BB Speeds
 

Before I contact CS I thought I'd ask you guys. Why with the 600 Mb service should I get DL speeds of 515 (very good) but UL speeds of 126 (half of what other ISP's provide)

Because on NTL's 600 service Max download is 600 and max upload is 128.

HTH

I only get 13k upload if I'm lucky

NTL offer a contention based service, with a maximum Throuhput of 600kbs (On the 600 Service). Your download looks ok, Your upload also Looks ok.

Yes as the others have said..

NTL's "midrange" service (600k) gives you 600kbps download and 128kbps upload.

I asked this in another thrad but got no joy ...

Could someone tell a maths illiterate (i.e. me) what speed, in kb/sec, I should see in my download manager if I am achieving full speed from my 600k connection as I download a file from a webpage?

550-600kb/s (i think)

Most of the time I get 65 - 70 kb/sec, except mid-evening when it's often 35-ish.

But the other day I suddenly got 85-90 while downloading a file of about 5mb.

I've no idea what's normal.

I think download manager (Mac right?) shows KB (kilobytes) rather than kb (kilobits). Since one KB equals 8 kb 70KB/sec equals 560 kb/sec. That sounds about right for the 600 service.

Correct, it's a Mac with osx, and download managers in both IE 5.2 and Apple's own Safari 1.0 both report speeds in KB. It's the non-decimal nature of these things that pickles my poor noggin.

Thanks for clearing that up! :)

EDIT - Is it technically possible for me to get a speed faster than I have subscribed for? My download maintained speeds between 85-90KB/sec for a couple of minutes the other day, which equates to something like 680-720k bandwidth.

I agree, it is confusing to say the least.


Edit: Yes, you can get higher speeds occasionally. It's variable. Sometimes it's a bit faster, sometimes a bit slower.

Edit again: when in doubt, you can always do a speedtest. Have a look at www.pcpitstop.com. Some people also recommend Robin Walker's site (see NTHW home)

Yes pcpitstop is very good

What were you downloading from?.. IE, Or P2P? IE usually shows a higher download rate during the first couple of seconds, while it calculates stuff.

It was a piece of free software from a website I can't remember offhand, d/l'd using the Safari web browser. It maintained a speed varying between 85 & 90 KB/sec for well over a minute, until the download was complete.

What it boils down to is how many users are on the URL at the time you go on it. As someone also said a lot depends on the time you go on as well, i.e. the yanks in bed!!