[G4] Broadband Speed Liar's Poker

[sr ferenczy]

a Kilobit/second (Kbps) (normal parameter ISPs use to measure the 
bandwidth they give you) is 8x greater than a Kilobyte/second (KBps) 
(the normal parameter ftp clients, web browsers, etc use when referring 
to network/transfer speed)

1500 Kbps would be 1500/8 or 187.5 KBps, 87.7 KBps would be 701.6 Kbps. 
so yes, that speed seems to be slower than your maximum, but the 
limiting link in the chain is not necessarily your ISP, it could be the 
server you are downloading from, or even some switch along the line 
(the more "jumps" the more possibilities for slow downs)

from a fast server, such as apple.com's with a large download, i get a 
consistent 178 KBps (1424 Kbps) on my 1.5 Mbps DSL connection (thats 
1500 Kbps or 187.5 KBps)  -- 1 Mb=10 Kb --  BUT 1 MB=1024 KB!!


confused yet?? =)
your speed is looking good-if you tested at about 1500 Kbps, then the 
server you were downloading the 87.7 KBps from is probably just 
slower....



sandor


On Dec 13, 2003, at 4:36 PM, Richard M. Kriss wrote:

> I know this has been discussed before but I am a new DSL user and very
> confused on how to test my download speed. When I  do the speed test 
> thing
> at http://www.computers4sure.com/speed3.asp?Sp=1336 I get
>
> Your Speed is: 1336 Kbps  to 1550 Kbps
>
> When I watch the Safari download window it says
>
> 87.7 KB per sec
>
> Maybe I am getting confused by Kbps (bits per second) vs KB (Bytes) per
> second.
>
> The new DSL setup seems much faster than the old 56K dialup connection 
> but I
> have no idea how good is good.  I have heard cable people say they are
> getting 300 KB per sec.
>
> What is the correct term for quoting speed KB per sec or Kbps?
>
> What is a good figure for a DSL connection?  I don't care about 
> comparing to
> cable modems. I just want to know if my DSL is working okay.
>
> I wonder if the speed is more influenced by the application (Safari,
> Netscape, Explorer and the new Mozilla Firebird)