DSL vs Business DSL vs Diginet?? Explanation needed please

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...kRiLLin...

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Hi,

I'm asking this at the risk of sounding stupid.

I'm not too sure if I'm understanding this correctly. Maybe someone can clarify.

So you get your normal DSL leased line, 1MB 2MB etc, now purely from experience when i download from my 1MB line, my speed is generally anything from 50kbps to 130 kbps.

Now I know that Diginet has been around a while, but whats the difference?

We have a 164k diginet line for one of our branches. Now why is the diginet measured like this and not 1MB, 2MB etc?

And is there a difference in speed with a DSL 1MB downloading at 164kbps and a diginet 164k line?

Am I not understanding or totally missing this ?

Can someone please educate me :erm::confused:
 
Diginet uses a dedicated private line. So if you have Diginet from your company to a branch the line, in simple terms is direct. The bandwidth is not shared and you get 100% both ways.

If it's a 1Mbps line you will get1Mbps speed up and down.

These lines cost a ton more than dsl which is why most of them are fairly low speed. For a 10Mbps line you could end up paying tens of thousands.

Due to the high costs compared to Adsl a lot of companies have converted to dsl with vpns.
 
Diginet used to be quite big, before ADSL. These days it's become a niche service but still has its uses.

ADSL is a contended service, meaning that the performance of the product is dependent on others who are sharing the same capacity as you are. Contention occurs with your ISP as well as at the local exchange level, and it means that you are always sharing a pipe with a multitude of other people. Business-grade ADSL ISP accounts typically offer superior contention ratios, which is why they're more expensive. Because of the massive cost-savings resulting from pooling the bandwidth requirements of users, ADSL is far cheaper per MB than Diginet or similar services.

Diginet is uncontended, meaning that you get 100% of the line all the time. You don't share the capacity with anybody and can max out the line at any time - although this isn't the idea at all and diginet is not intended for downloading or browsing. Diginet is provisioned in small amounts because of the high cost per MB, and because diginet is used for its stability, not its capacity. It's due to said stability that Diginet is typically used for bandwidth-sensitive applications like VOIP.
 
FuLL_MeT4L said:
Diginet used to be quite big, before ADSL. These days it's become a niche service but still has its uses.

ADSL is a contended service, meaning that the performance of the product is dependent on others who are sharing the same capacity as you are. Contention occurs with your ISP as well as at the local exchange level, and it means that you are always sharing a pipe with a multitude of other people. Business-grade ADSL ISP accounts typically offer superior contention ratios, which is why they're more expensive. Because of the massive cost-savings resulting from pooling the bandwidth requirements of users, ADSL is far cheaper per MB than Diginet or similar services.

Diginet is uncontended, meaning that you get 100% of the line all the time. You don't share the capacity with anybody and can max out the line at any time - although this isn't the idea at all and diginet is not intended for downloading or browsing. Diginet is provisioned in small amounts because of the high cost per MB, and because diginet is used for its stability, not its capacity. It's due to said stability that Diginet is typically used for bandwidth-sensitive applications like VOIP.
Click to expand...

Ahaah seems to be a bit more clear now....great stuff..

Thanx gregmcc & FuLL_MeT4L, thats exactly the info I was looking for! Much appreciated!
 
...kRiLLin... said:
Hi,

I'm asking this at the risk of sounding stupid.

I'm not too sure if I'm understanding this correctly. Maybe someone can clarify.

So you get your normal DSL leased line, 1MB 2MB etc, now purely from experience when i download from my 1MB line, my speed is generally anything from 50kbps to 130 kbps.

Now I know that Diginet has been around a while, but whats the difference?

We have a 164k diginet line for one of our branches. Now why is the diginet measured like this and not 1MB, 2MB etc?

And is there a difference in speed with a DSL 1MB downloading at 164kbps and a diginet 164k line?

Am I not understanding or totally missing this ?

Can someone please educate me :erm::confused:
Click to expand...

Many people get confused with computing terms for storage and bandwidth. The computing world itself is changing some of the storage measurements.

So you get your normal DSL leased line, 1MB 2MB etc, now purely from experience when i download from my 1MB line, my speed is generally anything from 50kbps to 130 kbps.
Click to expand...

This is where you have the units slightly wrong.
1MB refers to 1 megabyte, that is an amount of storage.

ADSL lines are measured as bandwidth in Mbps (big M, small b).
1 Megabyte = 8 Megabits
1 MB = 8 Mb

By extension:

1 Megabyte per second = 8 Megabits per second
1 MBps = 8 Mbps

In addition, 1 MB = 1024KB
and 1 Mb = 1024Kb

____________________________________________________

So what you mean to say is:
So you get your normal DSL leased line, 1 Mbps, 2 Mbps etc, now purely from experience when i download from my 1Mbps line, my speed is generally anything from 50KB/s to 130 KB/s.
Click to expand...

1 Mbps = 1024kbps
1 KB/s = 8kbps
Therefore the maximum speed of a 1Mbps line should be 1024/8 = 128KB/s.

ADSL is what you call a best effort service, and your ISP (MWeb/Afrihost etc. etc.) may shape certain protocols to prioritize others. Consider the ADSL system as a pipe, lets say water and sand are going down the pipe, they may slow down the speed of the sand (YouTube Videos) traveling in the pipe in order to allow constant access to water at the end of the pipe (Banking, Normal Browsing etc.)

Business ADSL is similar, although the set of rules that govern the pipe system are different. Businesses need to move a lot of data and use a lot of webpages, but do not necessarily need streaming video and movie and music downloads, so these will be shaped. * Some business connections are completely unshaped.

Diginet on the other hand is a dedicated end to end point transfer, so in theory your speeds should be much more consistent than with ADSL, however a Diginet line at ADSL speeds is generally much more expensive. Diginet lines are allocated in increments of 64kbps. So this is the same system of measurement as ADSL. On a 128kbps (or 0,16 Mbps) Diginet line you could transfer 16KB/s of data.

________________________________

To answer your original question:
Is there a difference in speed with a DSL 1MB downloading at 164kbps and a diginet 164k line?
Click to expand...

Let me rephrase the question:
Is there a difference in speed with a DSL 1Mbps (1024kbps) downloading at 128KB/s and a Diginet 1024kbps line (downloading at 128KB/s).

The maximum speeds of each line will be the same, however the Diginet line will offer more consistent performance at a higher cost as it is a dedicated connection as opposed to a best effort service.
 
Thanks for the Explanation, yeah I seem to have got those confused, thanks for pointing that out and the explanation! Appreciated

SpoonTech said:
Many people get confused with computing terms for storage and bandwidth. The computing world itself is changing some of the storage measurements.



This is where you have the units slightly wrong.
1MB refers to 1 megabyte, that is an amount of storage.

ADSL lines are measured as bandwidth in Mbps (big M, small b).
1 Megabyte = 8 Megabits
1 MB = 8 Mb

By extension:

1 Megabyte per second = 8 Megabits per second
1 MBps = 8 Mbps

In addition, 1 MB = 1024KB
and 1 Mb = 1024Kb

____________________________________________________

So what you mean to say is:


1 Mbps = 1024kbps
1 KB/s = 8kbps
Therefore the maximum speed of a 1Mbps line should be 1024/8 = 128KB/s.

ADSL is what you call a best effort service, and your ISP (MWeb/Afrihost etc. etc.) may shape certain protocols to prioritize others. Consider the ADSL system as a pipe, lets say water and sand are going down the pipe, they may slow down the speed of the sand (YouTube Videos) traveling in the pipe in order to allow constant access to water at the end of the pipe (Banking, Normal Browsing etc.)

Business ADSL is similar, although the set of rules that govern the pipe system are different. Businesses need to move a lot of data and use a lot of webpages, but do not necessarily need streaming video and movie and music downloads, so these will be shaped. * Some business connections are completely unshaped.

Diginet on the other hand is a dedicated end to end point transfer, so in theory your speeds should be much more consistent than with ADSL, however a Diginet line at ADSL speeds is generally much more expensive. Diginet lines are allocated in increments of 64kbps. So this is the same system of measurement as ADSL. On a 128kbps (or 0,16 Mbps) Diginet line you could transfer 16KB/s of data.

________________________________

To answer your original question:


Let me rephrase the question:
Is there a difference in speed with a DSL 1Mbps (1024kbps) downloading at 128KB/s and a Diginet 1024kbps line (downloading at 128KB/s).

The maximum speeds of each line will be the same, however the Diginet line will offer more consistent performance at a higher cost as it is a dedicated connection as opposed to a best effort service.
Click to expand...
 
Diginet will give you a much lower latency as well.

Generally: If you don't know what Diginet is then you don't need it. Its not for web traffic, its for critical traffic
 
Nerfherder said:
Diginet will give you a much lower latency as well.

Generally: If you don't know what Diginet is then you don't need it. Its not for web traffic, its for critical traffic
Click to expand...

^This

Although I feel the need to add onto it:
DigiNet is NOT AN INTERNET CONNECTION.
It's a point-to-point service. Primarily used to connect outlying branch offices to a main/head-office for the purposes of network functionality.
Most notably, its often used for mission critical database access where staggered synchronization is not an option.

As someone else pointed out, its a dedicated cable connection that belongs to you, and is not shared with anyone else in any way. This also adds to a much more reliable and (in the end) speedier way of connecting mission-critical data.

If a company uses DigiNet for internet, they're doing it wrong!
 
@wheunis.

You are correct in emphasising that Diginet is not intended as an internet connection. There are however quite a few companies that still use Diginet as a redundancy network to upload data to cloud backup and storage over the internet.

The other thing to consider is that ADSL is Asymmetric, meaning that the upload speed is much slower than the download. For diginet these speeds are normally matched.
 
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Would it also be correct in saying that, if you use a diginet line, theres no contention ratio, and because its a point to point connection, its also a tad bit more secure than what a ADSL line with a contention ratio of 20:1 would be?

Just out of curiousity, I might be a bit off track.
Just the way that I thought of it, was in the example that was given earlier, so if hypothetically you in a pipe contending with 19 other people, its easier for data to be compromised on a DSL line, as opposed to having a dedicated diginet line, used for the same purpose?
 
wheunis said:
If a company uses DigiNet for internet, they're doing it wrong!
Click to expand...

Before fibre became more affordable Telkom Diginet lines with Internet breakout was quite common and it's still better than ADSL with regards to contention ratio.
With congested exchanges and no affordable fibre solution, sometimes Diginet with Internet breakout is still a good option.
The maximum speed with Telkom Diginet is 1984 Kbps but you can flat line it all day and night without any issues.
 
stevenv said:
Asymmetric.
Click to expand...
setenv is correct that ADSL is Asymmetric, as in different upload and download speeds.

Asynchronous is typically used when describing protocols/commucation layers, where it means that you can send and receive data without waiting on the other party.
 
Apologies, I meant asymmetric. Human error when using a phone to type.
 
So typically a company will have their ADSL line coming into headoffice - with Diginet to their major branches?
Internet can be routed through the branches - so they all rely on HO for their Internet?
If HO ADSL goes down the company loses connectivity outside?

One last thing - why would Diginet latency be lower?
Isn't latency the result of physical cable lag?

Also I don't get contention either. I have a 4mbps line so top speed is 400kb per sec?
If I have a 20:1 contention is this not supposed to divided by 20 as I share this?
What would my 4Mb line get if it was 1:1 , 10:1 or 20:1?

Thanks!
 
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