Noob question about Internet speeds

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umar rehman

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May 22, 2012
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Hi all

This is about advertised internet speeds compared to actual speeds when using the internet.

So, if my ISP is advertising that they provide an internet speed that consists of 50 Mb/s, does that mean how fast data is sent between the ISP to my router?

And if that is the case, why would I get an eighth of the advertised 50 Mb/s

Thank you for reading my question and answering it. :)
 
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robnof

robnof

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Oct 9, 2012
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Are you thinking in megabits or megabytes per second? ISPs typically advertise in megabits per second, so 50 megabits translates to about 6.25 megabytes.

Also if you're using wireless it can be less based on your router or wireless card's speed. I have fiber op my speed is around 150 megabits per second over ethernet, but when I hop on my laptop the wireless speed tops out depending on where I am to in my house at about 70 megabits per second.
 
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Saberus

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Aug 23, 2013
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Yes, what you have listed as your speed is the bandwidth they make available to your router. So if you got the "up to 50Mbps", you'll get that.

The "up to" is where it gets messy, if they over-provision an area, there might not be enough bandwidth for everyone to get their full slice.

But if you're getting exactly one-eighth, you might be reading your speed as MBps. The capitalization matters. They sell the bandwidth in Mega-bits per second, and you're reading Mega-Bytes per second, it's going to look eight times smaller, because you're using a measurement eight times bigger.
 
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utgotye

utgotye

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Jun 8, 2015
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Bandwidth, which is what you are being sold, is measured in Kbps or Mbps, or bits per sec. There are eight (8) bits in a byte. Download speeds are usually measure is bytes per second (MBps or MB/s) Thus, the indicated speeds of your downloads should be roughly 12.5% of your advertised speed. Of course this is in a perfect system and assumes the line is dedicated to you and you alone. In reality you share your pipe with hundreds or thousands of other people.

What you see when you run a speed test, is a measurement of throughput, not bandwidth. What you are supposed to get vs reality.
 
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