It seems that there is never enough bandwidth for current user demand. However, PPP compression
and multilink can provide different mechanisms for increasing the throughput between
different locations.
Compression uses representation to remove bytes from the data stream. For example, if
the word the is represented by an @ sign, the protocol could save two characters per instance.
Repeated hundreds of times for different strings, it is possible to save substantial amounts of
bandwidth, which will improve performance. The overhead incurred with most compression is
minor compared to the resultant savings.
Multilink takes a different approach from compression. Compression uses the current connection
and squeezes additional information across the link. Multilink takes the standard data
stream and bonds multiple connections to increase the amount of bandwidth available to the
application. With multilink, two or more circuits can be made to appear as a single large pipe.
This is more expensive than compression because each location requires two or more analog
phone lines or ISDN circuits. This option is better when more bandwidth is required, but higher
bandwidth technologies are not available. Multilink ultimately improves throughput and
reduces latency. Compression and multilink can be combined to further improve throughput.