megabytes, contention ratios etc - help (1 Viewer)

[bohs punks]

wondering could someone do a 20 second crashcourse on broadband speeds for me as i am confused about speeds and know theres techies on here. This will probably seem thick but its new to me.

so correct these ideas i have please or clarify them.

when companies talk about 512 service this doesnt mean you download at 512kbs but at 64 kbs? (8 bits is a byte?)

contention ratios are number of people sharing an internet connection eg 24 -1 = 24 people sharing a connection.

if all 24 people are on line download speed would be 64 kbs divided by 24?
if no one else is online you get full 64kbs?

download caps includes everything you look at on the net rather than just items you specifically download to your computer.

Thanks for any clarity offered.

oh and what download speeds do people get in reality ?

 

[Donkey OJ]

take everything i say with a kb of salt.........

when companies talk about 512 service this doesnt mean you download at 512kbs but at 64 kbs? (8 bits is a byte?)

ADSL = Asymmetric DSL which means your download speed is much greater than your upload speed. Asymmetric. Your logic re the 64kbps is dodgy. You're comparing miles per hour and the number of feet in a mile...or something. Read this....
"kbps is short for kilobits per second, a measure of data transfer speed. Modems, for example, are measured in Kbps. Note that one Kbps is 1,000 bits per second, whereas a KB (kilobyte) is 1,024 bytes. Data transfer rates are measured using the decimal meaning of K whereas data storage is measured using the powers-of-2 meaning of K." Now I'm as confused as you are.

contention ratios are number of people sharing an internet connection eg 24:1 = 24 people sharing a connection. if all 24 people are on line download speed would be 64 kbs divided by 24? if no one else is online you get full 64kbs?

leaving out your 64k calculation you're basically correct. the lower the contention rate (1:1 being a line dedicated to you only) the higher the potential bandwidth available to you at all times. at a 24:1 contention rate you could conceivably achieve 512kbps download speed (if there are no other users on your segment online.... if your street gets nuked for example - the internet is nuke proof, you're wearing a radiation suit) but the minimum download speed you'll ever have to put up with is 512/24 = 22kbps

download caps includes everything you look at on the net rather than just items you specifically download to your computer.

yup. but when you're talking about html pages with text and the odd image which are generally very well compressed you'd want to be doing a hoor of an amount of general surfing to hit a 20 or 40gb limit on page hits alone per month. for the most part you'll use up your limit by downloading mp3s or movie clips. stuff like that.

oh and what download speeds do people get in reality ?

just got 420kbps (=65mph) . tested it
here

 

[jane]

Happy Birthday, Lifestyle Board.

I just felt like reviving an old thread for the laugh, but when I went to the last page I learned that the Lifestyle board was three years old yesterday. Three years!? Can you believe it? It seems like only yesterday except three years ago that we started wondering if our deadly threads about lipstick and hairdos would die a quick death.

It's not really a temporary name anymore, is it, Pete?

PS: I don't understand at all what this thread is about, and I never will. These days, we wouldn't even see it in our midst because we have a board for nerds who speak in bytese.