Broadband speed

[modeller]

I'm puzzled by the term Broadband speed. The figures 2-8Mb is constantly mentioned but when I get the speed read out on my PC I get 953kbps download speed and 368 kbps upload speed. Those figures are so far removed from 2-8Mb that something is wrong . I'm with PLUSNET and I have checked with a friend who has same ISP and he has similar speeds . He lives about 8 miles away and is on a different exchange. Can anyone explain these figures please .?

[VHG]

The "M" is in Mb is Million and the "K" in Kb is thousands. So "Mbps" is a Million Bit Per Second, and "Kbps" is Thousand Bits Per Second.

So 2Mb is the same as 2,000Kbps (both are 2,000,000 bits per second) and 8Mb is the same as 8,000Kbps (both are 8,000,000 bits per second)

So your reading of 953 Kbps is just UNDER 1,000 Kbps or just under 1Mbps (953,000 bits per second, just under a million)

The upload speed is 368Kbps so about a third of a Mbps. Upload speeeds is ALWAYS far lower than download speed.

[VHG]

Note that measuring you broadband speed should be done a number of times, at different periods of the day and night (and on different days).

None of use get a "constant" broadband speed so you can only get an average by measuring it a number of different times.

[modeller]

Thanks for your contributions . The figures I quoted were an average over a month . I've even tested it at 2am in the morning and even then it it is roughly the same . Can you confirm that these speeds are below normal for the country as a whole. How do they compare with your speeds ?

[scotman]

Assuming you have a broad band connection your speeds are on the low side. How far are you from your exchange? What service speed have you signed up for?

[ChuckFickens]

what speed are you actually paying for?

[rojash]

Looking at the faq on the PLUSNET web site - if you have the "value" package, they throttle practically everything to a varying extent according to the time of day.
http://tinyurl.com/yg2teom

[modeller]

Thanks everybody your answers have helped to clarify the situation . I pay for 3Gb of data, £10.73 a month but Plusnet does not make clear how that relates to actual speed . I have now used their test line speed for my area and they quote 1Mb which is not much different from what I am getting . However it would indicate that no matter how much I pay I would not get a faster download speed, or have I missed something.?

[ChuckFickens]

Stick you post code and/or phone number in here

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adslchecker.php

It will tell you how far away from he exchange you are and the maximum estimated speed you would get if you used a better ISP.

[ChuckFickens]

Oh and the 3GB a month is the amount of data you can download, nothing to do with the speed you get on the line.

[modeller]

Thanks again I found websites highly informative.

[mollykins]

We get a few hundred kbp/s and my dad phoned up complaingin that its not fair that we have to pay the same as people who apaprantly can recieve 8mbp/s so they said we can have it cheaper.

[craft1948]

I pay for up to 8Mb and have just run a speed test....my download speed is 3.2Mb but my upload is only 0.4Mb

[ChuckFickens]

thats normal Craft, the A in ADSL stands for "Asymmetric" which means the speed one way (download) is always far far faster than the speed the other way (upload)

It works OK because you almost always want to download things from the internet, rarely upload anything.

[scotman]

my typical speeds are 7 down and 1 up. I am about 300m from my exchange

[ll_billym]

My speed is 10Mbps and I actually get 10.2Mbps. Thank you Virgin Media (cable).