[H-GEN] Strange PPP statistics

[Michael Anthon]

(Note reply-to: being general at humbug.org.au vs Michael Anthon <mca at tams.com.au>)

Greetings,
I have discovered an unusual and rather distressing situation with my PPP
link to Telstra.  What I find is that sometimes when downloading files
(either via masq, through the proxy or direct from the server itself)
pppstats will report a higher data rate than the file transfer reports.  I
have tested this using several different client programs both on Linux and
Windows.  I have seen results ranging from a ratio of about 6:1 to 1:1,
meaning pppstats tell me I have received up to 6 times more data than I am
actually getting.  This is most unusual, and since I pay for volume,
potentially quite expensive.

I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts on what may be causing this
situation to arise?  I have checked that there is no other traffic at the
time that I am doing these tests, stopping the transfers brings the reported
ppp rate back to zero.

To get the ppp rate, I am using "pppstats -w 1 ppp0", a snippet of this
follows

      IN   PACK VJCOMP  VJUNC  VJERR  |      OUT   PACK VJCOMP  VJUNC NON-VJ
    3584      3      2      0      0  |       64      4      4      0      0
    3632      2      2      0      0  |       28      2      2      0      0
    3600      3      3      0      0  |       45      3      3      0      0
    3648      2      2      0      0  |       31      2      2      0      0
    3584      2      2      0      0  |       28      2      2      0      0
    3664      3      3      0      0  |       48      3      3      0      0
    3632      2      2      0      0  |      322      3      3      0      0
    3573      3      3      0      0  |       29      2      2      0      0

Now, this was during a download using GetRight on Windows using
masquerading, and GetRight report a steady transfer rate of very close to
3.0 k/s throughout the whole transfer (GetRight has a little strip chart of
data rate and it was very steady)

Cheers
Michael Anthon

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