Download speed

[Das Platyvark]

What's a normal download speed? My internet is usually fairly good, quite fast, actually-(Yesterday I got a 6 gig game in about 1.5 hrs), but today, I've got a new file downloading, and it's been going for nigh on 8 hours, and I've only got 3.3/8.4 gigs. Any possible explanations or suggestions?

[Starwulf]

What's a normal download speed? My internet is usually fairly good, quite fast, actually-(Yesterday I got a 6 gig game in about 1.5 hrs), but today, I've got a new file downloading, and it's been going for nigh on 8 hours, and I've only got 3.3/8.4 gigs. Any possible explanations or suggestions?

You're either downloading at an extremely busy time of the day for your internet providers servers, you hit a download cap(either monthly cap or daily cap) which resulted in your internet speed being throttled, or there are just problems on your providers side(maybe they are going through maintenance or something of the like).

That, or it's on your end, at which point in time, I would suggest doing the standard things such as checking all your connections, and/or resetting your router.

edit: Or a third option, and it's just the place your downloading from. Maybe the servers they are hosting the file on don't support as high-speed downloads as your internet is capable of.

[Grinner]

Or maybe your local CDN just doesn't have the file in question cached. Or any of a number of other factors, really. Depends on where you're downloading from.

[Riverdance]

I've never heard of a "cap" before. What is it? Also what game did you download (just curious).

[Grinner]

I've never heard of a "cap" before. What is it? Also what game did you download (just curious).

ISPs generally have to serve many people at once, so to reduce hardware costs, they can set data caps which temporarily reduce a given customer's bandwidth after they exceed a certain amount.

[PallElendro]

Switch to Xfinity. 50 mbps.

[FearlessGnome]

'Normal' download speeds vary a lot from country to country and area to area. I'm Swedish studying in the UK, and in a city of 250k people, I'm having trouble finding speeds higher than 10mb/s. This I can get in the countryside in Sweden, while most cities will have 50-100mb/s for a considerably lower price than I'm paying for 10mb/s here. Also in the UK there are download caps, something I was not pleased to find out, as I'd never heard of them in Sweden.

With the speed you downloaded the large game at, you obviously have a normal or above average speed for your area. The problem is either a download cap, a company's slow uploading speed, or you are using P2P software such as bittorrent, in which case speeds will vary depending on who you are copying from. This is entirely outside of your control.

If there is a downloading cap, you can find out how high it is by checking the provider's website.

[shawnhcorey]

ISPs generally have to serve many people at once, so to reduce hardware costs, they can set data caps which temporarily reduce a given customer's bandwidth after they exceed a certain amount.

No, ISPs have download caps so they can sell more subscription TV (http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2011/12/02/web-hogs/).

The best way to test the speed of your connection is to use an Internet Speed Test. Use your favourite web searcher to find one.

[grimbold]

Switch to Xfinity. 50 mbps.

how i envy you americans XD

[PallElendro]

how i envy you americans XD

Yup.
Although, on occasion, Americans use the best tech ever to be used as an AI when we're ordering from McDonalds. :biggrin:

[DabblerWizard]

Yup.
Although, on occasion, Americans use the best tech ever to be used as an AI when we're ordering from McDonalds. :biggrin:

Here's a joke I've heard about America's crazy use of spending / technology (I live in the States): Americans spent thousands of dollars creating a pen that can write in zero gravity space. The Russians... used a pencil instead.

On topic, my download speeds are a "meager" 10mbps. I'm not willing to shell out $100 for top notch speeds (one company is offering 10x my current rate), which I'll never really appreciate anyway.

[Soylent Dave]

'Normal' download speeds vary a lot from country to country and area to area. I'm Swedish studying in the UK, and in a city of 250k people, I'm having trouble finding speeds higher than 10mb/s.

Which city are you in?
I thought most of our cities had gone up to 40-50 Mbps by now - although to be fair I am spoiled a bit by living near one of the 'early adopter' phone exchanges for fibre optics, so I've had relatively nippy internet for a while.

(UK internet access definitely varies between 'pretty awesome' and 'third world' based mostly on where you live)