Philip D'Ath <pid@ifm.net.nz> wrote:

> Of course, this was because of the compression that modems do, and
>because it was a log file with lots of repetitive text.

> It got me hinking; for the average user looking at a site which
>isn't too heavily laden with graphics; JetStart is probably no faster than
>an average modem dialing up to an average ISP.
> The advertised claims of being up to three times faster only really
>apply to people downloading lots of non-compressable data, such as file
>sharing. Joe Average probably wont notice much difference.

The reduced latency of the ADSL link will have a big effect on the perceived
speed of loading a webpage. You can't load more than a few images per second
if your latency is ~150ms, and when the link is saturated, you have no hope.
Jetstart behaves better than a modem when it is near saturation (although it
still isn't that good if you really saturate it).

Most modern webservers will gzip data before sending to a modern browser,
so the entire internet benefits from the compression.

Jetstart could use compression in the PPP protocol (which for a is superior
to the modem's which introduces latency (the modem waits, hoping for a more
suitable chunk of data, if there is no more, that waiting time is wasted). Of
course they could also turn up the handle on the rate limiter which would have
a similar effect.

A compressed tunnel through the jetstart link to a server at your isp would
have the same effect.

--
Tom Parker - tom@carrott.org
           - http://www.carrott.org
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