How do internet speeds work?

[Slog]

Lets say I have a plan of 30Mbps. What is the download speed i should be getting

basically how do you determine the download speed you should be getting if you have a certain plan.

 

[DW44]

Divide your Mbps figure by 8 to get your maximum theoretical download speed. Most of the time you'll get 80-90% of that, usually lower during peak hours. For 30 Mbps, you'll have a maximum download speed of 3.75 mb/s and most of the time it will hover at around 90% of that. For PTCL, it's usually around 95% most of the time but it slows to a crawl around noon and midnight for some reason.

 

[Tera Gawaandi]

Kilobyte = 8 times larger than a Kilobit.
Megabyte = 8 times larger than a Megabit.
Gigabyte = 8 times larger than a Gigabit.
Terabyte = 8 times larger than a Terabit.

To download a 1 MB file in 1 second you would need a connection of 8 Mbps.

bps means "bit," not byte. One byte is equal to eight bits.

Mbps is the ISP industry-standard. Just divide it by 8 to know actual download speed you will see in download managers.

 

[Red Devil]

Should give you a good idea.

 

[Tera Gawaandi]

Mbps: Megabit per second MBps: Megabyte per second

30mbps = 3.75MBps

 

[Slog]

thanks guys!

really helpful!

 

[Slog]

Divide your Mbps figure by 8 to get your maximum theoretical download speed. Most of the time you'll get 80-90% of that, usually lower during peak hours. For 30 Mbps, you'll have a maximum download speed of 3.75 mb/s and most of the time it will hover at around 90% of that. For PTCL, it's usually around 95% most of the time but it slows to a crawl around noon and midnight for some reason.

thats a good rule to remember i guess regardless of whether you understand how it works or not

basically the download speed in mb/s should be somewhere around 1/8th of the plan you have.

so i am getting around 2-2.5mb/s for a plan advertised as 30MBps. I guess a little below what i should be expecting

 

[DW44]

thats a good rule to remember i guess regardless of whether you understand how it works or not

basically the download speed in mb/s should be somewhere around 1/8th of the plan you have.

so i am getting around 2-2.5mb/s for a plan advertised as 30MBps. I guess a little below what i should be expecting

Yep, 1 megabyte/s(the unit we use) is 8 megabits/s(the unit ISP s use). 2-2.5 for a 30 Mbps plan is very low, should be around 3-3.2ish. PTCL's 20 Mbps plan, for instance, gives that much. Is it one of those wireless devices that run off a cell network? If so, your speeds are normal because it's normal for them to have around half of the advertised data rates.

 

[Slog]

Yep, 1 megabyte/s(the unit we use) is 8 megabits/s(the unit ISP s use). 2-2.5 for a 30 Mbps plan is very low, should be around 3-3.2ish. PTCL's 20 Mbps plan, for instance, gives that much. Is it one of those wireless devices that run off a cell network? If so, your speeds are normal because it's normal for them to have around half of the advertised data rates.

no its one of the fiber optic ones. Used to have ptch till a year ago but it was down a lot. this one is more consistent but seems like not giving the speeds they advertise. Average seems to be 2-2.5 but sometimes its higher upto even 3.2mbps.

i guess i am browsing here and facebook so thats affecting speeds a bit. also since it is wifi i am guessing distance from the device makes a bit of a difference?

 

[DW44]

no its one of the fiber optic ones. Used to have ptch till a year ago but it was down a lot. this one is more consistent but seems like not giving the speeds they advertise. Average seems to be 2-2.5 but sometimes its higher upto even 3.2mbps.

The local ftth(nayatel) is good and consistent but only offers 7mbps max and has download caps so PTCL is the only decent option. Luckily, it's almost never down and speed/reliability is good. Had maybe two outages since 2014.

i guess i am browsing here and facebook so thats affecting speeds a bit. also since it is wifi i am guessing distance from the device makes a bit of a difference?

Nah, both factors have a negligible impact(unless you're struggling to maintain 1 bar of wifi). Probably just false advertising.

 

[Moiza]

The local ftth(nayatel) is good and consistent but only offers 7mbps max and has download caps so PTCL is the only decent option. Luckily, it's almost never down and speed/reliability is good. Had maybe two outages since 2014.


Nah, both factors have a negligible impact(unless you're struggling to maintain 1 bar of wifi). Probably just false advertising.

Even if they cap it to 1 gb, nayatel is still the better option as compared to the mountain of feces called Ptcl.

 

[DW44]

Even if they cap it to 1 gb, nayatel is still the better option as compared to the mountain of feces called Ptcl.

PTCL has been working out great so far for me, probably because they have fiber here. As I mentioned, I've had maybe two outages in the last 3 years and Nayatel is not sufficient for me because I download games, some as large as 80 GB which is basically two months worth of data allowance on Nayatel. I also play a certain online game religiously for which stable pings are extremely important and PTCL is the only ISP that offers great pings to my server of choice with virtually zero down time.

 

[Moiza]

PTCL has been working out great so far for me, probably because they have fiber here. As I mentioned, I've had maybe two outages in the last 3 years and Nayatel is not sufficient for me because I download games, some as large as 80 GB which is basically two months worth of data allowance on Nayatel. I also play a certain online game religiously for which stable pings are extremely important and PTCL is the only ISP that offers great pings to my server of choice with virtually zero down time.

I never knew PTCL had customers who didn't wish death for the company. I, too download a lot of games but due to the capped data I just have to schedule them as opposed my wild 600gb a month download spree I used to have on PTCL.

 

[DW44]

I never knew PTCL had customers who didn't wish death for the company. I, too download a lot of games but due to the capped data I just have to schedule them as opposed my wild 600gb a month download spree I used to have on PTCL.

I used to wish death on them too several times a day when I was stuck in that godforsaken hellhole called Multan because they're on copper wire there. In Islamabad it's all fibre in my area(it's still not as great as it could be because my area is connected through the Pindi exchange instead of the one in F-5) and service has been great bar the midnight and noon slowdowns.

 

[SL_Fan]

Divide your Mbps figure by 8 to get your maximum theoretical download speed. Most of the time you'll get 80-90% of that, usually lower during peak hours. For 30 Mbps, you'll have a maximum download speed of 3.75 mb/s and most of the time it will hover at around 90% of that. For PTCL, it's usually around 95% most of the time but it slows to a crawl around noon and midnight for some reason.

Cheers buddy always wondered why my download speed was low. So they are dividing the dang thing by eight.

 

[SL_Fan]

Should give you a good idea.

Well that's interesting 3Mbps is not even in there. If anyone is wondering how life is like with a 3Mbps connection it's not very good I can tell you that much.

 

[tomato]

For browsing large speeds not required.

For downloading source severs also matters we may not get same speed downloading from torrents compared to downloading from day Apple

 

[Slog]

Nah, both factors have a negligible impact(unless you're struggling to maintain 1 bar of wifi). Probably just false advertising.

That is interesting

so it doesnt matter whether you have full wifi bars or just 2?

 

[DW44]

That is interesting

so it doesnt matter whether you have full wifi bars or just 2?

Internet speed remains the same, there's a slight increase in the amount of time it takes for your device and router to communicate but unless you're using some benchmarking software, it won't really be too noticeable since the delay is really small. Basically, if you notice there are times when you enter a url and the screen stays blank for a second or two before the whole thing suddenly loads up at once. That's what will happen but the impact on uplink/downlink speeds will not really be noticeable.

 

[imrankhannsu]

Interesting thread.

in terms of number of items connected to the same broadband, how much will each device receive in terms of speed when being used at the same time

 

[Couch Cricketer]

I have 1gb fiber the maximum speed I get from torrents is around 19-20mb/sec. Its so slow because of I use an old htpc and my hard drive is capable of writing at those speeds only.

 

[SL_Fan]

Oh poor you. Must be tough going.

 

[Slog]

[MENTION=26195]DW44[/MENTION]

What does ping mean and how does it work?


Is pig of 3ms good? What does it even mean

 

[DW44]

[MENTION=26195]DW44[/MENTION]

What does ping mean and how does it work?


Is pig of 3ms good? What does it even mean

In non technical terms, the time taken for a message to get from point A to point B and back. 3ms is extremely good. In Dota, an online game where half a second can be the difference between a win and a loss, I spend the whole day celebrating if I get anything under 100ms.

 

[ahmedwaqas92]

In non technical terms, the time taken for a message to get from point A to point B and back. 3ms is extremely good. In Dota, an online game where half a second can be the difference between a win and a loss, I spend the whole day celebrating if I get anything under 100ms.

You play Dota ??

 

[DW44]

You play Dota ??

Yes, or at least I did until moving to Qatar. Can't get playable pings to any server from here with the best option being EU West at 160ish(best case scenario), with frequent spikes into 700-800 territory.