ADSL 1024 speed

[getafix33]

Hi there guys

First post so please be kind.

I have a SAIX account and my ISP is Hyperlink. It is a 1024kb/s line which should be running at 4096 (Telkom test) The thing is that my download speeds and general browsing is far from adequate (IMO) On average I download at about 25 - 45 KB/s. I have gotten speeds as low as 5Kb/s and this is not uncommon. If I run the Telkom speed test it says I am connecting at the max with downloads of about 450Kb/s - This is not the case.
I realise that ADSL is shared, but there is a huge difference between 40Kb/s and 450Kb/s.
Sometimes if I dowload a file from Microsoft, I get about 300Kb/s, but everything else is slow - relatively speaking.
I have contacted my ISP and they say that they don't do any throttling on their side, so do you think that Telkom is maybe doing it. I suppose anything is possible.

An example, I have a 384 line at home, and I download on average the same speed as the line at work - ( I am the only one at work on the net)
I am not connecting via wireless at work.

Any ideas?

Cheers
Gareth

 

[bwana]

Try using a download manager whenever possible the threading can help you utilise all of your line speed.

Downloading locally will generally be faster than international and many times popular items are chached so you're getting the same file just of the Telkom network.

 

[wavescape]

You have to remember that downloading from microsoft and other big sites will always be very fast compared to most sites. They have huge bandwidth available and in some cases also have servers across the world to speed access to web visitors - ie Apple used to use Akamai, who in tern has servers locally.