Computer Forum Chat Thread

[DeltrusDisc]

HAH! Funny.

Of course this long USB 3.0 cable sucks. -.-

[DeltrusDisc]

I like the sound of this...

[Remilia]

*cough*
I got some magical gear according to the 'sensors'.

[Artorius]

Mine says the same, I think the newer drivers are screwing this up...

[apepi]

I finally got faster internet! I actually knew the phone guy who came to do the work too, we went to the same school, small town. I have gone from http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/6035307763 to http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/6036879255. I might actually be able to watch Youtube without loading shit! Yeah!

Also he told me that they are looking to hire, so I might think about it. They are paying like 14$ a month...better than what I am getting paid now.


@evn, I also recently had a dmca/copyright issue at work. They put up all these papers up at work telling people the laws.

[Alindra]

I finally got faster internet! I actually knew the phone guy who came to do the work too, we went to the same school, small town. I have gone from http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/6035307763 to http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/6036879255. I might actually be able to watch Youtube without loading shit! Yeah!

Just to make sure I'm not mixing up my units, your old internet was 3.05 Mega bits (as in 375 Kilo Bytes) down? Good grief, I think it'd be more accurate to say you actually connected to the internet with speeds like that. Was/is your old ISP the only option in your area or something?

Grats on the upgrade, though!

[Artorius]

Just to make sure I'm not mixing up my units, your old internet was 3.05 Mega bits (as in 375 Kilo Bytes) down? Good grief, I think it'd be more accurate to say you actually connected to the internet with speeds like that. Was/is your old ISP the only option in your area or something?

Grats on the upgrade, though!

b = bits, B = bytes for future reference =)

[Alindra]

b = bits, B = bytes for future reference =)

Oh, I know what the abbreviation is supposed to mean, it's just that the numbers were baffling either way. I mean, 375 KB/s down? That's worse than DSL. I was expecting MB/s down, but that'd mean @apepi's new connection is 192 MB/sec up AND down (24 Mb/s), which is is just blazing.

[apepi]

Oh, I know what the abbreviation is supposed to mean, it's just that the numbers were baffling either way. I mean, 375 KB/s down? That's worse than DSL. I was expecting MB/s down, but that'd mean @apepi's new connection is 192 MB/sec up AND down (24 Mb/s), which is is just blazing.

It used to be 3Mbs on ADSL, it is more like 24/26 Mbs down/up now.

I used to have ADSL.... Yeah that was old. I still have the same service provider(only one around) but they upgraded their things. I think I have some version some fiber now? I don't need any modem, they just gave me switch, and the my router ip is 'set'. They used Cat 5e to wire everything.

[Artorius]

You need a modem regardless of the connectivity type, what goes in the wires for long distance telecommunications is something completely different from what goes in an ethernet cable to your computer. You probably got a modem+router combo.

Assuming you got some kind of DOCSIS service (it's just likely, could be fiber too), you're probably getting a QAM256 downstream channel and a QAM16 upstream channel. QAM stands for quadrature amplitude modulation and works in a simple way, you modulate the information in cosine waves and different waves represent different information. In QAM you can vary amplitude and phase, QAM256 means that you have 256 "different" cosines and therefore 256 possible "packets" of information. It's achieved by having 16 possible phases and 16 possible amplitudes.
QAM16 is the same thing, but you have fewer possible combinations and therefore you're sending fewer bits of "information" in each symbol (each cosine):



In this image you can see how it works, for QAM256 you send/receive 16 bits in each symbol when the wave can be demodulated correctly =)

Now you might be asking yourself why don't they just use a higher number of possible combinations, which would result in more bits per symbol and therefore higher data transfer speeds right? Well yeah, in a perfect world where attenuation and signal strength loss don't exist this is indeed the best thing you could do. In the real world though, you can't increase it that much before getting better infrastructure because having different symbols close to one another in amplitude/phase can easily turn into mismatched decoding after some signal loss through the transmission line. DOCSIS supports up to QAM4096 though, so who knows what your ISP might be using =)

[apepi]

You need a modem regardless of the connectivity type, what goes in the wires for long distance telecommunications is something completely different from what goes in an ethernet cable to your computer. You probably got a modem+router combo.

Okay I checked where my mystery wire/line that my switch was connected to. It is connected to a ONT Calix 721GE outside. You could argue that a ONT is kind of like a modem...if you wanted to.

[Drunkenvalley]

An ONT is an optical network terminal. Its main purpose for the consumer is to bridge the fragile fiber connection to copper cable. It basically outputs regular ethernet, so you can connect it to your computer directly if you bother to.

[Artorius]

Okay I checked where my mystery wire/line that my switch was connected to. It is connected to a ONT Calix 721GE outside. You could argue that a ONT is kind of like a modem...if you wanted to.

Well this thing is supposed to be demultiplexing the signal from the optical fiber into its components (TV, Telephony and Internet access), depending on what kind of signal goes out of it to your house then yes it's also a modem. As far as I can tell it seems to output directly to an ethernet cable correct? If so, it's demodulating it for your too =)

[apepi]

Well this thing is supposed to be demultiplexing the signal from the optical fiber into its components (TV, Telephony and Internet access), depending on what kind of signal goes out of it to your house then yes it's also a modem. As far as I can tell it seems to output directly to an ethernet cable correct? If so, it's demodulating it for your too =)

Basically, yes. It has an Ethernet cable coming out of it. It might even have two.

TIL modem stands for modulation and demodulation.

[Artorius]

Basically, yes. It has an Ethernet cable coming out of it. It might even have two.

TIL modem stands for modulation and demodulation.

Yeah, exactly =p

[apepi]

Yeah, exactly =p

I was curious, because router, bridge, hub, gateway, and ethernet all make sense to me. But Modem? What the hell is that supposed mean?

[Remilia]

I was curious, because router, bridge, hub, gateway, and ethernet all make sense to me. But Modem? What the hell is that supposed mean?

Information that gets passed through the wires/wireless go through a modulation process in order to send it. Computers and devices can't read modulated signal so what's needed is a demodulation process to reverse the process. Think of it as encryption but for data transfer.
On the surface the name makes no sense. Only after you know it's just an abbreviation of modulator-demodulator does it somewhat make more sense.
Then again names doesn't technically have to make sense, like Thunderbolt.

[apepi]

Information that gets passed through the wires/wireless go through a modulation process in order to send it. Computers and devices can't read modulated signal so what's needed is a demodulation process to reverse the process. Think of it as encryption but for data transfer.
On the surface the name makes no sense. Only after you know it's just an abbreviation of modulator-demodulator does it somewhat make more sense.
Then again names doesn't technically have to make sense, like Thunderbolt.

I would disagree that Thunderbolt does not make sense. To me it sounds like something that would be very fast, I mean Ethernet does not make 'technical' sense ether, it just comes from the 'ether'.

I found a weird mystery cable when I was cleaning up my room, I have no idea what it is. it is a small cable with a squarish opening and a circler bit coming out that has a...end transparent/glass look to it at its end which has no hole.

I might have to take a picture of it...

[Remilia]

Optical audio cable?
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-.../dp/B00NH11H38

[apepi]

Optical audio cable?
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-.../dp/B00NH11H38

Yeah thats it! I have no idea why I have one of those.....nothing I have actually uses it besides my sound card.

I can watch 4k video on youtube! Now I need to get a 4k monitor and a better graphics card...on second thought I am fine with 1440p. I have been trying to find ways to use my speed now, I have been playing https://geoguessr.com/(geography is fun!), downloading stuff, watching stuff max quality and I might go ahead and try and see if I can even stream or upload some videos for fun.