Internet Speed Question

chivs688 · 7 Mar 2011 at 23:27

Looking on the network information to my broadband connection, it says that I have 54.0 Mbps speed.

If I'm not mistaken, this is in mega-bits and so when converted it equals 6.75 MB/s.
Although could be barking up the complete wrong tree here.

Now I am wondering, what does this number mean to me?

The maximum download speed I have ever come anywhere close to achieving is 250 kb/s and that's with a wired connection, so I just don't understand how this 54 Mbps number relates to my internet speed at all.

Thanks in advance.

nelviss · 7 Mar 2011 at 23:38

its not you internet speed at all its the speed your wireless card is capable of, you will only see this kind of speed used when transfering files between two networked computers.

azazin · 7 Mar 2011 at 23:39

chivs688 said:
Looking on the network information to my broadband connection, it says that I have 54.0 Mbps speed.

If I'm not mistaken, this is in mega-bits and so when converted it equals 6.75 MB/s.
Although could be barking up the complete wrong tree here.

Now I am wondering, what does this number mean to me?

The maximum download speed I have ever come anywhere close to achieving is 250 kb/s and that's with a wired connection, so I just don't understand how this 54 Mbps number relates to my internet speed at all.

Thanks in advance.

Hi mate,

I think this is the speed of the connection from your computer to the router however the connection from the router to the ISP (service provider) is what makes the connection fast, if you have a 2MB broadband package but your connection to the router is 54mbs, it will be limited to the 2MB provided by your provider

Don't take my word completely for it though, I might not be right

marc2003 · 7 Mar 2011 at 23:48

54Mbps is wireless G and is not related to your internet at all. it's the maximum speed supported by the connection from your device to the router. just to complicate things a little, wireless G is not full duplex so the maximum throughput you'll ever see is around 3.5MB/s.

now this is far faster than most internet in the UK (the exceptions being BT infinity and virgin cable 50Mbps) so shouldn't have any effect on your download speeds.

regarding your internet, it might help if you mentioned your ISP and what speed the router is connected at to the ISP. try accessing the router's web interface in your browser and post the connection stats. speedtests without this information are meaningless.

just as an example, these are my router stats:

Line Mode ADSL2+ Line State Show Time
Line Power State L0 Line Up Time 02:06:53:30
Line Coding Trellis On Line Up Count 1

Statistics Downstream Upstream
Line Rate 21573 Kbps 1313 Kbps
Noise Margin 6.0 dB 6.8 dB
Line Attenuation 15.5 dB 6.5 dB
Output Power 18.0 dBm 12.4 dBm

after you take overheads into account, speedtests should ideally be around 80-84% of your sync speed. depending on ISP what you'll actually get is quite another matter indeeed.

edit: i just did a quick speedtest...

Date 07/03/11 23:55:36
Speed Down 18005.01 Kbps ( 17.6 Mbps )
Speed Up 1094.33 Kbps ( 1.1 Mbps )
Port 8095
Server speedtest2.thinkbroadband.com

83%. can't be bad.