FTP.ARL.ARMY.MIL Bandwidth Information

ARL has multiple high-speed connections to several significant networks, providing excellent performance for most document transfers:

• DREN
  This site is a primary node in the Defense Research and Engineering Network (DREN) , which sports a variety of OC-12, OC-3, T-3 and T-1 communications links to other US Government facilities.
• The InterNet Backbone
  This site is connected to the InterNet "backbone" at strategic locations via a "cloud" of OC-12 ATM paths provisioned over AT&T's nationwide DISC ATM network:
  • MAE-East in Washington DC
  • FIX-West and MAE-West in San Francisco
  • The Sprint NAP in Pensauken NJ
  • The NAP in Chicago, IL
  • The "Giga-pop" in Washington state.
• NIPRNET (nee MILNET).
  This site is gatewayed to a NIPRNET military Packet Switching Node which has multiple T-1 trunks.

Moving 1 MByte of data over an OC-3 link takes about 0.1 seconds, if your end is up to it.

Moving 1 MByte of data over a T-3 link takes about 1 second, if your end is up to it.

Moving 1 MByte of data over a T-1 link takes about 8 seconds.

Moving 1 MByte of data over a 56 Kbps link takes about 3 minutes.

Moving 1 MByte of data over a 28.8 Kbps modem takes about 5 minutes.

Naturally, no single file transfer ever gets the full bandwidth of these communications lines, as they are a shared resource. These figures should help you make a lower-bound estimate on how much time large file transfers might take.

You are free to transfer large files from this site at any time.