Question about Internet connection.

[PimpinPenguin]

Right now i am on a 16mb unlimited broadband package from Sky, however the max download speed i ever got was 302KB/S. My download speed usually hangs around 180-240KB.
So i was told that my max speed involves the distance to the exchange, which i checked and found i'm 1.3 miles away from it. Is that good or bad? And would that distance mean that my current speed is the best i can get. If so then i gonna ask to get downgraded to the 8mb package.

 

[barbarbarbarbar]

What were you downloading ?

 

[McGooTheWise]

Move.

 

[Laivasse]

Try the Speedtest here to get a more accurate idea of your line speed first.

Due to recent criticism of the disparity between advertised speed and real speed, I think ISPs in the UK are now required to give customers an idea of the speed they'll really attain before they sign up. Go here and you can enter your phone number to find out what Sky think they're able to offer you. If your speeds are as they should be then you should definitely downgrade, although I notice that the 8Mb deal has a 40Gb cap - make sure this won't be a problem for you. Or you could always try another ISP.

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

Use this one: http://speedtest.net/

Select the icon closest to you.

 

[giant384]

ouch 300kbs, i get that with my 3mb connection

 

[StardogChampion]

Right now i am on a 16mb unlimited broadband package from Sky, however the max download speed i ever got was 302KB/S. My download speed usually hangs around 180-240KB.
So i was told that my max speed involves the distance to the exchange, which i checked and found i'm 1.3 miles away from it. Is that good or bad? And would that distance mean that my current speed is the best i can get. If so then i gonna ask to get downgraded to the 8mb package.

It depends where you're downloading from. You'll rarely hit half your top speed when downloading from any website.

Use this one: http://speedtest.net/

Select the icon closest to you.

That seems accurate. I'm on 10mb in Scotland and it gave me 9.7.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

Try the Speedtest here to get a more accurate idea of your line speed first.

Due to recent criticism of the disparity between advertised speed and real speed, I think ISPs in the UK are now required to give customers an idea of the speed they'll really attain before they sign up. Go here and you can enter your phone number to find out what Sky think they're able to offer you. If your speeds are as they should be then you should definitely downgrade, although I notice that the 8Mb deal has a 40Gb cap - make sure this won't be a problem for you. Or you could always try another ISP.

Thanks for that, i entered my phone number and it said the max my phone line can handle is 4mb. Yet when i signed up they told me my line could handle 16mb.
The speed test said i was getting "2198.65 Kbps ( 2.1 Mbps )" and the speednet test said i was getting (1.8 Mbps)

I going to downgrade tomorrow as my download speed is to unpredictable for me to ever download 40GB in a month.

Thanks for all the help guys.

 

[Asus]

You definitely are not reaching 16 Mbit/second speeds but not that far below 4 Mbit/second. Are you paying for 16 Mb/s?
302 KBytes/second download speed is equal to 2416 Kbits/second or 2.36 Mb/s which is how they would report bandwidth.
To reach the 4 Mb/s bandwidth limit for your line then you would need to hit 512 KB/s download speed.

 

[soulslicer]

How much do you pay for those kind of slow speeds may I ask. I pay approx (30 Us Dollars a month), for speeds of minimum 500kbps to 1.2Mbps (wireless), sometimes it can go much higher(LAN), not sure how many Mbit/s that is

 

[PimpinPenguin]

I'm paying £10 for the 16Mb/s package, but i also have the TV and phone bundled in so it comes to around £50 a month all together. I rang Sky up and they did a line test and although the system says i should get 4Mb/s they also found that i was only getting around 2-3Mb/s. I've asked them to downgrade me to the £5 8Mb/s package. I have never reached any ware near 512KB/s It struggles to get near 300KB/s.