Post by: alfred on September 20, 2006, 11:20:01 PM
Alfred
Post by: jogger on September 21, 2006, 08:39:33 AM
I live approx 1 mile from Marple ex and it is now running at 5.5meg.Hope this helps.
Post by: Mr Mansfield on September 21, 2006, 01:56:34 PM
My indicator at the bottom of the screen said 100mbs.
I telephoned Orange in Mumbai or Bombay and they said that is the speed between my router and my comp. They said I was updated to 8 In June of this year.
They suggested I download:
www.adslguide.org
to check my actual broadband speed, Ive tried this but cant get it to work and it suggested I might have a firewall stopping it so.
Post by: alfred on September 21, 2006, 09:53:12 PM
I presently have a fixed 1Mbps broadband connection over my phone line.
The speed I was referring to is the speed indicated when you initially try to upgrade to the new 8mbps system on a telephone line. You have to put your telephone number in a box (on a special website) and it checks the telephone exchange etc and then predicts what you will get if you upgrade. This facility is run by BT. This gave 3Mbps in June but now says 1Mbps and I need someone with telecomms knowledge to explain how this can be!! Especially as I have agreed to go over to it on the basis I would get 3Mbps even 2miles from the exchange as I am. With your BT experiance do you have an explanation "jogger" ?
Post by: jogger on September 22, 2006, 06:40:21 PM
Post by: wardie on September 23, 2006, 08:14:30 PM
Orange are correct, if your computer is connected to a router (which could be one of these wireless ones) rather than to the internet directly, it will only report the speed between the computer and the router which is usually 100Mbps (where Mbps is Mega BITS per second). If you are using wireless (sometimes called Wifi), from a laptop for example, the speed is usually 54Mbps.
If you are connected directly to the internet (i.e. not through a router), then the computer should report the true connection speed.
To test your download speed quickly, go to Microsoft and download MSN Messenger (best to do this in the mornings before the US wake up). The link is http://get.live.com/messenger/overview, click on the "Get it free" button and then hit "Save". Choose where to save and a new box appears showing the download speed in KB/S (which is Kilo BYTES per second). Now there are 8 bits in a byte, so multiply the number you see by 8 and you have your typical download speed. Mine showed 480KB/S, which is 3840Kbps (480*8), and as I'm on 4Meg NTL, that sounds about right to me.
Hope all that helps clear up some common confusion.
Now those who are still awake will have noticed that 4Mbps or 8Mbps is much much slower than 100Mbps or Wifi's 54Mbps, which means that when you're downloading from the net, it will be your Internet speed, not your Wifi speed which constrains the download. Again, another common confusion.
Post by: alfred on September 23, 2006, 11:12:54 PM
Incidentally if I use my post code it gives 3M.
Any explanations?
Post by: Howard on September 24, 2006, 01:10:09 PM
| Quote (alfred @ Sep. 23 2006,23:12) |
| I tried BT.com again today and it still gives 1M for my phone number (Marple 449 code) but gives 3.5M for my nexdoor neighbour (Marple 427 code). Very odd as we both share the same telegraph pole! Incidentally if I use my post code it gives 3M. |
I wouldn't trust BT's figures as your online search seems to demonstrate - if they can't even match their databases when you search by telephone or postcode, I don't really know how you can work out your connection speed other than by empirical means (i.e., experimenting at various times of the day with the online speed tests).
Despite ADSL broadband seeming to be a simple service, actually it's extremely an extremely fragmented system with all sorts of "spagetti" computer code and hardware to make it work. ADSL is a system that has evolved rather than being designed and, in some cases, is managing to run Internet connections over 40 year-old copper wires that were never intended to handle this sort of communication. When you know how it is strung together, it's a miracle it works at all!
The other thing that you may not be aware of is that your download speed is only a theoretical maximum and you are limited by a factor called "contention ratio" which BT has as 50:1 for home users and 20:1 for businesses. That is, the number of users using their ADSL connection at the BT exchange can be up to 50 users per single exchange connection. Therefore, if you have a large number of users, al doing heavy use of the connection such as streaming media or file sharing, you will achieve a significantly lower speed then that which you may be expecting.
I have worked with computer networks for the last fifteen years and the one thing I can tell you with some certainty is that there is nothing you can be certain about!
Post by: ironbridgecottage on September 25, 2006, 12:22:19 PM
Post by: amazon on September 27, 2006, 03:15:29 PM
Post by: ironbridgecottage on September 29, 2006, 01:57:37 PM