Internet Speeds

**Sasaki Kojiro** · 02-10-2007, 18:06

There are a lot of other factors effecting how fast you get your data. The 10 Mb/s or whatever is how fast it can put the info onto the wire. There's delays for it reaching you, delays while the sender waits for it's turn, corrupted packets that have to be resent, and then some of the data sent is just header.

**Husar** · 02-10-2007, 18:42

And besides what Sasaki mentions, there is terminology.

500kb/ps to me means "fivehundred kilobit per picosecond"

let's assume you mean "fivehundred kilobits per second" as in 500kbps or 500kb/s. That is how most connections are advertised.

When you now download something, your download program will most likely show the speed of your download in "kiloByte per second", like 50kB/s.

Now since every Byte consists of eight bits, we are about there because 512kbit/sec(probably the real speed) equals 64kByte/sec and the rest of your loss comes from things Sasaki mentioned like upload(communication always goes both ways), resending of packages, packages taking long ways etc.

If you already knew this, ignore me.

**BDC** · 02-10-2007, 18:49

Originally Posted by Husar

And besides what Sasaki mentions, there is terminology.

500kb/ps to me means "fivehundred kilobit per picosecond"

let's assume you mean "fivehundred kilobits per second" as in 500kbps or 500kb/s. That is how most connections are advertised.

When you now download something, your download program will most likely show the speed of your download in "kiloByte per second", like 50kB/s.

Now since every Byte consists of eight bits, we are about there because 512kbit/sec(probably the real speed) equals 64kByte/sec and the rest of your loss comes from things Sasaki mentioned like upload(communication always goes both ways), resending of packages, packages taking long ways etc.

If you already knew this, ignore me.

Yes, people are always getting confused over why a 1mbit/s line doesn't download at 1mb/s hehe.

Too many 'b's.

**Big King Sanctaphrax** · 02-10-2007, 19:10

I've never understood why connection speeds are measured in bits, but download speeds in bytes.

They should really standardise it.

**pevergreen** · 02-11-2007, 01:47

KK, that makes sense.

Was at 512 kbit, getting 50 kb/ps

at 1.024 mbit/ps getting 150kb/ps

at 5mbit/ps getting 450kb/ps

They good speeds?

**Big King Sanctaphrax** · 02-11-2007, 02:16

Well, you should divide the connection speed by eight to get your download speed. But that's only a theoretical maximum, you'd never actually get that.

**sapi** · 02-12-2007, 12:51

Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax

I've never understood why connection speeds are measured in bits, but download speeds in bytes.

They should really standardise it.

Simple - isps are trying to sell you something, and bigger sounds better.

Browsers have no such restrictions so display things realistically

@pever - yep, that sounds about right.

**Caius** · 02-12-2007, 13:47

We had here a problem with internet.

The ISP gives to us 640Kpbs and the modem was giving us 32Kpbs.Now its fixed

**drone** · 02-12-2007, 21:04

Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax

I've never understood why connection speeds are measured in bits, but download speeds in bytes.

They should really standardise it.

I think it dates back to the old modem days. The baud rate = bit rate for old-school communications. Using bit rate in telecomms makes more sense than byte rate, because a data line may not be always be transmitting a byte-oriented protocol.

**ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88** · 02-12-2007, 22:12

40 bucks here for 6-8MB cable

**Beirut** · 02-13-2007, 04:19

After a year of CRC errors (noisy telephone line) on all my DSL downloads (meaning every file over 5 megs was corrupt) it's fixed itself.

Now I can DL stuff myself instead of having to go to my buddy's house and burn all my DLs onto CDs there and bring them home.

Speedwise, about 150kb. My buddy's cable machine was hitting 2000kb. Shmuck.