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[Speed] Confused about speeds (non tech person)Hi, first of all, I apologize if this was already answered. I'm not much of a tech person, so all these numbers are really confusing for me.
Anyhow, just got Comcast (Bay Area - CA) 20mb Performance installed on Friday. Both speedtest.net & speedtest.comcast.net show my download speeds are 20-25 Mbps. Installer said everything looks fine and left.
I've read the provisional speeds faqs and it says: "This translates into about 1650 KB/sec maximum transfer rate when you are downloading and about 275 KB/sec maximum transfer rate when you are uploading." for Performance.
I know it's "up to" 20mb, but my actual download speeds though seem to capped at 1.5mb with speedboost in the beginning up to 2mb. So 1650 kb = 1.5 mb or am I suppose to be getting much more?
I've searched around and saw on another forum that someone who has the 20mb performance package say their actual download speeds were 6mb.
Anyhow, I've tried power cycling my SB6121 modem and E1200 wireless router. Even directly hooking the computer to the modem. Both same results.
Here's my signal info from the modem:
Channel ID 1 3 6 8 Frequency 705000000 Hz 717000000 Hz 735000000 Hz 747000000 Hz Signal to Noise Ratio 37 dB 37 dB 37 dB 38 dB Downstream Modulation QAM256 QAM256 QAM256 QAM256 Power LevelThe Downstream Power Level reading is a snapshot taken at the time this page was requested. Please Reload/Refresh this Page for a new reading 0 dBmV 0 dBmV 0 dBmV 0 dBmV
Upstream Bonding Channel Value Channel ID 5 4 6 Frequency 30600000 Hz 25300000 Hz 37000000 Hz Ranging Service ID 5764 5764 5764 Symbol Rate 5.120 Msym/sec 2.560 Msym/sec 5.120 Msym/sec Power Level 46 dBmV 45 dBmV 47 dBmV Upstream Modulation [3] QPSK [3] 64QAM [3] QPSK [2] 16QAM [3] QPSK [3] 64QAM
Ranging Status Success Success Success
Signal Stats (Codewords) Bonding Channel Value Channel ID 1 3 6 8 Total Unerrored Codewords 23877688 23877779 23877693 23877782 Total Correctable Codewords 15 18 14 12 Total Uncorrectable Codewords 700 606 699 612
Would someone be kind enough to tell me (simple terms) if my speeds are normal/okay or if my speeds are a lot lower than should be? Thanks |
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NetFixerFrom My Cold Dead Hands Premium Member join:2004-06-24 The Boro Netgear CM500 Pace 5268AC TRENDnet TEW-829DRU
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NetFixer
Premium Member
2012-Nov-4 7:48 am
I think perhaps that you are confused by the difference between UPPER CASE KB/MB and lower case kb/mb. The former refers to Bytes *, and the latter refers to bits *. Perhaps the Speakeasy speed test results below (which show both methods of enumerating the test results) will help to illustrate the difference (FWIW, I am on a 16/3 speed tier).
If the above example does not help your understanding, please post screen shots of your own speed test results, and I am sure that someone can help you interpret what you are seeing. * EDIT: added definitions for bit and byte: said by Microsoft® Bookshelf® Computer and Internet Dictionary© : bit
bit (bit) noun Short for binary digit. The smallest unit of information handled by a computer. One bit expresses a 1 or a 0 in a binary numeral, or a true or a false logical condition, and is represented physically by an element such as a high or low voltage at one point in a circuit or a small spot on a disk magnetized one way or the other. A single bit conveys little information a human would consider meaningful. A group of eight bits, however, makes up a byte, which can be used to represent many types of information, such as a letter of the alphabet, a decimal digit, or other character. See also ASCII, binary, byte.
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byte
byte (bìt) noun Abbreviated B. Short for binary term. A unit of data, today almost always consisting of eight bits. A byte can represent a single character, such as a letter, a digit, or a punctuation mark. Because a byte represents only a small amount of information, amounts of computer memory and storage are usually given in kilobytes (1024 bytes), megabytes (1,048,576 bytes), or gigabytes (1,073,741,824 bytes). See also bit, gigabyte, kilobyte, megabyte. Compare octet, word.
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TheDude54 to nekoneko
Anon
2012-Nov-4 8:26 am
to nekoneko
The numbers you are seeing from speedtest.net and speedtest.comcast.net are very reasonable. Your actual download speed depend on a lot of things. I think a couple of questions to get cleared up first: you indicate that your actual download speeds range from 1.5mb to to 2mb. what measuring tool are you using to measure you download speeds? Are you sure is says "mb" (as in megabits) or does it say "mB" (as in MegaBytes)? If your actual download speeds are between 1.5 and 2.0 MB (2MB translates to 16Mb) then that is very reasonable because that means your actual download speeds are approaching your maximum speed of 20 Mbps. |
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JohnInSJ Premium Member join:2003-09-22 Aptos, CA |
to nekoneko
1.5MB (megabytes) per second is roughly 1650 mbit (megabits) per second. Your speeds are fine. There are 8 bits to a byte, and there are 1024 bytes in a megabyte. |
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graysonf MVM join:1999-07-16 Fort Lauderdale, FL |
said by JohnInSJ:There are 8 bits to a byte, and there are 1024 bytes in a megabyte. Yes, 8 bits to a byte. 1024 bytes in a megabyte? I don't think so. |
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JohkalCool Cat MVM join:2002-11-13 Pennsyltucky |
to JohnInSJ
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JohnInSJ Premium Member join:2003-09-22 Aptos, CA |
to graysonf
said by graysonf:said by JohnInSJ:There are 8 bits to a byte, and there are 1024 bytes in a megabyte. Yes, 8 bits to a byte. 1024 bytes in a megabyte? I don't think so. Sorry, too damn early skipped a step. 1024 bytes in a kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte. |
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Thank you everyone for your responses.
Yes, I do believe I was confused on the whole bits and bytes thing.
Here are my results from Speakeasy tests (after a few tries, these seem the average):
San Francisco, CA Your Speed Result: Download Speed: 6809 kbps (851.1 KB/sec transfer rate) Upload Speed: 4270 kbps (533.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Los Angeles, CA: Your Speed Result: Download Speed: 26080 kbps (3260 KB/sec transfer rate) Upload Speed: 4292 kbps (536.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
My 1.5-2 MB download speed was from what Chrome browser was showing when I was testing files (from apple.com and download.com). Even my neighbor's kid brought over his laptop and tried downloading Steam games and he said it's only 1.5 MB too and it was slow since I'm suppose to get 20 MB - So I was very confused about everything.
So Comcast's Performance speeds are 20 Mbps which equals to 2.5 megabytes per second actual download speeds, so my results are okay.
Thanks again for everyone's help and explanations. |
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JohnInSJ Premium Member join:2003-09-22 Aptos, CA |
JohnInSJ
Premium Member
2012-Nov-4 8:06 pm
Yep, a 20MB/sec line would be sweet... but probably isn't going to happen in the US for another decade or two for residential speeds. 100Mbit wired ethernet is ~12MB/sec in ideal settings, to put it into perspective. |
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