Please explain download speed

Hmmm this reminds me of the old "way it's portrayed to the masses" chestnut. Everyone is indeed correct with MegaBIT compared to MegaBYTE. It's the way they tell em' so to speak.

It's like the recent misguided information on the whole "AIG Bonus Scandle".

Been advirtised that the company was given a $170 Billion bailout, with bonuses totalling £165 Million. Sounds and looks bad, when infact if they said:

"Banks gave the company $170,000 Million in bailout and £165 Millon was spent on bonuses" kinda puts it into context a bit more.

Also your friend is a numpty for thinking his residental broadband will get him 20 megabytes a second, even the new 50Mb broadband will only get you around 5.5MB's/s.
 
They also use 1000 bytes to a megabyte rather than the proper 1024 (that's why 500GB Hard drives are never 500GB).
 
anticonscience said:
So on my 10mb virgin connection, when I get 1.2mbps DL speeds, that's maxing out my download speed?
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mbps = megabits per second

you have to make the distinction between bits and bytes

a 10 megabit per second connection will get you 1.25 megabytes per second
 
He now seems to think he was getting 6mbps on his "crappy" talk talk connection before. I don't think he really knows what he is talking about, or just giving me false figures.

EDIT: He says he was on an 8Mb package getting 6mbps. I can't be bothered to reply to him any more.
 
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ScarySquirrel said:
I don't think he really knows what he is talking about, or just giving me false figures.
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Tell him to run a speed check on speedtest.net and to send you the link to the result image, or tell him to take a screenshot and send it. That way you'll know what he's talking about.
 
The speed you get will always be lower than the package you have subscribed to. ISPs like O2 state the maximum speed the package supports and they also give you an estimate to what your line can support.

My Dad recently got the same O2 Broadband package and he only gets 4.4 megabits even though he is paying for the 20 megabit service. This is due to the quality of his line and the distance from the local exchange.

You say he has changed ISP recently, well his connection could still be trying to determine his maximum line speed and will yo-yo for a week or so. Also, his previous package could have been an 8 megabit one and he could have been getting 6 megabits on it and he is disappointed with O2 because he is not getting that 6 megabits.

All in all, I don't think he means "megabytes" at all... all the figures he has given you are in megabits. Just to confirm though, tell his to send you a few screen shots of speedtest.net and his router status page :)
 
bam0 said:
Not actually true on O2, I have a bog standard Thomson O2 wireless II box and it's synced at 22,520 kbps right now.
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Lol nice,

probably not supposed to be like that, some sort of offshoot of the fact that technically you are connected to BE, who cap at 24Mbit.

I only know of one person who maxes out their BE connection but he is synched at 24 nearly exactly.
 
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