Broad band speed question.

[johnny.rotton]

I was asked this week end in the pub that if you pay for "up-to 10Mb" broad band what does the 10Mb actually stand for as if you watch the download speed it never goes above 1Mb/s.

I personally was stumped by this question as I myself have never thought about it like that. At the time I said it could depend on the server you where downloading from. The conversation went on for the whole evening and we never come up with a conclusion.

So does anyone understand what it means?

I have never reached the 10Mb download speed I think I max out at 1Mb/s but when I check on a speed test I get my 10Mb.

Please help as I am so confused.

[whs]

Well, I pay for 6000 Kb/sec which corresponds to 6 Mb/sec (that is for download). My ISP also has the option of 16 Mb/sec (for more money). Some of the cable companies provide even a lot higher transfer rates because they have fast fiber optic lines.
But the capabilities of your connection and the actual download speeds are 2 pairs of shoes. The actual download speed depends on the speed of the server from where you download, the traffic on the web, the number of hops that are required for the connection, etc. I have rarely been able to exploit my capabilities. It is a lot slower most of the times. I guess that's why they say "up to".

[riteshtechie]

Just have a look at a basic that every1 forgets after sometime
KBpS = Kilo Byte per Second
KbpS = Kilo Bit per Second

It is all confusing Capital B is Byte
and small b is bit

as in 64Kbps we get 8KBps
in 128Kbps = 16KBps
in 256Kbps = 32KBps
in 512Kbps = 64KBps
in 1Mb = 128KBps
in 10 Mb = 1280KBps

SURF 749
Comes with Rs.100 free talktime on your Airtel mobile.
Speed @ Day 256Kbps
Speed @ Night 1Mbps
Data Transfer Limit 8GB
Experience

This is the surfing rate of Airtel have a look they are saying 256Kbps (small b = bits), they are talking in terms of bits but when we download any file we talk in terms of Byte thats the difference. Hope I made my point clear to you.

[iMav]

The scale is different for selling & downloading.

We usually get say 128kbps or 256kbps connections & we mistake the b for bytes when it is bit. So therefore download speeds are 1/8th which are ~16kBps or ~32kBps.

Similarly in your case @Johnny 10Mbps will give you ~1MBps (1.25MBps to be exact) download speeds

[johnny.rotton]

Thanks guys that explains it for me.

[seti]

There is a lot of confusion about this at the moment, because of the words up to being non specific. In others words the IPS do not claim the rates of downloads or uploads exactly, because of them do not provide the rates. By not advertising the exact rates, they are not breaking the law as they are not stating what they are supplying. They will also claim that the up to rate is dependant upon your location. At the moment Which magazine amongst others are trying to force a change in the law in the UK so that the ISP state the exact rate. I believe that this is the case in the USA and other places. Here I get a rate of approx 5120kb/s downstream and 228kb/s upstream and I am happy with that. To get the best rates and value for money, google Which and see their results, they make interesting reading!

[nitinagarwal1988]

The whole game is of uppercase and lowercase (B,b) as explained above...B stands for (Byte) and b stands for (bits). 1 Byte consists of 8 bits.....so, just divide the mentioned speed by 8 and you'll get the actual transfer speed in Bytes.

ISP's use Kilobits to mention the Broadband speed and windows transfer manager monitors it in KiloBytes. the whole difference is of Units..

[whs]

The whole game is of uppercase and lowercase (B,b) as explained above...B stands for (Byte) and b stands for (bits). 1 Byte consists of 8 bits.....so, just divide the mentioned speed by 8 and you'll get the actual transfer speed in Bytes.

ISP's use Kilobits to mention the Broadband speed and windows transfer manager monitors it in KiloBytes. the whole difference is of Units..

You really have to divide by 9 because there is a ninth bit - the check bit. And the small "b" stems from some older days when the transfer rate was measured in "baud" not bits.

[nitinagarwal1988]

You really have to divide by 9 because there is a ninth bit - the check bit. And the small "b" stems from some older days when the transfer rate was measured in "baud" not bits.

thanks for clearing sir, never heard about 'baud'
as much i know, the 8th bit is the parity bit??

[whs]

nitin, sorry, but you need all 8 bits for data. The lowest number in a byte is all zeros which is hexadecimal "00". The highest number in a byte is all ones which is hexadecimal "FF" and decimal 255. Try it out. You'll see that you need all 8 bits for data.
0000 0000 = 0 = Hex 00
1111 1111 = 255 = Hex FF
1 0000 0000 = 256 = Hex 0100