Why are upload speeds so much slower then download speeds

My guess would be to discourage sharing files. No idea really though.

good article that explains it fairly well... General opinion seems to be what pyroflea stated...

http://cellphonequick.com/why-are-upload-speeds-slower-...

Yeah it was an interesting read.
I hope they get the upload speeds faster, I have a VPN in to my house and it does get slow. But handy when you leave a file home that you need.
We use virtual machines for work, and if you forget on of those and go on a business trip, you are look at a long download time to get your 7GB+ virtual machine.

Personally, I think it's to conserve backplane bandwidth on the ISP's core routers and switches. The backplane of a switch or a router is the maximum amount of data that can traverse the switch at once. So say a 48 port switch has a backplane speed of 8.8 Gbps (gigabits per second). That switch can theoretically 'switch' (pass, or allow through) 8.8 Gbps of data at one time. My assumption is that, under the guise that the ISP is preventing illegal file sharing, they are really stretching their equipment further to make more money off their customers while investing less in their infrastructure. If I'm right, it explains why our internet speeds are so much slower than other countries. This doesn't explain, however, why we pay more for internet service than other countries.

The original reason, which is still valid for most subscribers, is a physical limitation of bandwidth.

For example, with DSL or Cable your connection uses a single wire (yes, DSL actually uses two wires, but they are unshielded and closely coupled so they act like one) to handle download and upload, and depending on the quality of the connection and distance it can handle a maximum number of total bits per second.

So, if you have a DSL connection with a max bandwidth of 2Mbps you can either split that 1Mbps down and up, or more commonly 1.5Mbps down and 384Kbps up. Most people would rather have the 1.5 down.