Re: Bandwidth... compression... saving $$?
>
> Email does compress reasonably well, but having your mail server in
another
> country raises an entirely new set of issues. There's issues of support
etc.
>
> As you have probably noticed I have a lot of experience of this...
Yes... ;-)
> Also email (excluding file attachments which are usually compressed) is
not
> that big generally. Of course if you have people emailing you word
files
> then it may be a different issue.
Well, from my logs I download about 50-70Mb per day. That, of course, is
not just the email body, but also the headers, and other overhead. I do
this via IMAP, checking email ever 15-20 minutes (have to keep current).
> From what I hear net access by cable modem or ADSL is becoming quite
popular
> in Australia, which gives you at least a gig a month before any
additional
> fees apply. Probably the best thing for someone who wants cheap net
access
> in Australia is to route it through someone's ADSL link, it gets you
similar
> benefits of an escape from per-minute charges for modem access, and good
> access for support in the same time zone.
Ugh... you gotta be kidding. I'm on ADSL... and I pay AU$100 for 4.5Gb per
month on 512Kb/s line. As you can imagine from the above... 50-70Mb per
day goes to email, leaving only 40Mb or so per day for other things. You'd
be surprised how fast this goes. Plus my partner living with me also uses
bandwidth (not as much... but still). So you can imagine that even if I
can save 10Mb or something per day, that would be great.
> Also sharing an ADSL link via 802.11b with IPSEC is a good option.
True. Actually, for AU$800-900 I can get an unlimited ADSL account at
512Kb/s. All I need is enough ppl wanting to share... ;-)
> > > Web access? It's mostly jpg and gif transfers.
> >
> > True... but saving on all the txt would help too.
>
> The text is a small minority of the bandwidth, so the data savings
through
> compression of it will not amount to much.
I agree. Like I said... probably 70-80% is uncompressable or minimally...
but saving 20-30% of bandwidth would be great.
> > Okay.. obviously there are implications to this... streaming video and
> > games would obviously not be smooth, since the data is being routed
> > through HK from Australia... but I imagine for things like IMAP, POP3,
> > general HTTP, and other such uses would benefit from maybe saving at
least
> > 1/3 to 1/5 of the bandwidth.
> >
> > What do you reckon? Doable?
>
> Such things are worth trying. Also there are benefits for privacy in
such
> things which are already being investigated.
I'm also thinking about 3rd world countries where they have 64Kb ISDN
lines for whole schools and stuff. If the content could actually be
compressed before hitting the line, then they could save considerable
amounts of bandwidth. My company may even be willing to sponsor such
compressed links going through our network. That way they save on their
"bandwidth quota". I know that modems already do compression, but remember
that before the data hits the modem, it is counted towards the bandwidth
quota already (the uncompressed data). What I'm trying to do is find a way
to compress the data before it is counted towards the quota. The way I
though of... which is discussed above, is to use a compressed tunnel to a
server with good network connectivity. And as I said.. it won't make a
hugely fast connection, but it will save on bandwidth.
> Don't let my skepticism prevent you from doing any research that you
feel
> needs to be done. ;)
Hehe... thanks. Just trying to get tips from you guys before I waste time
going down the wrong path ;-)
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