The Downloads Page
About
The Speed Patch
Increase Internet Explorer Simultaneous Downloads
The ICS Patch
The Winsock Patch
RouteAdd for VPNs on BigPond Cable
Tristan's BigPond Cable ISA Server fix.
Ini Files for Speed Touch 530/510
NOTE: All files require winzip
to open.
About
These downloads are a collection of patches and applications
created by members of the BigPond Broadband community and are
offered without support and/or warranty. They are offered here
"as is" in an effort to help out newer members of the
wider Broadband community, but naturally no responsibility will
be accepted for their misuse, misapplication or any damage they
may inadvertantly cause in whatever obscure circumstances.
However, they have been tested extensively on the relevant Operating
Systems they pertain to before being made available here and I
hope they are of some help.
The items on this page are available for free download and use,
but are not to be made available from any other source without
permission.
Slow Speeds?
Firstly, it's important to understand how data speed is calculated,
and the difference between a bit and a byte.
There are 8 bits to one Byte.
ISPs generally use bits when advertising speeds, whereas Internet
Explorer's download window shows bytes. If you remember, your
56 kb (bit) dial-up modem would average 3 - 7 kBytes/sec, so your
512 kbit/sec Broadband plan will have a top download speed of
64 Kbytes/sec. Bear in mind that a lot of websites, particularly
overseas ones, just don’t have the capacity to give decent performance.
That’s not your ISP's fault. That’s just life.
NOTE: ADSL users will normally see around 20% lower speeds
due to PPPoE's unfortunate overhead.
A lot of the speed testing websites overseas are not particularly
useful to us in Australia as they rely on too many “hops” between
here and there and will often give false results so try for local
sites like speedtest.veritel.com.au/
or exetel.com.au/speed/.
For a more accurate test try downloading something from your
ISP's FTP servers such as something from update-server
for BigPond users or ftp://ftp.optus.net.au
for Optus users. You can also try downloading from local download
sites such as http://tucows.pacific.net.au/
or use a local mirror like http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/.
To download something via FTP using command prompt or DOS:
Open a Command Prompt Window (Click Start > Run > type
"cmd" & enter) then type the following indicated
in bold and press enter where indicated by <Enter>
C:\>ftp ftp.optus.net.au <Enter>
Connected to ftp.optus.net.au.
220 Optus Business FTP Server User (ftp.optus.net.au:(none)):
anonymous <Enter>
331 Anonymous login ok, send your complete email address as your
password.
Password: 12345 <Enter>
230 Anonymous access granted, restrictions apply.
ftp> cd pub <Enter>
(I'm changing the directory to the one called "pub"
here)
250 CWD command successful
ftp> hash <Enter>
(this command will display ### to show the progress when we start
downloading something)
Hash mark printing On ftp: (2048 bytes/hash mark) .
ftp> dir <Enter>
(this command shows the files & folders in the directory we're
in)
200 PORT command successful
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 104857600 Aug 17 2004 100MB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10485760 Aug 17 2004 10MB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1024000000 Jun 27 2006 1GB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1048576 Aug 17 2004 1MB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5242880 Aug 17 2004 5MB
226 Transfer complete.
ftp: 306 bytes received in 0.00Seconds 306000.00Kbytes/sec.
ftp> get 5MB <Enter>
200 PORT command successful 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection
for 5MB (5242880 bytes) ################################################################################
################################################################################
226 Transfer complete.
ftp: 5263362 bytes received in 3.83Seconds 1374.60Kbytes/sec.
ftp> bye <Enter>
221 Goodbye.
DOS FTP lesson over.
Most speed issues are the fault of the Computer. Sometimes it
has been previously tweaked for dial-up, and others are inexplicable.
To fix this on win95, 98, ME, NT & Win2K, download and run
Eric Pircher's
Speed Tweak.
There are alternatives and other tweaks and scripts available
for Macs and other OSs available from DSL
Reports and the Navas
Tuning Guide. See also the
dcwithers page.
DrTCP
will also do the trick with all Windows Operating Systems. 64240
is the magic number for the TCP receive window. (Reboot is required
after any registry change for it to take effect.)
Increase Internet Explorer Simultaneous
Downloads
Ever been annoyed that Internet Explorer only allows a maximum
of two downloads at once?
This patch increases it to 50.
Works on all versions of Internet Explorer and all Windows Operating
Systems.
ICS with BigPond Cable drops out every
five minutes.
Update (Aug '06): Telstra have announced that the Heartbeat
system will be gradually retired over the next 9-12 months so this
patch will no longer be required or relevant. See Whirlpool
for more.
This happens because ICS blocks
a couple of “ports” that BigPond Cable (not ADSL) needs
for your Internet connection. See the
heartbeat.
This patch is a registry adjustment
that will fix the problem for Windows 98 & ME users
who have installed Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing
on BigPond Cable Only.
NOTE: Windows 2000 ICS or ADSL users
will not suffer from this and this patch will do nothing
for you. If you're getting similar symptoms, it's something else
entirely.
I'm told I probably have a Winsock error.
What’s that?
These happen sometimes and are usually the result of a botched
software uninstallation. Winsock is a part of the Windows Registry
that effects TCP/IP networking.
Typical symptoms: are that the computer is able to obtain
an IP address using winipcfg, but is unable to do anything else
Internet related including logging in to the ISP.
These registry patches
(there are four) are copies of the winsock files on a working
ME PC. They are practically the same on everything
from Windows 95 to ME.
IMPORTANT: This patch should only be
used in an emergency situation. It is a registry repair
tool, not a tweak and should not be used if you're not experiencing
the Winsock error symptoms. Be sure to exhaust all other trouble
shooting measures first including trying another PC if possible.
Although this patch is unlikely to cause any problem, it is best
not to make changes to the Windows registry unless absolutely
necessary.
Note: For Windows 2000, NT or XP, do not use these patches under
any circumstances. They will kill your PC!
Reapply (or remove as the case may be) the service
pack, and/or uninstall and reinstall TCP/IP if you have the same
symptoms. It is not possible to create a generic copy of a Windows
NT based system's winsock.
XP users, don't forget about the wonderful System Restore feature
if you get a Networking problem all of a sudden.
See also the Winsock
XP fix from Spychecker, and an interesting suggestion at Whirlpool
that should get around this problem as well.
RouteAdd for VPNs on BigPond Cable
Update (Aug '06): Telstra have announced that the Heartbeat
system will be gradually retired over the next 9-12 months so this
application will no longer be required or relevant. See Whirlpool
for more.
 Connecting
to a VPN with BigPond Cable (NOT ADSL) will create some
dramas and result in regular dropouts at five minute intervals.
This is a problem created by the Cable
Heartbeat which the VPN connection will block.
To stop the problem, download RouteAdd
and run it prior to connecting to the VPN. This will adjust the
routing table to allow the Heartbeat to pass through.
Be sure to select the correct Ethernet Adaptor if you have more
than one installed.
RouteAdd
will not permanently change your PC's routing table and will have
to be re-executed each time the PC is rebooted and you wish to
use the VPN. To set the route permanently, or find other ways
around this problem, see the Heartbeat
FAQ.
Note:
This is a complete waste of time on ADSL, Optus or overseas connections.
It is exclusively for use on BigPond Cable.
Bryn Davies sent me the following applescript which
should acheive the same thing as RouteAdd for Macintosh
OSX users -
on run
set SERVER to "dce-server"
(* Get the IP of DCE-SERVER *)
set dceIP to do shell script "host " & SERVER & " | tail -1
| cut -d' ' -f4"
(* Get the Gateway *)
set dceGW to do shell script "route get " & dceIP & " | grep
gateway: | cut -d':' -f2 | cut -c2-"
(* Formulate and execute the Route *)
set routeCommand to "route -n add -host " & dceIP & " " & dceGW
& " 255.255.255.255"
display dialog "About to execute route command: " & routeCommand
(* A little white lie, we also execute a route deletion first.
*)
do shell script "sh -c " & quoted form of ("route -n delete
-host " & dceIP & ";" & routeCommand) with administrator privileges
end run
Tristan's BigPond Cable ISA Server fix.
Update (Aug '06): Telstra have announced that the Heartbeat
system will be gradually retired over the next 9-12 months so this
application will no longer be required or relevant. See Whirlpool
for more.
Well known BigPond Newsgroup personality Tristan, one day had
too much time on his hands and created this little vb script that
creates 2 packet filters for folks using ISA Server:-
(1) Creates a rule to allow Heartbeat
reception and responses using
BPALogin (BPALogin is the Login client of choice amongst ISA
Jockeys who know, as it allows for specification of the port for
the Heartbeat to use. This vb Script assumes 5050 is used.)
(2) Enables SSL Tunneling for port 8443, (for the usage meter)
Note to
idjits: If you don't know what ISA Server is, then this download
is completely meaningless and not for you.
Speed Touch 530/510 Config (ini) Files.
See the Alcatel Page for more
info on these.
Also, some people have reported problems with ST530/510 modems
when used with some Netgear Routers like the FR328S. The problem
here relates to the Netgear's Auto-sensing 10/100 WAN port vs
the Alcatel's 10/100 output where the 2 products can't seem to
agree on which speed to use and there is no option to manually
change the Netgear's WAN port speed. This
ini file is a slight variation on the bridge.ini file contained
in the download above and will change the Alcatel to bridging
mode and set its WAN port to 10 base. Thanks to Pete Speirs
from Strategic
Information Technologies Pty Ltd for his work in developing
this.
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