another tool to decrypt it, at least partially, then get a brute force tool to force entry in the account and see if it works. Usually network security ppl use these tools to test the security in their network.Someone certified with a CEH (Certifed Ethical Hacker) can do this well (I’m CCNA - networks,though my current position has nearly nothing to do with networks..)
pelf: That means chatting via Y! Messenger and MSN and ICQ is not safe la?
I personally don’t believe/trust CEHs (name also like Ceh!), basically coz no one really learns hacking with a noble intention to be ‘ethical’…. to me its like as good as getting certified to carjack, rob and bludgeon people and call it ‘car theft prevention’ , ‘hardcore economic gain’ and ’street security’ respectively.
pelf: I so so agree with you, CEH!
Or become a tong sampahman and calling yourself a sanitary engineer
pelf: Muahahah, this last one is good.. You know how they always give nice names to certain positions to make them sound “empowered”??
Nope, its not really as safe as it used to be.There are only a limited number of methods of encryption.The best encryption methods are found in Israel actually.So by using a crack tool that can identify the pattern of encryption its not hard to get the message..
pelf: But we have a lot of CEHs, don’t we?