Okay, let me just chip in with my little defence..
Please.. I know my bits from my bytes. Thats for damn sure. I should never and will never speak in kilobits per second because (to me) its useless information.
When I said 50KB/sec I used the big 'B' on purpose. If I say 50kb or 50Kb then it is something else like kilobits.
I did get 50KB/sec but not for long. Also, it doesnt happen all the time. Right now I cant even get 10KB/sec uploads on our crappy tower. All it proves is that uploads are not capped.
I capped it shortly after seeing 50KB/sec since that kind of speed will cause someone somewhere to suffer but probably not much since its all about downloads. It also shows that I am P2P friendly [8D]
I think the uncapped uploads contribute nicely to the experience, by this I mean that I have noticed that when the speeds are crappy (slow up and down) browsing really blows. However, under normal conditions with downloads maxing out at 16KB/sec with uploads > 16KB/sec, browsing is still possible and relatively decent.
Like I have mentioned before, I believe that uploads are purely contention based and not capped at all. That should explain the spiky uploads during 'quiet' times.
About the bits and bytes, like I told the helpdesk.. (like many others) I know what I am talking about.