| Often too many people get confused with all the | | | | when your modem syncs up and the DSL light |
| definitions, here we have explained in easy to | | | | comes on, it means you are connected. When |
| understand terms. | | | | data travels down your connection, it goes from |
| ADSL: | | | | the CPE -> DSLAM -> RAN -> ISP |
| Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line - asymmetric | | | | ERX: |
| meaning it's faster downstream than upstream. | | | | Edge Routing Exchange. See RAN. |
| ASAM: | | | | IPNet: |
| Advanced Services Access Manager -Whether | | | | Telecommunications backhaul networks for |
| you have a DSLAM or ASAM in your exchange | | | | carrying traffic from the customer to the ISP, i.e. |
| doesn't really matter. They do the same thing. | | | | carrying traffic from RAN's to ISP's. |
| See DSLAM's as well. | | | | Ping or Latency: |
| ATM: | | | | A ping measures the time in milliseconds that it |
| Asynchronous Transfer Mode - a method of | | | | takes for a packet to travel from your computer |
| encapsulation which is capable of many virtual | | | | to a remote computer and back to you again. |
| circuits. With these, providers (ISP's) can split an | | | | Just because you can't ping a given host, quite a |
| ATM connection (155Mbit or 622Mbit) up into | | | | lot of providers are beginning to filter ICMP (pings |
| many connections. ATM isn't just used for DSL | | | | come under this protocol) traffic because it is |
| but in the case of DSL it's used to provision each | | | | commonly used to attack hosts and wastes a lot |
| customer. | | | | of bandwidth. |
| Contention Ratios: | | | | Many providers also give low priority to ping |
| A contention ratio is the number of users to | | | | (ICMP) traffic which may mean your ping at a |
| xMbit of bandwidth. For example some providers | | | | command line isn't very good, but in say a game, |
| offer 2Mbit DSL, with a ratio of 50:1, meaning 50 | | | | things may be fine. |
| users to 1Mbit of bandwidth. | | | | RAN: |
| CPE: | | | | Regional Access Node These aggregates many |
| Customer Premises Equipment, the term that | | | | DSLAM's connections and then feed the data to |
| describes the equipment used on the customer | | | | an ISP |
| end of a connection, for example your DSL | | | | RTT |
| modem/router or cable modem. | | | | Round Trip Time - the time it takes in milliseconds |
| DSL: | | | | for a packet to go from A to B and back again. |
| Digital Subscriber Line. | | | | See ping. |
| DSLAM: | | | | SDSL |
| Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer - They | | | | Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line - symmetrical |
| are placed in DSL enabled Telecomm exchanges, | | | | meaning the same speed up and down. |