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New Contributor
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Slow downloads for the last several days.
Happened to download a large firl on Friday. Noticed the speed was significanly slower than usual.
Checked the speed then snf download was only running at 5 mbs. I normally run at 12 to 15 mbs. Just checked it again today and the download speed is only 1 mbs.That is slower than the upload speed. That is not what I am paying for.
What is wrong with the download speed?
TarikJ
New Contributor III
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GeorgeW,
Have you noticed any other issue related to your connection such as losing your cable connection completely and where are you located?
Also, are you on a wired or wireless connection? If you are on wireless, connect your cable modem directly to your computer via an Ethernet connection and run a speed test again. Keep in mind that the results of a Internet speed test is highly dependent on the location of speed test server. We have stood up our own speed test server with Ookla which can be found here, but feel free to use any other service you like to gather your results. Averaging the results of the several tests will give you a clearer picture of how fast your connection is. In your case however it sounds as if there may be a larger problem at play since you are seeing such a large swing in your speed test results.
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CloudWalker
New Contributor
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I have the Preferred Package in R.I. and I have yet to see anything over 768kbs for download speed, yet the speed tests show a much higher rate. Could never figure out why I always had a low download rate!!
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TarikJ
New Contributor III
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This has to do with the difference between the way broadband lines and speed test websites rate speed (in bits) versus the way browsers and computer based speed tools rate speed (in bytes). For example, when I run the Cox Internet Speed Check tool at home, the test shows that my line speed is 20 Mbps (Megabits per second):
While the tool I use to track data usage on my home network reports during the same test that my download speed is ~2.8 MBps (Megabytes per second).
This discrepancy goes back to the 1990s when modem manufacturers made the decision to not change the "bits rating" used for dialup modems when they transitioned to making broadband devices. They thought it would show the value and true speed difference of moving to broadband if it was framed in the old model. As the years went by, broadband modems began to be rated in megabits as it is easier to understand than saying you have a 10,240 kbps modem. Computer operating systems in the mean time pay no attention to this, and rate connection speeds in bytes which is why you see 768 kbps shown for your download speed. It's a bit easier to understand than saying you are downloading a file at 786,432 bits per second.
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