Why packets (from my ISP to me) on the WAN VC side of my router are twice the size of packets on the Ethernet (and a corresponding twice as many bytes)
I'm the guy who was gobsmacked by the amount of data we (my son and I) are
sucking down from our ISP (Earthlink via DSL).
I've found something else that I don't understand. I'm going to keep this
general at first--if anybody needs specifics, I'll try to provide them.
I've now collected data for something over a week from the Westell DSL modem
that also serves as a router for the connection between my LAN and Earthlink.
I'veI'm the guy who was gobsmacked by the amount of data we (my son and I) are
sucking down from our ISP (Earthlink via DSL).
I've found something else that I don't understand. I'm going to keep this
general at first--if anybody needs specifics, I'll try to provide them.
I've now collected data for something over a week from the Westell DSL modem
that also serves as a router for the connection between my LAN and Earthlink.
I've been watching the Ethernet side data, and the WAN VC side.
IIUC, data that I download from Earthlink is labeled "Data Out" on the WAN VC
side, and is labeled "Data In" on my LAN / Ethernet side.
I would expect these to be fairly close to equal, especially because there is
almost no traffic between devices on the LAN--believe it or not, on the rare
occasions that I need to exchange data with another LAN device, I use either
sneakernet (well, really, pendrive net) or gmail net (I send an email to
myself (@gmail.com) and open it on the other computer--which means that the
data goes up and out to Earthlink and eventually back in to the other
computer. (I use a little trick to make that work, but it works, and, at
most, I may send such an email once or twice a month.)
The "anomaly" that I see is that there are twice as many bytes (octets) coming
in (Data Out) on the WAN VC side as are going out to my LAN (Data In) on the
Ethernet / LAN side.
Now, the number of packets are about the same, and the difference mainly is
that the packet size on the VC WAN "Data Out" are about twice the size of the
packets on the Ethernet / LAN side.
Aside: On data in the other direction (that is, to Earthlink), the number of
bytes (octets), packets, and size of the packets are all about the same for
the VC WAN and the Ethernet LAN.
My questions are:
* Why are there twice as many bytes measured coming in (from Earthlink)
measured on the WAN VC side of the router as measured on the Ethernet / LAN
side of the router (or, I guess the analagous question is why are the packets
twice as big? (I mean, is the information encoded differently there or
something?)
* And, can I do something to change that? been watching the Ethernet side
data, and the WAN VC side.
IIUC, data that I download from Earthlink is labeled "Data Out" on the WAN VC
side, and is labeled "Data In" on my LAN / Ethernet side.
I would expect these to be fairly close to equal, especially because there is
almost no traffic between devices on the LAN--believe it or not, on the rare
occasions that I need to exchange data with another LAN device, I use either
sneakernet (well, really, pendrive net) or gmail net (I send an email to
myself (@gmail.com) and open it on the other computer--which means that the
data goes up and out to Earthlink and eventually back in to the other
computer. (I use a little trick to make that work, but it works, and, at
most, I may send such an email once or twice a month.)
The "anomaly" that I see is that there are twice as many bytes (octets) coming
in (Data Out) on the WAN VC side as are going out to my LAN (Data In) on the
Ethernet / LAN side.
Now, the number of packets are about the same, and the difference mainly is
that the packet size on the VC WAN "Data Out" are about twice the size of the
packets on the Ethernet / LAN side.
Aside: On data in the other direction (that is, to Earthlink), the number of
bytes (octets), packets, and size of the packets are all about the same for
the VC WAN and the Ethernet LAN.
My questions are:
* Why are there twice as many bytes measured coming in (from Earthlink)
measured on the WAN VC side of the router as measured on the Ethernet / LAN
side of the router (or, I guess the analagous question is why are the packets
twice as big? (I mean, is the information encoded differently there or
something?)
* And, can I do something to change that?
Reply to: