Download to upload ratio on old 128k up DSL plans

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raytaylor

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#324400 4-Apr-2026 11:00

Just trying to think back to the old DSL plans and tcp acknowledgements flooding the upload limit - does anyone remember if I am correct.

An old DSL plan which allowed a Max down / 128k up speed, would allow you an actual maximum tcp download speed of about 4mbits even if the modem sync'd at a faster download speed.

Does that ratio sound correct to you?

I seem to remember it being a thing at some point when the max down plans became avaliable.

Ray Taylor

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#3477865 4-Apr-2026 12:37

It was closer to 4.5 I think, I think Ookla speed tests often reported 4.2 or 4.3 Mbps.

res

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#3482831 21-Apr-2026 17:57

Sorry for being late to the party.

First I wanted to clarify what "128 up" means?? ADSL2+ has theoretical maxes of 24 megabits/s down and 1.4 megabits/s up, which would be about 3 megabytes/s down, 175 kilobytes/s up.

In my semi-rural location we're still stuck on ADSL with only the expensive and unethical Elon Musk as a choice. We typically see connect speeds of around 10,500 Mbps down and 1,270 Mbps up.

I just ran Ookla test and got 8.71 Mbps down and 1.16 Mbps up. I then downloaded a large file on Firefox and got a max download rate reported by Firefox of 1.1 MBps or about 8.8Mbps.

This seems to suggest the ratio is much larger than 4 or 4.5?

yitz

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#3482834 21-Apr-2026 18:19

Prior to unbundling of the copper local loop in New Zealand the incumbent provider capped the upload rate of mainstream ADSL/ADSL2+ connections to 128 kilobits per second which stifled uptake of VoIP, P2P file sharing technologies. Full speed upload was only offered at a premium price.

It wasn't until second half 2009 they released the Big Time plan which included full speed download and upload as a mainstream priced offering.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#3482842 21-Apr-2026 19:19

yitz:

Prior to unbundling of the copper local loop in New Zealand the incumbent provider capped the upload rate of mainstream ADSL/ADSL2+ connections to 128 kilobits per second which stifled uptake of VoIP, P2P file sharing technologies. Full speed upload was only offered at a premium price.

No static IP either. I recall being tasked with getting the Internet in the office working again one day. First, a technician was sent out to fix our lines, supposedly finding and rectifying a fault. The Internet still didn't work and it wasn't until late in the day that they discovered our connection had been switched to a 'Jetstart' connection, which failed because we had a static IP (I'm not sure what exactly caused the issue, but I was told it was related to the static). It wasn't until the following morning that the issue was sorted.

I'm pleased those dark days are behind us. Rate limiting non-HTTP traffic was unacceptable. It's not Telecom or an ISPs job to tell us how to use our connections and they should never have been able to call themselves Internet providers if they did not offer the full experience.

nztim

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#3482922 22-Apr-2026 08:34

I think back in the day of the Max down 128k UP TCP ACK was excluded from the 128k upload limitiation

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yitz

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#3483094 22-Apr-2026 15:51

nztim:

I think back in the day of the Max down 128k UP TCP ACK was excluded from the 128k upload limitiation

Yeah it wasn't until around late 2004/2005 when layer 2 Unbundled Bitstream Service was being taken up they imposed an across the board hard cap of 160 kbps upstream port/line rate (ATM traffic payload being 48 bytes out of 53 bytes cell). Prior to that layer 3 wholesale JetStream was a combination of port speed and IP layer traffic shaping.

Full speed / unconstrained / "unleashed" was not until October of 2006 though this was the version advocated for by ihug/Slingshot. TelstraClear settled for 3.5 Mbps earlier that year as to make their cable speed look better (the most popular cable plan was made 4M down/2M up with 10M down being top speed at the time).

Also remember UFB was supposed to be 100/50 minimum too by end of rollout not the 100/20 that was re-negotiated by Chorus in 2014..

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darylblake

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#3483101 22-Apr-2026 15:56

It was a QoS profile to cap the speed.

If the QoS wasnt applied you would get the line speed.... up to around 7.5Mbps... ADSL first gen. Most people got around 4-5Mbit.

SneakerPimps

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#3483117 22-Apr-2026 16:44

Reading this is just nostalgia. Now almost everyone is spoilt with "full fat" fibre. Kids these days will never know struggles.

Anyone remember using user@jetstreamgames.co.nz to download full speed and free from ftp://files.paradise.net.nz 😅?

quickymart

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#3483119 22-Apr-2026 16:50

I do indeed, that takes me back to my days at Paradise.

fearandloathing

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#3483121 22-Apr-2026 16:52

Here was an old speed test of mine

the jump in speed was after adding a dsl filter and replacing some wiring.

raytaylor

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#3483219 22-Apr-2026 21:43

I remember when I first got DSL and had a 15gb monthly international cap on a 128/128 plan.

Some months I'd be getting close to the end of the monthly rollover and trying to find stuff to download so I can use it up before I loose it.

The best part was Seeby used to run a DC++ server so you could share files with other orcon customers and it wouldnt count towards the data cap.

Jetstream games was not much use to me as i was never a gaymer.

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quickymart

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#3483221 22-Apr-2026 21:46

raytaylor:

I remember when I first got DSL and had a 10gb monthly international cap on a 128/128 plan.

Jetstart!

michaelmurfy

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#3483243 22-Apr-2026 22:35

raytaylor: The best part was Seeby used to run a DC++ server so you could share files with other orcon customers and it wouldnt count towards the data cap.

When I lived in Christchurch we were on Snap which had free data to other Snap customers. We had a computer at a friends place in the university halls and would grab stuff via DC++ (The Hub) through a reverse SSH tunnel to that - it didn't count towards our usage at all.

They also had a "Free data to Google" addon so we had a seedbox that had a script to save its downloads to Google Drive then had another script to pull and delete from Google Drive. We abused that quite a bit.

The things we did back in the day to get around our caps.

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robjg63

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#3483288 23-Apr-2026 09:10

quickymart:

raytaylor:

I remember when I first got DSL and had a 10gb monthly international cap on a 128/128 plan.

Jetstart!

Jetstream I think Telecom called it.

I recall around 2005, we had a 'Jetstream' internet connection and it cost around $990 per month!

There was some kind of unbundling forced on Telecom and suddenly the cost dropped to around $200 per month.

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SirHumphreyAppleby

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#3483290 23-Apr-2026 09:15

robjg63:

Jetstream I think Telecom called it.

The 128kbs^-1 offering was called JetStream Starter, often referred to as Jetstart.

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