bandwidth usage...

[abhishekkalra]

i m using wix xp pro(sp2).i m using a lan card and use 24/7 client to connect.my isp is reliance.i m using the package of 128kbps with unlimited downloads.now my prob is that sometimes i get a rocking download speed of 60kbps and most of the time 10-12 kbps.
can someone tell me why is there so much variation?is there any method by which i cud know whether i m getting 128kbps or not.
thanx in advance.......

[__Virus__]

You can always go for testing ur bandwidth

http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html

I think if you access net at peak hours the speed will slow and opp the other way.

[kalpik]

this one i use: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest

Found it to be most accurate!

[krisjr]

check macfee+speedometer

[abhishekkalra]

guys, thanx for ur suggestion..

[go4saket]

First of all, I am not sure weather or not you are aware of the speed systems. When Reliance is saying 128 Kbps, it is Kilo Bits Per second, but when you are surfing the net, the speed you usually see is KBps, i.e. Kilo Bytes per second. Now there is a big difference here. When you say 60 KBps, it actually is 60x8 => 480Kbps which is not possible. The most what you can get is 16 KBps it the speed is 128Kbps. So as you said that you usually have 10-12 KBps, I guess thats pretty good in a 128 Kbps connection.

I hope you understood what I meant to say. Always multiply your speed with 8 to find out how much speed are you having in terms of Kbps.

[abhishekkalra]

thanx for the useful info

[geekysage]

As an addition to go4saket's post, I should also point out that speed is measured in bps (bits per second) when we talk about any kind of networks but we talk in terms of Bps (bytes per second) when it is storage media speeds i.e. hard disks, etc.

This is an old convention that is being followed till date and there are logical reasons behind doing so. But i wouldn't like to go into all that considering the general coverage of this thread.

Most newbies have the Kbps/KBps confusion but i hope this will help clarify it.

P.S.: 1 Byte = 8 bits, 1 KByte = 1024 bytes (notice that kilo does not mean 1000 here)

[harshdeep]

2wire.com and then speedmeter option can also tell ur speed