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ZOOMIE1980 -> RE: For those wondering about Internet download speeds (6/24/2004 4:05:57 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: 2Stepper
Greetings all!
Seeing a few good posts in the Digital download thread and not wanting to overpost on the topic I decided to make a thread to help folks understand a little about how their connections work and how fast they really are.
You hear the terms every day. Kilobyte, and Kilobit. Or in some cases Megabyte, and Megabit. They're both easily confused as to just how quickly you're moving data through the internet. Lord knows I did when I first got into DSL. I was looking at a 640kb download rate and a 256kb upload rate thinking GREAT! I can get over half a megabyte downloaded in a second! What I didn't know was that the "kb" stood for KILOBIT, not BYTE like I thought. [:(]
Of course the drool set in right off. I quickly found out that wasn't the case at all.[:(]
Don't get me wrong, I was still cooking with gas for a DSL line in the home, but it wasn't what I thought.
Basically the numbers work out like this. Whatever your KILOBIT throughput is (DSL, and sometimes cable are listed as such), you divide that number by 8. That will be your MAXIMUM KILOBYTE throughput on the net. That assumes maximum data through the net of course. We all know how lag goes... For those that have dialup or DSL, the number you see in the SYSTRAY by the clock is your KILOBIT throughput. Most websites will show Kilobit throughput. Here's one that shows KILOBYTE throughput instead.
Here's some basic numbers so you'll see what I mean before you add in internet lag. The website should help with this also.
4.0megabit= 500KB/sec (T3 cable line)
2.4megbit= 300KB/sec (standard T1/home cable)
1.2megabit= 150KB/sec (FAST DSL)
256kilobit= 32KB/sec (standard home DSL)
126kilobit= 15.75KB/sec (ISDN line/high compression dialup)
56kilobit= 7KB/sec (standard dialup)
That's the rundown gents. I'm sorry if those number seem a little depressing for some on dialup still. This isn't meant to dog anyone. Just alleviate some confusion that always exists about such things. Lord knows I had it confused for a long while. Hope this helps out. [:)]
One thing to remember on cable modems, is the speed can vary widely depending on who is online in your area, doing what. Later in the evenings, when all the teenagers in the neighborhood are doing their Everquest/Massive Multi player thing, the throughput can drop to barely over a 56K dial-up line, but in the mornings it can approach actual 10BaseT Ethernet speed... With cable you SHARE the bandwidth with a lot of other people. DSL is an unshared line all for you.
Another growing method is piggybacking on the Satelite like a Dish Network system. Pretty good download speed, close to your fast DSL and such but uplink is basically standard dialup speed.
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