Help understanding download speed please...

JustAnotherGamerGirl

JustAnotherGamerGirl

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Hello,

Going from the title, I have a bit of a problem completely understanding download speeds vs what speed I actually get whilst downloading. I have Airfibre from Supersonic, it's a 20mbps package, and yet my download speed is 2.1mbps. Why? Is it supposed to be this way? I am cancelling SS because I cannot use a normal UPS to power it when it's loadshedding and I don't have 3 grand to blow on a large one, it also uses MTN which is constantly down in my area. I'm now looking at LTE options, no MTN obviously (I cannot have fibre in my area), so will I also experience 2mbps download speed if I take a 20mbps Telkom LTE package or...?
 
best point of reference, is to use a speedtest website. aka https://speedtest.mybroadband.co.za/

this will give you a line equivalent test (ie 20mbps line should show 20mbps after the test.
Downloads can come in many forms , and can report in bytest per second as stated above, or just be slow because of other limitations(wireless links is known for throttling)

test downloads from various sources (ie not torrents) to see if different solutions provide different speeds
 
Very normal.

8 bits in one byte. Internet speeds are labelled in bits but downloads are typically represented in bytes, be that megabytes or mebibibytes (qBittorrent uses KiB, for example).

So divide whatever the advertised speed is by 8 to get your theoretical download speed. Since it's a wireless package you can expect some variation so 2.1MB/s sounds about right.
 
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It’s an unfortunate barrier of entry between nerds and normal consumers and somewhat the marketing machine.

And nobody will change it to be more reflective of reality using MB/s because then it will look like you are getting less compared to others.

But your experience is perfectly correct and when you have a 20 MEGABIT line you’ll be downloading at around 2-2.5 MEGABYTES per second.
 
Airfibre package is advertised as 20Mbps, but you are only getting 2.1MBps (which is equivalent to about 16.8Mbps). Network congestion possibly.
 
Solarion said:
Airfibre package is advertised as 20Mbps, but you are only getting 2.1MBps (which is equivalent to about 16.8Mbps). Network congestion possibly.
Click to expand...
Still roughly in the acceptable ballpark for a wireless service.
 
I cannot say that I understand this article fully, presume I will have to go and google these terms. So I have to choose my wording, but my TELKOM Fixed LTE Internet via a WiFI modem is in my view for a long time ridiculously slow.
No 1 I stay in Parow, Cape Town where I have perfect reception of all type of packages in all networks.
Ookla says my Download is 3.5 Mbps and my Upload is 5.93 Mbps. Then it also drops the Internet sometimes for a few seconds.
When I was visiting a one-horse town in the Freestate, it was 28 Mbps Download and Upload 32 Mbps.
 
Wrench and Gear time. 1 Byte is not 8 bit. Well not 8 usable bits. as you need a start and end bit before you can send data and instructions. That also acounts for slowdowns.
 
Just remove a 0 at the end and you will roughly have your speed in Megabytes.

100Meg (fibre) = ~10/11 MB/s
 
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