Connection Speed

[The77s]

Hey, basically, I use to live a long way out, and for years and years I had a Connection of 180kB/s, it was terrible, but I lived with it anyway.

Now, I have moved to a place not so far out of civilization, it's a small town near a city.

I am paying for 20MB Broadband, and I am only receiving 1764.2kB/s in Download, and 107.8kB/s in Upload, my Ping is 43ms.

This I tested numerous times on speedtest.net and the results were the same each time.

What I was wondering is, have Sky accidentally put me on a slow connection somehow or is this reality for my connection?

I mean, it's amazing compared to the 180kB/s, but the fact that I'm paying for 20MB and not even getting 2MB is a big disappointment.

I'm not tech savvy when it comes to Routers or anything like that, but I will tell you that I set up a Static IP, I don't think that would effect it though.

(I set up the Static IP when I was at my old house, and my Computer kept it coming to the new one).

Anyhow, thanks for reading, sorry it was long, and thanks for any suggestions or help.

 

[nemesis4895]

Hey, basically, I use to live a long way out, and for years and years I had a Connection of 180kB/s, it was terrible, but I lived with it anyway.

Now, I have moved to a place not so far out of civilization, it's a small town near a city.

I am paying for 20MB Broadband, and I am only receiving 1764.2kB/s in Download, and 107.8kB/s in Upload, my Ping is 43ms.

This I tested numerous times on speedtest.net and the results were the same each time.

What I was wondering is, have Sky accidentally put me on a slow connection somehow or is this reality for my connection?

I mean, it's amazing compared to the 180kB/s, but the fact that I'm paying for 20MB and not even getting 2MB is a big disappointment.

I'm not tech savvy when it comes to Routers or anything like that, but I will tell you that I set up a Static IP, I don't think that would effect it though.

(I set up the Static IP when I was at my old house, and my Computer kept it coming to the new one).

Anyhow, thanks for reading, sorry it was long, and thanks for any suggestions or help.

ISP advertising can be mis-leading. They advertise in Megabit's. When you download, the speed is shows as kilobytes or megabytes. 1 byte = 8 bits. So you're actually getting what you paid for. About 2 MB's per second download will be as fast is it gets for you.

 

[gnomio]

Your download speed is dependent on many factors, your sync speed, the speed of your equipment, the speed and utilisation of networks between you and your destination and (the most common cause) the speed at which the destination is capable of, or willing to serve you the files.

You moved further away so your speed will also be lower.

 

[smirnofred]

Without getting technical, the closer to the exchange* you live the faster your connection. The only other factors that can change the internet speed are a broken/faulty ADSL micro filter (which is pretty rare) or how you have your internal phone/s line/s configured. (to see if your home setup is interfering with your speed, simply plug your router via the ADSL filter directly in to the BT master socket and reset your router, then look at the connection speed. If it's a lot higher you are generating line noise on your side of the socket which will lower your internet speed. If you have a second, spare ADSL filter, also try swapping that over with your original one. If there's no change your setup is more then likely running the best it can)

Sky do offer speeds of up to 20mb, on a standard phone line, but this really is all depending on where you live*. Are they being misleading? in all fairness... any clued up person can do a line speed check of their residential area to find out what internet speeds that can get. (I know many people with sky and in my area, no one gets over 6mb)

I am with Sky too, and currently am having a speed issue. After hunting around for an answer I ended up on the BT website and I have learned that they will finally be updating my local exchange to fiber optic from December 2012 - March 2013, which will have speeds of 40mb.

*assuming your exchange is also updated and not an old one.

 

[The77s]

Thanks for all the answers, now I was wondering if you could answer another question.

Seeing as this may be normal for me (I'm going to try the Master Socket later on), would you recommend me downgrading from 20MB to 8MB, would I get the same speed as I am now, or would it be even slower?

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[nemesis4895]

It would be even slower. Your downloads would max out at 800 kB/s. Like I said, they're advertising is misleading.

This is an older post, but it explains the difference between Megabits and Megabytes more clearly.

http://www.computing.net/answers/networking/megabit-vs-megabyte/18565.html

 

[The77s]

Okay, thanks a lot guys.