Simple question (maybe)

Skeptic · 16 Feb 2012 at 15:58

I have sky broadband. I have been on the phone to them and they say I have a 7.1mb/s line.

Broadband genie suggests that I have:

Detailed Results
Date 16/02/12 15:57:25
Download speed 4857.77 Kbps (4.74 Mbps)
Upload speed 622.74 Kbps (0.61 Mbps)
Server Port 8095 (tcp)

What download speed should I be getting per second if the line was maxed out?

Are there an places that you can suggest for me to download at max speed to see what I achieve?

There's probably some maths to do here, but I can't quite work it out (it has been a long day..!)

Gammawolf · 16 Feb 2012 at 16:09

www.speedtest.net

Skeptic · 16 Feb 2012 at 16:11

Gammawolf said:
www.speedtest.net

Yeah, I used that one as well before I posted:

5.32 Mb/s 0.61 Mb/s 45 ms

So, am I just looking in the wrong place to find the 'real' download speed?

Gammawolf · 16 Feb 2012 at 16:34

What do you mean by "real"? That speedtest.net will show the real word speeds that you can get on the line. Typically when you download files the metric you'll most often see is Bytes, so with 5.32Mb/s (MegaBits) you should see things download at roughly 660kB/s (KiloBytes) maximum. This is to do with the bits to bytes conversion (there are 8 bits in a byte). Other than that i'm not sure what you mean.

Skeptic · 16 Feb 2012 at 16:41

Nope, you answered my question perfectly; many thanks!