Help with mbps and kbps

[sarpmis]

Okay,

I have this crappy wireless connection that gives me 100-150 kb/s download speed. And i want to change it. But when i go to windows' network center it says that my connection is 54mbps. I checked some other providers and they have 10mbps for more than i pay for mine. (I dont remember how much i pay for this but it's not much)

So i searched it on the internet and im so confused right now. Some people seem to think that 54mbps is "not that great" and some seem to think that it's super fast. what? one thing im sure of : this is NOT fast at all. I dont understand this kbps mbps crap.

P.S i did this http://www.speedtest.net/ and it seems to think i have 0.98 mb download speed.. i believe that's 980 kb/s. i dont even get 1/5 of that.

 

[Saga Lout]

It isn't a great speed and maybe your telephone lines are old or you're a long way from the exchange. It's also possible another ISP could give you more. Try Speedtest.net again and this time, pick an alternative server - I've found the nearest geographically isn't necessarily the fastest.

The downloads might be a fraction of the actual depending on the upload speed at the other end of the transaction. In the UK and some other countries, we have ADSL and the A stands for asynchronous meaning we don't have the same upload speed as our download - my own is only ten percent. Try downloading from an FTP site in your own part of the world.

 

[Saga Lout]

By the way, I ducked the main part of your question in favour of letting Wikipedia describe it better than I could. Take a look here:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units

 

[sarpmis]

By the way, I ducked the main part of your question in favour of letting Wikipedia describe it better than I could. Take a look here:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units

Ohhhhh.. Now i get it. Who's idea was it to use "b" for bits and "B" for bytes? Anyways, i think my connection is 8 mbps. I checked all the hosts on speedtest and they're all about 1 MB. And 1 MB = 8 mbps right?

But i still don't understand why it think my connection is 54 mbps? Is that the routers capacity or something? Also i get like %10 of the download speed i should get. Is it because of the distance thing you mentioned or does it happen with every connection

 

[john-b691]

The 54m is more of indication of which encoding the router is using between your PC and the router. It just means it attempts to run that fast. Wireless never gets close to rated speeds because it is half duplex. Only one person can transmit at a time and if more attempt you get errors and everyone must retransmit slowing everything down.

You can only get the speed of the slowest thing in your network. I suspect it is your internet connection limiting you.

 

[sarpmis]

Ok then what speed do you suggest i get? I play online games and use steam so i have to download them.. waiting for a 20 gig file to download with 100 KBps is not that fun.. I basically need. higher download speed

 

[Saga Lout]

It's hard to say what speed to go for - even if your locality allows more speed. I have a new fibre optic connection and I get 39Mb. Last evening, downloading a driver package for Realtek audio, the 118Mb file took 26 minutes to get here.

I ran Speedtest on another machine while the download was coming through and my speed was 37.62Mb so it had to be the Realtek mirror's upload that restricted the file transfer. Speed isn't the only factor.

 

[sarpmis]

Well yeah, speed isn't the ONLY factor. but it is a major factor. Also steam servers are pretty good, i think. I though about getting a fibre optic connection but they have so small limits! Like 20 GB a month!!! i'd fill that in 3 days.. Anyways thanks for your help, i'll get a 8Mb or maybe 10Mb connection, that would work fine for me