Speed Up your DSL Connection: How to Make DSL Faster

A user usually gets a much lower speed than the one advertised by the DSL company. A plain old telephone service (POTS) splitter connects to a telephone jack in the wall, and separates the line into telephone and broadband. A POTS splitter improves the quality of both voice and data. There can be problems with DSL speed if the data line is too long, or if there is a loose connection. Noise, which is interference from other devices, can also slower the speed of the connection.

Improving the Speed of the DSL Connection

It is better if the user puts a POTS splitter at the demarcation point or the Network Interface Device (NID) which is installed by the phone company. This ensures that the quality of the data line from the ISP to the user's DSL modem or router is superior. This is good because the data does not go through the inside wiring. The user should place his DSL modem next to the POTS splitter at the NID, so that the telephone company is responsible for the quality of the line. So the central office at the telephone exchange can track the quality of the data line. The user should also set up the Ethernet router next to the DSL modem. The user can utilize a wireless extender to boost the DSL signal. The user can also use a HomePlug device, so the DSL signal is transmitted through the walls.

Another way to increase DSL speed is to create a region in the memory known as a buffer, for the network card used for the DSL connection. The size of the buffer can be between 4MB and 8MB or even more, if you have a lot of RAM. If you want to deactivate this buffer, put the letters 'REM' in the line containing the tweak.

To load a web page from the Internet, Windows resolves the host name (which is the domain name such as google.com) to an Internet Protocol (IP) address (which can be 216.239.51.99). This process is known as a DNS lookup. The default setting for DNS is slow, so the user should change it. The user can search for addresses of fast DNS servers on the Internet, and enter those numbers in TCP/IP Properties section. This is a reliable way to make DSL faster.

The user should never use the CDs sent by the DSL company. Also, the user should not rely on DSL management software to manage the connection. Instead the user should invest in a router to manage the network. Some ISPs don't allow the use of routers, because they want to monitor the user's activity on the web. That is okay, because the only information the user needs from the ISP is the way to connect to the ISP's network and his username and password. It is better to use the Linux operating system than the Windows operating system for a DSL connection. This can be done through PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet) and PPPoA (Point-to-Point Protocol over ATM).

Another secret of boosting DSL speed is to make the TCP receive window larger. The TCP receive window is the most number of bytes that can be transmitted, before an acknowledgment is required from the receiver. The delay caused when waiting for an acknowledgment lowers the DSL speed.

You can measure MTU (maximum transmission unit) of your connection. Some tools allow you to verify the best MTU you have. The best MTU is the maximum size of the packet that can be sent. If the size of the packet is greater than MTU, then the packet is split up before it is sent and reunified by the receiver. This process of splitting up and reunification lowers the DSL speed. There are some tools that allow Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), which means one connection is shared by many computers in the same LAN.