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Gender: Male
Location: CA, US
Age: 20
Member Since: September 2, 2006
Answers: 55
Last Update: November 4, 2009
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Ok, I've been looking at broadband providers and the connection speeds that they are offering. They have a list of possible connection types e.g. 256/128, 2048/128, 4096/512 and so on.
Could someone please explain to me how to interpret these numbers (as in exactly what each one means and what the download and upload speed would be).
Thank you.
The simple way is to take all those numbers and DIVIDE BY 8 to convert from bits to Bytes. The companies like to use the kilobit unit because most commonfolk like to see a big number. The numbers stand for Down/Up (Download speed/Upload speed) In reality, computers always calculate memory using kilobytes. File sizes are measured in bytes. If you've downloaded files from the internet, you'll notice that the rates are calculated in Kilobytes per second.
8 bits = 1 byte
So:
256 kilobits / 128 kilobits
Divide by 8 for both
32 Kilobytes per second Downloading and 16 Kilobytes per second uploading.
2048/128 would be 256 Kilobytes per second Downloading and 16 Kilobytes per second uploading.
4096/512 would be 512 Kilobytes per second downloading and 64 Kilobytes per second uploading.
The amounts are always measured per second, so a 256/128 is actually considered almost painfully slow. Take note that the number that the providers give you is always a MAXIMUM. Find a good balance that gives you a good price, but also fits your internet needs. Remember the difference between bits and bytes, and you'll do fine.
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(Rating: 5)
Great, that was actually the one thing I was missing, the relationship of bits to bytes. Thank you.
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