actual download speed?

[evilone373]

i am debating on whether i want to get dsl or stick with cable,sbc is telling me i can get speeds of 4mb on the download for 36.99 a month.
ok my comcast is supposed to get the same speeds but for $60.
but when i download files i have never seen my speeds go above 500kbs,so someone gave me this link
http://www.cable-modem.net/    and when the results are posted it says my speed is 4770kbs
why doesnt anything ever download that fast for me,like i downloaded a macromedia product to mess around with and it never got above 350kbs while downloading?  just confused why they tell you how fast your connection is but ive never had that speed except on the tests.

[Homer]

Sounds like a question for fatkid.  ;)

[PogoPlayer]

This depends on a few things.

Your ISP is to far away from your house.
The ISP is having TD.
Have you tried broadbandreports.com's tests and tweaks?
Have you tried a download accelerator? Such as DAP, Flashget etc.

I had to call my ISP 2 times, because my download speed was only half of what I was paying, everything is okay now.

[bob@pogopal]

Remember as well that you cannot download anything faster than the server can feed it to you.

[DJ_]

Keep in my that you're charing a single line with a lot of people that can slow things down as well. If you ask me the DSL deal is much better....what are you waiting on, for cable to come down with the price? LOL fat chance that they will ever lower the price just for the fact that cable needs much more maintenance than a phone line. Our cable company here sucks is over priced and goes out everytime when we have T-storms, which in the summer that's about everyday.
my 0.02 cents  :P

[honeypyye]

I agree with DJ about waiting on the price of cable to come down..That's a joke...but you have to ask yourself...Do you want to pay more for faster service..or less for something more reliable?  I had DSL, only because I couldnt get cable in my area at the time.  It was reliable...but I much prefer the faster speed of Cable.  And I havent had any trouble with mine since Comcast upped the download to 3MG so I cant complain...=)

[evilone373]

well after reading some posts,i never had any problems with my isp...just dont understand why after taking the speed tests it is always a high kbps number and then when i go to download a large file it downloads at a very slow speed.if i take my mouse and run it over the little computer icon down by my clock
it always says>speed: 11mbs   signal strength: very good
confusing to me,so actually my connection is fast but yet it doesnt matter because i can only upload and download at certain speeds?
i hate to get rid of cable and run into problems with sbc but a $25 a month savings sounds good since all i need is something that averages 3-400 kbps...since anything above that is just overkill? ???

[vaporware]

Many, many factors that relate to speed.  The measurements you are seeing from http://www.cable-modem.net/ show the capacity of your pipe-with 4770Kbs being the maximum that your pipe can handle.  Keep in mind that as you look around at the hundreds of speed test sites on the 'net, the results of each one is subjective to it's own issues at the time of the test-such as how many users are connected to the server, how much bandwidth they are paying for to allocate to speed tests, the routing their information is going through to get to you.........  When we look at DSL\Cable, both tout download speeds of 'up to' many Mbps, and the connection between you and your DSL\Cable provider is configured to actually handle that much data.  The key words in this are 'up to'-although there are a few exceptions-you will never reach the capacity the DSL\Cable provider advertises.  Factors that contribute to this are distance-with DSL the further your data has to travel from a 'DSLAM' the less throughput you will receive, throughput referring to actually data that can be sent and received without data corruption from either side.  With Cable distance isn't necessarily a factor, with the exception being the distance from your Tap to your Home-known as the Drop.  The quality of your signal plays a factor as well-with DSL\Cable your line is configured to carry multiple services, or signals, that is fine tuned with one setting at the home-inside wiring, other electronic devices, temperature and more contribute to the quality of signal that the respective DSL\Cable modem negotiates to transfer data with(if your television reception is poor or if you have some disturbance during phone calls, you will have less than adequate throughput for Internet).  Every DSL\Cable modem has a diagnostics page that will give statistics to the quality of your connection-learning how to decipher this information in troubleshooting your Internet connection is the first step that should always be taken-this information will give you a snapshot of the quality of your connection between you and your DSL\Cable provider.  All DSL\Cable providers guarantee the quality of the connection between you and them-and not beyond the NAP(gateway to the Internet), and they will determine any issues that relate to quality of signal and/or throughput has something to do with your location first.

Once we have determined that everything is kosher between our DSL\Cable provider and us, there are still numerous factors that determine throughput.  Overhead is one of the most important factors to consider when focusing on throughput.  Let's start with capacity-a Cable provider has set your account to 4Mbs-remember, this is between you and the Cable provider.  Today you want to download the latest from http://www.pogocheats.net/downloads.php -are you ever going to download from here at 4Mbs, no.  The reason for this is capacity is equal to bandwidth is equal to money.  Pogocheats.net pays an ISP for a pool of bandwidth that is distributed to each individual computer that connects to http://www.pogocheats.net in order to access the web forum content and also to download files as well.  Bandwidth can be expensive, and the Admins of http://www.pogocheats.net are always monitoring stats of those that are connecting to the site, and making adjustments to Bandwidth as needed to keep everyone happy.  Now remember I mentioned there is the factor of Overhead-you started with a capacity of 4Mbs, and when you connect to http://www.pogocheats.net, the site has allocated 200Kbps for each connection(forgive me http://www.pogocheats.net -just using these as examples)-does that mean you will be downloading at 200Kbps-no.  The data the leaves http://www.pogocheats.net must run through a series of hops(other computers and networks) before it finally gets to you-we're going to say an average of 15.  Each one of these hops has it's own issues relating to Bandwidth allocation, capacity and throughput as well-and each hop takes a bit of those 200Kbps to route the data.  Finally the data reaches your machine, and on average approximately 15% of the 200Kbps, or 30Kbps is allocated to the Overhead to route the data to you, leaving 170Kbps-does this mean you'll be downloading from http://www.pogocheats.net at 170Kbps now.......no.  Once the data hits your Ethernet card, it is then processed by routing the data to the CPU, the CPU then routes the data to the respective OS, which in turn routes the data to the particular application requesting the data-that application then compiles that data and displays information based upon the negotiation this application and the OS has agreed upon.  This last leg of the routing process can add as much as an additional %15 to the Overhead-this is also the part we have the most control over. We started with downloading a file from http://www.pogocheats.net using our 4Mbs connection, http://www.pogocheats.net allocated 200Kbps to us and we ultimately began downloading this file at 140Kbps-remember that this is just an example and not an actual possibility(well, maybe). 

You can take control of your download capacity experience by focusing on these areas-the quality of the signal, the speed of your processor(faster is better), the amount of RAM(more is better), the capabilities of your Video Card(the display that we see is last on the list of processing priorities on a computer), setting your Ethernet card to either 10Mbps or 100Mbps(turn off the Auto Negotiate feature), have as few programs running at any time(the more the computer focuses upon, the more Overhead towards downloading).

Still more factors to consider-networking, wireless, quality of cables as well as length....... I'm hoping that others here will contribute their knowledge and experience to achieving a better throughput experience for everyone.  I'm always available via email if you have further questions.

John

[honeypyye]

Please let me say "Thank You" for making the comments that you just made understandable to the "little more than average computer literate" person that I am. I myself appreciate the length of time and effort you put into that masterpiece. I can't contribute to it...but I do have a better understanding of it now.... :)

[evilone373]

yes thanks for the in depth response,i can see where a site with downloads available would be paying for allowing people to get programs from them.
was just something i could not understand and you shed light on a lot of factors as well as others who responded.
willl have someone come and look and show me if any tweeks can be done to speed up anything,once i see that done i will know how to do it.

[fatkid]

Vaporware is very correct in his statements... But it's still not the true answer...
Hate to spoil everyone's party but here's the easy answer...  ;)

There are 8 bits in a byte
Your ISP tells you you can download at 4 megabits per second...
The net speed test you took was in kilobits...
Your download speed that you said never goes above 500Kbs per second is in kilobytes...

There are a couple of math problems here to deal with... First is the bits - bytes... 8 bits in a byte...  Everything in a computer works on the power of 2... 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 512 1024... Now this is where all computer companies do some funny math...  1 kilobyte is 1024 bits... Now computer advertisers don't do their math on the power of 2... To them 1 kilobyte is 1000 bits... Why?  I really don't know... What this means though, is that whatever measure they give you, be it a 4 megabit connection or a 180 gigabyte harddrive you need to take their number of bits and divide by 1.024 (becuase that is what the computer uses to calculate the size; remember powers of 2)...

Take 4 megabits (4,000,000 bits)...
Divide by 1.024 and you get 3,906,250 bits
Divide 3,906,250 by 8 now and you get 488281.25 bytes
So now your true maximum connection speed is 488.28125 kilobytes (what you see when you download files off the net)

You said you got somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 kilobytes from you download...  Does 488kbs or around there sound about right? ;)
So you do have a 4 megabit connection... You just thought it was a 4 megabyte connection...

This also explains when you buy a new harddrive that's 180 gigabytes large (says the box  :P) and when you install it, it winds up only being 167 some odd gigs large (make some room for boot sectors and such and the math works on it as well)... It also explains how, when you get a 56k modem it doesn't really download at 56kilobytes a second... It downloads at 56kilobits a second... Divide by 8 and you have a 7 kilobyte connection...  Hopes this helps explain things a little better... And more exactly...

[vaporware]

 ::)  Too funny......   ::)

John

[yousmellbad]

I will just comment that I have the SBC dsl on one of the computers I used, and it is nice and fast. I havent had any problems with it and it will download programs and whatnot within seconds.

[DJ_]

I had a feeling fatboy errrrr fatkid had something to say about all this......I'm just glad he didn't point my post out again!  :P

[fatkid]

I wasn't trying to make anyone sound wrong (*cough* though DJ usually is *cough*)  Everyone had great answers... It's just a matter of bytes and bits... And it's one of the most frustrating parts with current advertising schemes by computer companies... About the only ones who don't mess with the bits/bytes are RAM manufacturers... Anyways what everyone else said is totally true about net latency... This is just an explanation of why 4mb connections aren't really 4mb connections...

Don't worry DJ... We've got our history... And we all know who the teacher and who the student are...  ::)
Besides I could never hate on you too bad... We're both big fans of the Big Blue chess matches...  ;D