I am having trouble with transferring video files (250-500Mb).  They used to zip right a long and the past 4-6 months the speed has dropped to a crawl.  Yesterday a 411Mb file took 2-1/2 hours.  My cable supplier is up to snuff (I have 4-5mbps downstream and 512kbps-2mbps upstream; same at my daughter's end) and I have gone through every piece of hardware and substituted with different vendors in both my house and my daughter's house.  Does anyone know the "average throughput speed" on the MSN server?  I understand it will vary by day of week and time of day, but I am talking about a 10 fold decrease in speed.  I used to be able to transfer a video file about 250Mb  in 15-20 minutes.  NO MORE.  Running Win XP SP2 on both ends and plenty fast for all other types of internet downloads including patches, programs, and normal web pages.

411MB * 1024 = 420864KB
2.5h * 60 = 150m * 60 = 9000seconds
420864 / 9000 = 46.76KB/s average upload speed

I am actually jealous on such speed. I have an 8Mbit down/1Mbit up connection myself, but my MSN/WLM transfer speeds are usually something like 10 to 20 KB/s I hate it when slow MS servers decide file transfer shall go trough them.

Well then, I guess I have to stop complaining.  I guessed at the 2-1/2 hours, checking the MSN log is was actually 2 hours 3 min. which makes the calc even faster.  Do you know if the MSN file transfer speed has actually shifted down over the past 6 months or so?

I assume that you're running a firewall or NAT which is causing transfers to go through a Microsoft server instead of creating a direct connection. Have you changed anything which could have caused it to be firewalled?

The only thing changed in that time frame was the removal of a wireless link at my daughter's house and replaces with Cat 5 ethernet.  The speed to all 4 PCs at her house is the same so it appears not to have changed anything.  Both of locations use the Win XP firewall with an exception opened for the MSN application, and we are both behind D-Link routers.