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NETPERSEC

Net Paisa Vasool Hai?

I'm sure you've always wondered, as I have, just how fast is fast. Especially when its Internet connect speeds we're discussing. How many times has the modem lights been blinking furiously, but that site seems to take forever to open. And for readers who are using ISDN, wireless or cable modems, this lack of throughput is even more worrying. Are you getting value for money.

Service providers promise different communication speeds, but how often do you actually receive throughput that matches. Depending on network traffic, the actual speed are usually lower making your connection slower.

Cable modems are fast as long as there arent too many users sharing a single line. The answer to your woes is here. NetPerSec (817 kB, Windows, free) a free utility from ZD Net monitors your connection in real time.

This software monitors the TCP/IP traffic coming to and from the Net or your local network. And presents the results graphically. For detailed reporting, double click the tray icon to view the current and average send and receive speeds. You can also adjust sampling and the data used to compute averages.

But before you can start checking that throughput, you need to check if your system meets the minimum requirements. If you use Win95, you need Winsock 2 and the DUN upgrade (www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads). With WinNT, ensure SP-4 or later is installed. NetPerSec can be uninstalled from Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs. And doesn't require any tweaks to network or dial-up networking settings.

The tray icon can display a bar or line graph displaying the last 14 samples of network activity. The line graph is more detailed with the top showing incoming data and the bottom outgoing. The bar graph only shows incoming data. The icon shows the current throughput. The more the data the faster the connect speed. And if the icon isn't clear enough, just roll the mouse pointer to view the current and average data throughput.

You can define throughput in bits per second (bps) or bytes per second (Bps). When viewing data transmission in bps, you are comparing the efficiency of your modem to the actual data throughput of your Net connection. If you want to check how well a 56-Kbps modem is doing, use bps. The second measure, Bps is good when measuring local network traffic or when downloading file from the Net.

Each graph has an Auto scale option that dynamically adjusts range to contain the largest value. Use Auto scale only with high-bandwidth connections. To verify a 33.3 kBps connect, adjust the slider till the top right-hand number displays 33.3. This will let you see how close you are to the theoretical maximum.

The faster the sampling rate the better the accuracy. However, slower rates means you can see more data for a sample period. The Averaging Window specifies the time span used to calculate the average throughput. When viewing a Web page, data transfer last a few seconds. E-mail often last a minute or longer. The default sampling rate is 1 second. If you download lots of files or have a fast connection, use higher values for improved accuracy.

So why wait to complain about your Net connection any longer. Start with getting the true facts; not to mention figures. Download - (ftp://zdftp.zdnet.com/pub/private/sWlIB/internet/internet_tools/netpsec.zip) a copy today.

G Menon
[email protected]

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