Friday, September 24, 2004

What's your ISP's capacity?

How do you find out the maximum number of clients that your ISP can handle?

Simple. A bit difficult actually. Okay, it is tough, because I've been doing a lot of research to find it out. But nonetheless, the actual process is straight forward.

1. Ok. You start by finding out your IP address. If you lead a normal life, then going to "Command Prompt" and typing "ipconfig" in a windows box ("ifconfig" in a linux box) will do.
For those eccentric few behind a NAT, you will need to go to a third party website like www.whatismyip.com or www.proxydetect.com to find out your ISP assigned IP address.

2. Copy that IP address and head down to this sweet looking URL.

3. Paste that IP address in the search box. Don't click on the "Search" button yet.
As you can see, there are buttons to press and choices to make :-)
Ok. Here's a minimal list of things to be done.

a. In the alternative databases, select : If you are from,

North America = ARIN
Australia = APNIC
India = APNIC
For the rest of you, try one of the items in the list or go through this list.

b. Next, the object types, select "Route" or leave it to "All"

4. Now click search. Here's my output:
route: 61.95.128.0/17
descr: BHARTI-IN
descr: BHARTI INFOTEL LTD.
descr: Class A ISP in INDIA .
descr: 234 , OKHLA PHASE III ,
descr: NEW DELHI
descr: INDIA
country: IN

5. Take the number-looking part (61.95.128.0/17) along with the slash and the next number to it too and put it in your clipboard.

6. Goto this amazing site. Kinda looks like a cemetry of textboxes, doesn't it? Anyways, search for the text box named "CIDR and Netmask Lookup". Paste the IP there and click search.

Et Voila! The last data field in the next page is what we're looking for!

Here's the data for my IP:-
Number of useable IPs in range : 32766

Have fun!

3 comments:

Anand kumar said...

Goddamn! The long url to the "Advanced Search" ruined my blog's appearance.

Anand kumar said...

Guys/gals, if u read the post, try it out and post your ISP's name and it's capacity.

I really need to know this. No seriously.

Anand kumar said...

Ok, For those of you who didn't get a route in cidr format (ie., xx.xx.xx.xx/yy format), goto www.dnsstuff.com
and enter your ip address in the textbox named "IP Routing Lookup" and goto the last record returned by the query. It will alost always contain the cidr format.
From then on, follow the blog's next point.

Revel with the info that u got!