Download speed

[TerryC]

I'm curious, can someone explain please.

If I'm getting a steady internet speed of 3Mbs indicated by a speed test and I download a programme of 350 Mb it should in theory take about two minutes to download I believe but usually takes about twenty minutes. Why does that happen, or have I got it totally wrong?

[El Cid]

You are confusing Megabits with Megabytes. There are 8 bits in a byte, so your apparent speed of 3 Mbps is only 0.375Mbytes per second. That works out at about 15 minutes for the download but the actual download speed in practice is likely to be slightly less which is why it take 20 minutes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/a ... bytes.html

Sid

[TerryC]

Thanks El Cid that explains things. I read the Telegraph article as well, interesting.

[gerryh]

Strictly speaking mega bit should be written as mb or Mb and mega byte as MB to know which one you are referring to.
The capital B stands for Byte , the lower case b stands for bit.
So if it was a 350 mb file then your calculation would be more or less correct.
Undoubtedly it was a 350 MB file so Sid's calculation is more accurate.
Cheers
Gerry