H2 Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 I have 20 meg broadband connection with virgin media. When downloading it is usually between 20 and 40 kb/s is that right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 It all depends what you are downloading and what set up you have, those speeds are well below what they should be FWIW. if you mean bit torrent/p2p downloads then there could be a couple of things wrong that are making it so slow - if your modem is crap and can't handle large amounts of packets/connections then it's not going to matter what speed internet service you have, other than that if you have a built in fire wall and have not set up port settings then that can also bugger up downloads. If you mean downloads direct from a website or streaming then that is not quite right. My speeds for direct downloads are usually about 250 kb/s and I ony have 8meg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Gosling Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 My downloads are about 740kb/s on 8mb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H2 Posted March 9, 2008 Author Share Posted March 9, 2008 It all depends what you are downloading and what set up you have, those speeds are well below what they should be FWIW. if you mean bit torrent/p2p downloads then there could be a couple of things wrong that are making it so slow - if your modem is crap and can't handle large amounts of packets/connections then it's not going to matter what speed internet service you have, other than that if you have a built in fire wall and have not set up port settings then that can also bugger up downloads. If you mean downloads direct from a website or streaming then that is not quite right. My speeds for direct downloads are usually about 250 kb/s and I ony have 8meg. It's a Virgin media package, with their modem and their anti-virus firewall package. It is direct downloads I am referring to. Maybe I need to contact Virgin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hughesie27 Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 I've had 1mb/s a number of times on my 20mg connection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 My downloads are about 740kb/s on 8mb.That is about what it should be, I used to get BT/P2P downloads at 1500Kb/s until I updated my Router's firmware, and now it crashes when I try to do a rollback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 It's a Virgin media package, with their modem and their anti-virus firewall package. It is direct downloads I am referring to. Maybe I need to contact Virgin. I'd reccomend finding a solid modem with a built in firewall, they basically take away the need for all those crappy software firewalls and anti-virus (and if you read up on the settings it can easily be tuned for fast downloads). My router has a built in fire wall is ancient but in 4 years of using it I have never had a single virus/trojan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoJack Horseman Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 I get about 4000kb/s on my uni network. Superb for downloading. You should get a hell of a lot more than 20kb/s on a 20meg connection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ulysses Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 I have 20 meg broadband connection with virgin media. When downloading it is usually between 20 and 40 kb/s is that right? Theoretically, you should be capable of downloading 2.5 Mb/s, i.e your connection speed divided by 8. In practice that'll never happen, and you'll have to ask a propeller head to tell you why, but you should be able to sustain 65-70% of that rate (see Tobias Funke's post above, for example). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H2 Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 Thanks for all the responses. I disconnected my router, plugged straight into PC - didn't seem to make any difference at all Done some more speed testing got lot's of different results, seems dependent on source. 1.ZDNET - 2311kb/s which they relate to just over a 2MB cable connection 2. Speakeasy - 9161kb/s 3. Speedtest.net -13275kb/s 4. Kickback (measured using Opera browser) - 73kb/s 5. Tucows downloading shareware (measured using Opera browser)- 166kb/s It's interesting to see the Broadband test sites all give different results, but they are all considerably faster than figures shown in the browser for actually downloading. Does anyone know of a reliable way to measure the download speed? I am a tad confused. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Das Root Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 Theoretically, you should be capable of downloading 2.5 Mb/s, i.e your connection speed divided by 8. In practice that'll never happen, and you'll have to ask a propeller head to tell you why, but you should be able to sustain 65-70% of that rate (see Tobias Funke's post above, for example). Essentially it's marketing bullsh*t. You don't get the full speed only "up to", simply because the total bandwidth is shared out over the entire network and you get what you can depending on how many other connections are in your area, time of day, what everyone else is doing etc etc. So if you live in an area with lots of offices you'll see a decreased speed 9-5pm, in suburbia slower at night because more folk are online. NTL 8yrs or so back I hacked the modem they gave me and got 10Mbps, downloaded a shed load of stuff then got hoisted from the network by their tech boys as I'd killed everyone elses connection in the area. Oooops Speed tests can depend on where the test server is based, network traffic at the time, even if you have other programs running and accessing your connection. Simple thing is if you don't need a router just connect direct to the modem, go to http://www.adslguide.org.uk and run the test there, at different times of the day, record the results and if nowhere near what you should be getting contact Virgin and ask them why. Sometimes firewalls can kill your speeds as they analyse network traffic and too many progs set to auto update and such can always chew bandwidth but on a 20meg connection you should fly along and not notice these things so something wrong somewhere. Maybe see if you can borrow a laptop or another PC and try that on your connection to rule out issue with your PC, saves p*ssing around with Virgin if it's actually something on your PC itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ulysses Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 Essentially ........ ........itself. Like I said, you'll have to ask a propeller head to tell you why. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Das Root Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 Like I said, you'll have to ask a propeller head to tell you why. Essentially... all the great posts start with "essentially" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ulysses Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 Essentially...all the great posts start with "essentially" Strictly speaking... Except for those that start with "theoretically". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Brow Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 if you phone virgin and say "when i am downloading my illegal cds/films/pr0n whatever i dont get 20mb" they will tell you to **** off. They can see what you are connected too and wont help if they see p2p programs/torrent sites. If it IS a genuine problem then you need to close down all the programs you run and conduct the speed tests with only 1 explorer window open. Make sure the settings are correct at your end. Virgin throttle torrent/p2p sites between 5 and 9 i think anyways. I am with virgin and bitcomet runs slow as a week in the jail between 5-9 but outwith these times its awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H2 Posted March 11, 2008 Author Share Posted March 11, 2008 Essentially theoretically or theoretically essentially, practically and in reality I am confused. Doing the speed tests all abut the same time and re-doing there is a consistency that the faster tests sites always give faster results, and the slower ones always give slow results. Guess my conclusion is that there is no reliable way to measure download speed. Unless anyone can tell me otherwise? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazo Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 Essentially theoretically or theoretically essentially, practically and in reality I am confused. Doing the speed tests all abut the same time and re-doing there is a consistency that the faster tests sites always give faster results, and the slower ones always give slow results. Guess my conclusion is that there is no reliable way to measure download speed. Unless anyone can tell me otherwise? Go HERE and download 2 or 5 large files at the same time and see what your speed is. I get about 600KB/s from each file i download. Those files come direct from Virgins servers so you should get decent speed and a true indication. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H2 Posted March 11, 2008 Author Share Posted March 11, 2008 Go HERE and download 2 or 5 large files at the same time and see what your speed is. I get about 600KB/s from each file i download. Those files come direct from Virgins servers so you should get decent speed and a true indication. Thanks - that was fun! Amazing results varying from 1.57- 2.03MB/s (total sum of two at a time) over about a 5 minute period at about 11.00pm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H2 Posted March 11, 2008 Author Share Posted March 11, 2008 Essentially it's marketing bullsh*t. You don't get the full speed only "up to", simply because the total bandwidth is shared out over the entire network and you get what you can depending on how many other connections are in your area, time of day, what everyone else is doing etc etc. So if you live in an area with lots of offices you'll see a decreased speed 9-5pm, in suburbia slower at night because more folk are online. NTL 8yrs or so back I hacked the modem they gave me and got 10Mbps, downloaded a shed load of stuff then got hoisted from the network by their tech boys as I'd killed everyone elses connection in the area. Oooops Speed tests can depend on where the test server is based, network traffic at the time, even if you have other programs running and accessing your connection. Simple thing is if you don't need a router just connect direct to the modem, go to http://www.adslguide.org.uk and run the test there, at different times of the day, record the results and if nowhere near what you should be getting contact Virgin and ask them why. Sometimes firewalls can kill your speeds as they analyse network traffic and too many progs set to auto update and such can always chew bandwidth but on a 20meg connection you should fly along and not notice these things so something wrong somewhere. Maybe see if you can borrow a laptop or another PC and try that on your connection to rule out issue with your PC, saves p*ssing around with Virgin if it's actually something on your PC itself. Tried with a lap top results much the same. Used link - according to that 12 mb/s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark_Mywords Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 Thanks - that was fun! Amazing results varying from 1.57- 2.03MB/s (total sum of two at a time) over about a 5 minute period at about 11.00pm That's peeking about 16.2Mbit/s, which is pretty good for your connection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark_Mywords Posted March 11, 2008 Share Posted March 11, 2008 Tried with a lap top results much the same. Used link - according to that 12 mb/s That's 12Mbit/second.... same as 1.5MByte/second (1 Byte = 8 Bits) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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