A customer in India says a 4mb download from our USA site
emachineshop.com is so slow he can't finish the download. How can we
solve this now and in the future. Are mirror sites (or files) in
different parts of the world required? How does one arrange that?

Hello,
The most likely cause is the customers download speed, ie modem speed.
I tested the download on my pc with no problems (25 seconds)
However, I do now have a high speed dsl connection.
But a year or so ago I used a 56kb modem and large files were always a
problem.

I don't think there is anything you can do to help download speeds on
remote machines.

The way I now get round the problem is, if a customer is unable to
download a large file I supply the file on cdrom and post it.

Hi sammy128 - Thanks for the tips! -- swisscheese

The problem may be with the Indian customer's ISP and its upstream
connections, although some parts of India are on cutting-edge telecom
technology these days, some won't be. Throughput is only ever going to
be as good as the weakest link. Some suggestions would be:

1. Can customer use a different ISP?
2. Can file be split into several smaller files with some utility
software and then rejoined? - a small file is more likely to get
through intact.
3. Can file be placed on FTP server rather than a web (HTTP) server? -
FTP was designed for downloading files and can be more robust than
HTTP
4. Can customer be emailed file? - 4Mb may be too big for mailbox but
if file can be split as in (2).
5. Can customer try downloading at different times - perhaps at local
night time?

Owain

Owain - Thanks very much for your helpful ideas. - swisscheese