Speed tests are weird?

[{CLR} Naillik]

I've tried a bunch of different ones, and I usually get 1.5mb a sec as an average download speed -- But when actually downloading something I've never gotten faster than 200kb/s.. For anything
anyone know why?

[Sirex]

my line here is DSL
My rated line is 4mb/s but i get around 390-460kB

your line is rated in bits not bytes.
so as a good guide divide your line speed by 10 to get your KB/s download as all browsers show you, and most stuff.

for a 1.5mb line 200 is above average.

also mine the speed of the download source maters as well.

[Dead...Again]

The first is megabits, the second is kilobytes. (b = bit, B = byte)
1 KB = 8 Kb
1 Mb = 1024 Kb

200KB/s = 1.56 Mb/s

[DougBob]

Actually you don't need to worry about the 1024 conversion for network speed. The 1024 conversion is only used when using binary positional math with measurements i.e. hard drive and memory storage.

Network speed is measure in Mbps which is a raw measurement of the number of bits that are transferred in a second, usually contained in a 1500 KB packet. So you're actually doing better than the avg 1.5 Mbps connection, probably due to jumbo packets.

1 Byte = 8 bits
Connection = 1.5Mbps (1,500,000 bps)
Max download in KBps= 1.5Mbps / 8 = 187500 Bps (187.5 KBps)

[Sgt.Fury]

Here's 1 you might try if you don't already have it

Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test

[mapes]

Actually you don't need to worry about the 1024 conversion for network speed. The 1024 conversion is only used when using binary positional math with measurements i.e. hard drive and memory storage.

Network speed is measure in Mbps which is a raw measurement of the number of bits that are transferred in a second, usually contained in a 1500 KB packet. So you're actually doing better than the avg 1.5 Mbps connection, probably due to jumbo packets.

1 Byte = 8 bits
Connection = 1.5Mbps (1,500,000 bps)
Max download in KBps= 1.5Mbps / 8 = 187500 Bps (187.5 KBps)

Actually you do have to worry about the 1024 conversion. Although it dosn't really matter on some level Two things need to be clarified here. At the Ethernet level you have something called a frame. At the IP level you have something called a packet. IP packets are encapsulated in an ethernet frame. Basically when you send data over Ethernet the data is wrapped into a frame. The network will only deal in frames of a certain size. If the data is to small to fill up a frame the network card driver fills pads out the frame to fill to the proper size. All frames are based on powers of power of 8. The smallest frame size is 64 and it progress upwards like so 64 128 256 512 768 1024 1280 1518. Jumbo frames aare frames that are larger than 1518 and are usually only used in fiber links or 10GB network links. Whats this mean. It means that the largest single pulse of data you can send is 1518 bytes. Another thing to note is that when you transfer files you are most likely using TCP protocol. TCP has built in error handling (you want to make sure you get the file correctly) This error handling adds like 10% to 20% overhead in the data pipe. Meaning instead of sending more data (i.e pr0n) your machine and the server are exchanging data saying yes I got that packet ok. This is known as TCP overhead. Just using TCP you won't get your full bandwidth for data as some of it is used for error checking.

[ShosSofe]

Well, there is this one site which converts the speed they test to the dl speed you should be getting. I forgot the site name but I got just 1200 kb/s on the site and they told me that my d/l speed is 120kb/s (my norm is 150-160kb/s) so yeah.


and yeah. my internet is slow =\

[mapes]

Well, there is this one site which converts the speed they test to the dl speed you should be getting. I forgot the site name but I got just 1200 kb/s on the site and they told me that my d/l speed is 120kb/s (my norm is 150-160kb/s) so yeah.


and yeah. my internet is slow =\

That actually sounds about right ....

[H0ly-H@nd-Gr3nade]

For all you lazy people here is a cool converting tool. I believe that you would type in the speed your ISP tells you in the "Mbps" slot, click convert, and then look down at the "Byte-based" section for the useful stuff.

[mapes]

check out this site for comparisons of different technologies bandwidth. Connection speeds compared

Note for ADSL and TCP combine they assume a 15% overhead usage in bandwidth