how fast ( or slow ) is one meg

irishh_bob

broadband has only recently been introduced to my area and im told im only eligible for one meg broadband , pretty dismal compared to my cousins in the city but what id like to know is , how much quicker even one meg is than bog standard dial up , presently my speed reads as 44 kbps

witnessmenow

irishh_bob wrote: »

broadband has only recently been introduced to my area and im told im only eligible for one meg broadband , pretty dismal compared to my cousins in the city but what id like to know is , how much quicker even one meg is than bog standard dial up , presently my speed reads as 44 kbps

Most people would be comfortable enough on decent 1mb bb, it would be much much faster than dial-up.

But... who is providing this broadband? And what do you use it for? (downloading, skype etc?)

Mountjoy Mugger

I remember getting eircom's initial 512/128 BB package when it was first launched. A huge change from dial-up.

AntiVirus

You'll be amazed by the difference!

watty

1Mbps on DSL (maybe 30ms latency) can seem HUGELY faster than 3Mbps on Mobile with 250ms latency.

Why?
A web page load can consist of name to IP (DNS lookup) for easily 4 sites.
With ARP, DNS and finally HTTP, there can be 4 to 12 "transactions" to start rendering / loading a page. On Mobile that can be 1s to 4s!

Similary on Dialup it's not just the increase in speed from 44k to 1000kbps (basic DSL), but the great reduction in latency that makes web browsing better.

Also packet loss can be high on 44k bps analogue dialup, such that 64kbps ISDN (no packet loss) can be x2 to x4 faster! Usually DSL hase very low packet loss, so if your Analogue 44kbps has much packet loss you can see more than 20x speed up going to 1Mbps DSL

tman

Won't be great for downloading huge files, but for general browsing will feel a world apart from the dial up that you're used to!

AntiVirus

tman wrote: »

Won't be great for downloading huge files

Compared to what he's currently got its better than great!

Look at the difference downloading a 100MB file

56 Kb = 249 mins

1024Kb = 13 mins

Thats a massive difference!

watty

I've never heard of Analogue actually delivering:
1) The max 56k
2) A TCP/IP throughput equal to synced data rate, as there are usually significant errors/packet loss.

So more like about 350mins vs about 14min, x25 faster.

I have 7.4 to 8.2Mbps download speed. But many sites max out at about 3 to 5Mbps. I found the same even on a 100Mbps internet connection. The most download speed I had at home was 22Mbps.

The main advantage of greater than 3Mbps is if you have multiple users or your own ISP provides true VOD/IPTV HDTV services.

Note: 1Mbps is 1000kbps not 1024kbps
Strictly speaking its only RAM / Flash that is counted in multiples of 1024 because of the binary addressing. That's why Hard Disk drives appear to have two incompatible capacities, the lower GByte figure is using (erroneously) bytes / (1024 x 1024 x1024).
Normal non-memory meaning is
m = 1/1000th
K or k = 1000
M= 1000 x 1000
G= 1000 x 1000 x 1000

The k= 1024 is a "customary" shorthand originating with Memory addressing as 10 bits = 1024.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibi#IEC_standard_prefixes

The highest I ever achieved on dialup was 54.6k, never quite managed the whole 56k. Most people only get about 41-45 though.

But as has been said, the reduction in latency will certainly make the connection feel faster despite the low transfer rate (in a modern day sense). It's a vast improvement over dialup.

irishh_bob

witnessmenow wrote: »

Most people would be comfortable enough on decent 1mb bb, it would be much much faster than dial-up.

But... who is providing this broadband? And what do you use it for? (downloading, skype etc?)

ive recentley changed from perlico to pure telecom ( partner of 3 mobile im told ) so they will be providing broadband

does it matter which provider you are with , eircom are 6 euro per month more expensive than pure telecom or perlico

William Powell

tman wrote: »

Won't be great for downloading huge files, but for general browsing will feel a world apart from the dial up that you're used to!

Is that really a problem or do you sit there and watch the progress bar go all the way from 0% to 100% when you do a 500MB download?

It maybe of more importance to the OP if they think they might get into the habit of downloading a lot of stuff to compare the download limits of each package along with the speed.

jay93

you will notice a big differance between 1mb and dial up anything is better than dial up!!but if 3 people are using the connection at the same time you you will notice a good bit of a slow down .
3mb is really ideal my own 3mb connection does have 4-5 devices on it at same time and it handles it great where as when i had 1mb before with eircom it slowed right down
but all in all 1mb will be a huge improvment over dial up!:D