I need help :-(

[dagath]

The thing is i don’t really understand broadband and could use a quick definitive explanation on what speeds i can expect from my package.
My package is with Ice ( i know i know ) they are the only broadband available in my area. the package is 3 down and 1 up. i downloaded a large file today and got between 40 an 50ks per second??? is this all i can expect from a package advertised at 3 dn 1 up???

IF SO then why do they advertise it as 3 dn 1 up?

IF NOT, what should i expect? this will be re-laid to ICE in subsequent heated conversation

Thanks in advance for the help guys

[dickiesam]

Hi Dagath,
As you will see from the numerous postings on this forum about this topic, the speeds the ISP puts on their literature etc, are clearly labelled (sometimes in very small print) 'up to'. So while you may have signed up for say 1/2 Mb up and 1 Mb down, what you are actually signing up for is for speeds up to those limits.

You will rarely get the upper limit and you should expect nothing higher than about 80% on a good day. If you get consistently a lot less than 80%, you should get pretty vocal with the ISP's customer support. Personally, I am happy with even 50% because that is still a hell of a lot faster than my old dial-up speeds of between 5 and 10 kb. But then, I am not a gamer or online gambler although I do download/upload a considerable amount of stuff in my research work. You will probably get more responses in a similar vein.
Cheers,
Dickiesam

[jimbob101]

Hi Dagath

I might be able to help as well.

I'm with Ice as well and when i run the test on this site i regularly get over 1.5 meg and oftern near the 3 meg advertised. however the quickest download speed i've ever gotten is 300Kbps

The download speed is dependant on the server that the download is coming from. what connection it has how busy it is etc.

For example you could download an update from the Microsh1te site today a day after it's released and only get 40kbps.

next week you might get 250kbps for the exact same download from the exact same site.

The difference - the traffic has eased meaning a quicker speed for each person.

Think about the difference between sunday lunchtime traffic in any city and monday rushour.

Hope this helps

[foggy_lad]

during off-peak times you should realistically be getting the advertised speeds or pretty close to it but as already said between 5pm ant 11pm when most people use their pc's you should be getting around 50-75% of the advertised speed!

and 40-50KBps is not a bad transfer speed during peak times but if irt is only 40-50kbps its not great.

[jimbob101]

As i said in my post you might have a 3 Meg connection but your download speed is also Dependant of general internet traffic as well as the upload speed of the server that is supplying the files you are getting

[dagath]

Originally Posted by jimbob101

For example you could download an update from the Microsh1te site today a day after it's released and only get 40kbps.

next week you might get 250kbps for the exact same download from the exact same site.

thanks folks for the advice, i have noticed a massive diffrence in speed depending on the time of day or night but have never gotten anything like 250kbps the most iv'e gotten is 140kbps which to be honest i am happy with.

the point i think still stands tho. 140kbps is around 4.6% of 3megs so if ur told u get up to 3megs down surely 4.6% percent of it is well.... poooo to put it nicely.

Any thoughts?? or am i just naive?

[oneill.dav]

Complain. End of. It's not on.

[jimbob101]

Just because you can download at 3meg it does not mean that the supplier of the file your downloading is giving you 3meg.

there is nothing you can do about that i'm afraid.

e.g you might get 120kb downloading a file from rapidshare but you might only get 10kb from a torrent file. Particularly when it's a file with only a small number of seeders that throttle the upload speed.