Megabit?..Megabyte?

[XBoxWarrior]

Maybe someone here can help?

In any case, I subscribed for Qwest DSL @ a guaranteed 1.5 MBS.

Now after looking at wiki......I see a big difference between Megabytes,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabyte

and Megabits,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabit

I am only downloading @ about 85K......

I feel I am getting the shaft.

Any tech geeks here that can help me?

I just spent three hours on the tele with some peeps with odd names, and funny accents, telling me my service is "just fine".

The people on the phone say they are selling "Megabytes".

:confused:

p.s. may move to business if needed?

ETA: it's slow like molasses

[D'rok]

This bandwidth calculator might help:

http://edoceo.com/utilitas/bandwidth-calculator

1.5 Mbps = approx 192 KBps

At 85 KBps you are getting less than half of your guaranteed speed.

ETA: Use this to get an idea of your available bandwidth:

http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest

[El Greco]

In any case, I subscribed for Qwest DSL @ a guaranteed 1.5 MBS.

"guaranteed" ? Are you sure there's no fine print ? I've never seen a guaranteed DSL subscription outside of leased lines.

[El_Spectre]

Generally speaking, telecom data rates are measured in bits, not bytes.

Now, since (modern) bytes are generally 8 bits, your guaranteed rate (in bytes) should be:

(1.5 * bits in a megabit) / 8 bits per byte

or

(1.5 * 1,048,576) / 8

which is 196,608 bytes

So, your pipe should be able to handle that much data. there is NO guarantee that the server sending you data can get anywhere near that, unfortunately.

[Molinaro]

1.5 MBS (with a capital B) is 1.5 megabytes per second. That is 8 times faster than 1.5 Mbs, or 1.5 megabits per second.

1 byte = 8 bits

Do you get the 85k speed no matter where you download from? It may be whoever you are downloading from that is limiting the download speed. I would suggest downloading something big from Microsoft. I always hit my peak speeds when downloading from them.

For example try this: .net develpment kit (http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9B3A2CA6-3647-4070-9F41-A333C6B9181D&displaylang=en)

That 106 MB (megabyte) file downloads at a speed of 940 KB/s for me. That is kilobytes, or 0.94 MBS on my 7 MBIT cable internet, which is actualy faster than what my internet is suposed to be. Most other sites I download from come in at a speed of about 400 KB/s to 650 KB/s.

Also, you can simply google "internet speed test" and try some of the multitude of web sites out there setup for testing your internet speed.

[luchog]

As someone who has done this crap for a living for far too long, there is no way that anyone is selling a DSL line rated in bytes. Speed is always rated in bits. So your line is 1.5Mpbs, or megabits per second. Anyone who tells you differently, even if they work for the telco (or cable company if you have cable) has no clue what they're talking about, or they're flat-out lying (not uncommon with some of the bigger ISPs).

And that speed is most emphatically not guaranteed. That is the theoretical maximum that your line is rated for. There are many other factors which will influence the actual data transfer speeds you experience. Quality of your house wiring will have a huge effect (unless you're doing a straight Cat-5 drop from the NID), as will the quality of the telco's phone line, and your distance from the telco's central office switching node. The farther you are from the CO, the lower the speed your line will handle, due to the reduced signal:noise ratio. While a good ISP will not sell you a speed that your line cannot handle, others will (Earthlink is bad for this). Other factors are the traffic in the network cloud, the ability of the server to handle that much data, interference on the line (and there are a lot of things that can interfere with a DSL signal, including some cordless phones, and nearby Ham radios), the quality of the local telco lines and equipment, and so on.

If you're getting download speeds of 85KBps, that is kilobytes per second), you're actually doing quite well. Speeds of 40-60KBps are more common.

[El_Spectre]

As someone who has done this crap for a living for far too long, there is no way that anyone is selling a DSL line rated in bytes. Speed is always rated in bits. So your line is 1.5Mpbs, or megabits per second. Anyone who tells you differently, even if they work for the telco (or cable company if you have cable) has no clue what they're talking about, or they're flat-out lying (not uncommon with some of the bigger ISPs).

[snip]


Especially wonderful are the ones who advertise speed in "megs" only...

[XBoxWarrior]

WOW......thanks for all the quick replies!

I think I get it. I am screwed. :confused:

Bits/Bytes? they sell Bytes and deliver Bits?

But what gets me, is when I first signed up, I could download my porn ;) at about 750K........now it's just 75~80K........1/10th the speed.

I must admit I am no expert here, but I did have DSL in a big city, and it didn't take 10 seconds to open Gmail?

I do live in a very remote place in Colorado, where we just got DSL two months ago, it was fast, now snail.

peace

p.s. Thanks for the help

[El_Spectre]

Bits/Bytes? they sell Bytes and deliver Bits?


Wait till you see hard drives... where they advertise megabytes in base 10 (1 million bytes) yet actual disk space is in base 2 (again, 1048576 bytes). Thats how you buy a 200GB hard disk and only get 190...

[XBoxWarrior]

Wait till you see hard drives... where they advertise megabytes in base 10 (1 million bytes) yet actual disk space is in base 2 (again, 1048576 bytes). Thats how you buy a 200GB hard disk and only get 190...

Ok, I get it. Thanks for all the help!

It does to me, (the semi-ignorant comp user) seem to be a scam.

Bits/Bytes, even the phone techs on Qwest (major phone provider in the western US) don't know the difference?

They all swear that they are selling Bytes.

Semantics, sure.......but my DSL was WAY better in Manhattan.

It's just one of those things I'll chalk up to "living the peaceful life"!

Thanks all you JREF posters for some easy to understand info.

Peace

[Corsair 115]

If you're getting download speeds of 85KBps, that is kilobytes per second), you're actually doing quite well. Speeds of 40-60KBps are more common.Something else to note is that some ISPs artificially limit download speeds when downloading via file sharing software such as BitTorrent. But if you download a file directly from a server, you'll get your full speed.

[The Gnomon]

Ok, I get it. Thanks for all the help!

Semantics, sure.......but my DSL was WAY better in Manhattan.

It's just one of those things I'll chalk up to "living the peaceful life"!

Thanks all you JREF posters for some easy to understand info.

Peace

DSL speed slows down under marginal conditions. You may be on the fringe of your copper-line range.
Running some tracert times may show where things are slowing down. Your ISP's pipe may not be very big. This will be noticable if speeds are different at different times of day, due to load changes.
Because you note that: 1. it was working better a while ago, and 2. it worked better elsewhere, I suspect some problem with something between your ISP and your screen-e.g. software settings, DSL modem problems, line problems. It can be a challenge to track it down, but, if you convince your service provider that it's not your equipment, they may help. Does it have the same speed on a different computer? If so, it's not your hard/software, but their problem.
It will help if they have some competition in your area, that may give them some incentive to assist you.

[alfaniner]

I have been working in computers for 30 years, and understand the difference between bits and bytes. However, this week was the first time I ever heard that there was a distinction between "1Mb" and "1MB". I don't believe I'd ever heard anything expressed in "megabits" before, or perhaps I just never heard the difference.

Kind of like finding out that DVD-R won't play on a DVD+R player, but a CD-R plays on most if not all CD players.

[Schneibster]

Generally, data SIZE is in bytes (or megabytes, or whatnot), whereas data RATE is in bits (or megabits, or whatnot). That's because the number of BYTES transmitted over a unit time is not directly related to the number of BITS transmitted; different protocols have different amounts of overhead, headers and footers and CRC checksums and parity bits and so on, and that means that not all of the bits transmitted correspond to bytes of data transmitted. Now put the bytes of actual usable data through not merely one protocol but a stack of protocols, and allow incomplete packets in order to do buffer flushes, and suddenly it gets pretty hairy trying to figure out just how much data will go through, even though your hardware is faithfully putting out and taking in the requisite number of bits that the protocol mandates. To top it all off, you're maybe putting something that's sent to the modem on an aloha network that uses a variable backoff collision resolution protocol, and so does the modem on the other end of the wire, and there's absolutely no way of precisely predicting exactly how much usable data will get through; it's like trying to predict how many cars will go by exit 64 on I-256 between 11:00:00.000 and 12:00:00.000 tomorrow.

The best test is empirical; D'rok's suggestion is as good as any.

[El_Spectre]

I have been working in computers for 30 years, and understand the difference between bits and bytes. However, this week was the first time I ever heard that there was a distinction between "1Mb" and "1MB". I don't believe I'd ever heard anything expressed in "megabits" before, or perhaps I just never heard the difference.

Kind of like finding out that DVD-R won't play on a DVD+R player, but a CD-R plays on most if not all CD players.

heh, go look up kilo-byte vs kibbi-byte. Too many ways of measuring this stuff :)

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

This bandwidth calculator might help:

http://edoceo.com/utilitas/bandwidth-calculator

1.5 Mbps = approx 192 KBps

At 85 KBps you are getting less than half of your guaranteed speed.

ETA: Use this to get an idea of your available bandwidth:

http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
This site also works well for testing connection quality http://test.lvcm.com/

[Grimoire]

Network speeds are almost always measured in bits per second, rather than bytes per second. Bits are abbreviated with a lower case b, bytes with an upper case B. As you can see on the Qwest DSL page (http://www.qwest.com/residential/internet/pricing.html), they list all of the speeds in bps, or bits per second. Most browsers list speeds in Bytes per second. Take the number you get from your browser, and multiply by 8. That will convert the Bps to bps.

Also note that the Qwest says you get up to 1.5Mbps. Of course, actual download speeds can vary, depending on server you are downloading from. This means that, at most, you will get 192KBps (as seen in your browser) download speeds.

[Cuddles]

But what gets me, is when I first signed up, I could download my porn ;) at about 750K........now it's just 75~80K........1/10th the speed.

Are you using the same program? Different programs display the rate in different ways. It's entirely possible that the one you were originally using was displaying kb, while the one you are using now displays kB, or even just that you changed the display setting without noticing (which is something I've managed in the past).

The other thing to remember is that download speeds don't only depend on your connection. They depend on the other end and everything in between as well. If the place you're downloading from has become more popular, or you're downloading from somewhere with lower bandwidth, the speed you get may have very little to do with your connection. The same applies if your ISP server is busier than before. Also, as already mentioned, some ISPs limit the rate for cetain things, so if you're using P2P, especially Bittorrent, you're likely to get a much slower download rate than you do from websites. Since this is a relatively new thing, and depends very much on the ISP, that could easily explain any differences.

Finally, in the UK at least, many ISPs have a maximum download limit per month, usually only a few GB. Once you've passed the limit, they often cut your speed by a huge amount until the next month, so if you're downloading a lot of films or music, that's also something to check up on.

[Zarathustra]

For those who are loving their "high speed" 100-XX Mbps connection, even housewives in Japan enjoys speeds of up to 1Gbps standard.

American Business needs to Get.With.The.Fxxxxxx.Program.

[El_Spectre]

For those who are loving their "high speed" 100-XX Mbps connection, even housewives in Japan enjoys speeds of up to 1Gbps standard.

American Business needs to Get.With.The.Fxxxxxx.Program.

Its a damn big country, takes a long time to wire it...

[Zarathustra]

Its a damn big country, takes a long time to wire it...

Honestly, I don't buy that, but..I agree in that:

I know that any company with enough wherewithal could toss fiber op and recoup losses by charging an install fee as well as a contract for two years.
Problem is, at one point the Telcos (Ah let's face it, there's really only one left) will still charge an arm a leg for bandwidth.

The lack of fire on this issue make me think that Execs are sitting around knowing they can charge us more for less and we have squat all we can do about it.

[lomiller]

Don’t forget overhead. In addition to the data there is error detection/correction information and packet addressing information. As a rule of thumb it takes ~10 bits of bandwidth to get 1 Byte of data across the wire.

There are also differences in the way Mb and MB are defined for storage and bandwidth.
In telecommunications and Disk 1 Mb is 10^6 bits but for file size its 2^10 bits.

[El_Spectre]

Honestly, I don't buy that,

Yes, well... now we're into politics and I'm not gonna go there. Most people have no idea of the infrastructure that is under their feet, nor the associated cost and time. Its expensive and time consuming to roll out certain services, and the geeks (I am certainly in that camp) want every new tech NOW. Doesn't work that way.

Of course, it's easy to just blame greedy execs, but honestly I don't buy that :)

[Modified]

Honestly, I don't buy that, but..I agree in that:

I know that any company with enough wherewithal could toss fiber op and recoup losses by charging an install fee as well as a contract for two years.
Problem is, at one point the Telcos (Ah let's face it, there's really only one left) will still charge an arm a leg for bandwidth.

The lack of fire on this issue make me think that Execs are sitting around knowing they can charge us more for less and we have squat all we can do about it.

We have fiber-to-the-home available here (they ran the lines last summer). The download speed you can get is no better than you get with a cable modem (5-10Mbps), and the price is about the same. The upload speed is a lot better though - 1Mbps vs. 128K, and you can get 5M for a bit higher cost. The competition (both the cable and fiber companies supply internet, TV, and phone service) doesn't seem to have reduced prices at all. That's strange, since the fiber company must be taking a huge bite out of the cable company.