I thought I knew this download speed stuff

[james636]

First off, the reason I'm asking is I originally had Roadrunner cable internet and cable TV service in my name before I left home for school. My folks agreed to continue payments on the service while I was gone, but didn't. So now I have outstanding payments in my name. I plan to get caught up by paying a little at a time; But in the meanwhile, I'd looking for something that was at least half as fast. Roadrunner cable offered speeds up to 3.0Mbps. My phone provider offers DSL high speed access in my area, but my area only qualifies for 1.5Mbps. On their site they have a, "Compare speeds" test. javascript:void openWin2('compare_speedPopup.html',670,400);

On there it shows a diagram of a 10MB video file being downloaded at 3.0Mbps in 27sec. 1.5Mbps in 56sec. My question is, if Mbps stand for Megbytes per second, then shouldn't the time it takes to download a 10MB file at 1.5Mbps, be 5sec instead of 27sec . Maybe I'm missing something Can someone break this down for me. Although downloading a 10MB file in 27sec is damn good, we all know that those speed vary a hell of alot. I'm still trying to decide whether to committ myself to a DSL 1yr contract of 1.5Mbps, So if there is someone here that has or have had 1.5Mbps DSL, can you tell me are you or were you satified with the speeds. Was or is it pretty fast in your opinion.

[pyrate83]

Wouldn't your download time double if your rate(1.5mbps) is half as fast as a 3.0mbps connection? Sounds right to me.

[reboot]

mbps is megabitsper, not bytes.

[Cobra]

MB/sec = megabytes per second
Mbps = megabits per second

There are eight megabits to every megabyte.

Do the maths, and you'll see how it works.

[pyrate83]

Ok, now I see what your question is. I misunderstood before. I would have to assume that that is just an estimate and they may be factoring in something besides just raw download speed. Just because you have that fast of a connection doesn't always mean your source of the file will download that fast...at least that's what I've found in my experiences.