Broadband Speed Query

Occooler · 27 Jul 2009 at 22:01

I ran a broadband speed test, and it says I have a 1mb connection.

But I never seem to be able to download at anything over 130 kbps (121/122 to be precise)

Does anyone know why this could be? It makes streaming anything over that quality really difficult if the buffer is small.

Rroff · 27 Jul 2009 at 22:16

I think your mixing units up...

1Mbit is 128KBytes/s - normal throughput on a 1Mbit connection is around 119KByte/s.

If your really only getting 120kbit/s i.e. ~0.1Mbit then you have a problem!

get a speed test from www.speedtest.net and post result here.

95thrifles · 27 Jul 2009 at 22:25

Rroff has said it right and wrong in same response
Connection speeds are quoted in bits not bytes, so a 1MegaBit connection is as he says about 120 KiloBytes, when you download you get it in bytes not bits so a download speed as youre getting is correct, you dont need a speedtest
IMO its a bit naughty of the ISPs to still be using bits when everyone else uses bytes and to the average consumer it causes this confusion

Rroff · 27 Jul 2009 at 22:46

Where did I say it wrong? I prolly should have added

"If your really only getting 120kbit/s (16KByte/s) i.e. ~0.1Mbit then you have a problem!"

To be a bit clearer but I assumed by that point he'd have understood the first bit and done the conversion.

Caged · 27 Jul 2009 at 22:59

95thrifles said:
IMO its a bit naughty of the ISPs to still be using bits when everyone else uses bytes and to the average consumer it causes this confusion

Connection speeds have been quoted in bits per second since the dawn of time. Since a download is a file transfer they are quoted in bytes per second as this makes more sense for a file. It's not the ISPs fault if people don't bother to ask questions or do any research on what they are buying.

95thrifles · 27 Jul 2009 at 23:17

Rroff said:
Where did I say it wrong? I prolly should have added

"If your really only getting 120kbit/s (16KByte/s) i.e. ~0.1Mbit then you have a problem!"

To be a bit clearer but I assumed by that point he'd have understood the first bit and done the conversion.

No youre right, I suppose it just wasnt 100% clear, or maybe Ive had one (or more) too many beers whilst playing COD4 tonight

Caged said:
Connection speeds have been quoted in bits per second since the dawn of time. Since a download is a file transfer they are quoted in bytes per second as this makes more sense for a file. It's not the ISPs fault if people don't bother to ask questions or do any research on what they are buying.

I realise that, Im just saying that as everything else is now bytes not bits (last time bits was used for anything other than ISPs was the original consoles iirc) really the ISPs should come into line, to me and you (and most ppl on this site) we know the difference , but to the average Joe in the high street they dont, and as they prob make up 95% of the market, it should be transparent to them

Occooler · 28 Jul 2009 at 00:34

okay thanks, I feel a bit stupid now

best I get a faster service then!

Caged · 28 Jul 2009 at 00:38

95thrifles said:
I realise that, Im just saying that as everything else is now bytes not bits (last time bits was used for anything other than ISPs was the original consoles iirc) really the ISPs should come into line

All connection speeds are still quoted in bits IIRC - wireless network speeds, ethernet speeds, speeds of 3G cards etc. There's really no need to change anything.

Daegan · 28 Jul 2009 at 00:52

95thrifles said:
everything else is now bytes not bits

No it's not. A bit is the more precise measure, since it represents a single binary unit, while bytes are simply sequences of bits (most commonly 8 bits).