My Internet. Please Help

[FreemanHL2]

Why is it that i have a 56kbps dial-up connection but when i download it only transfers at an average of 5kbps?

This means that a 128kbps connection would only download at 10kbps?

I know a lot about computers but this is a fact that i have never looked into before, i'd like to know why, thanks!

ALSO, does anyone know of a download manager that lets you automatically download one item after another without you having to intervene?

Say I have 5 videos I want downloaded, i need them to all download one after the other whilst im away, do you know of a simple download manager that supports this function, thank you.

 

[ComradeBadger]

It's 56KiloBits per Second, not Bytes. Divide 56 by 8 and thats the max dl speed in KiloBytes per Second

 

[FreemanHL2]

kool, well it's never too late to learn something new.

So why am I dividing by 8? Surely one kilobit is not 0.125 of a byte?

So a 1mb modem is not 1megabyte it is 1megabit?

What the hell is a bit? I thought 1 bit was one thousandth of a byte?

 

[lePobz]

there are 8 bits in a byte - 7 data bits and one parity bit.

hence why you divide by 8 to convert kbps into k/s

56k modems never connect at 56,000bps anyway due to the line inteference etc, it's usually 44,000 or even 33,000.

A good download manager I used in the 56k modem days was called Jetcar (think its renamed to FlashGet)