Connection Speeds
You know how some broadband companies offer 8 meg/s downloads? Is there really much difference between that, and a company that offers a 3 meg/s download connection? I mean, when you download a file, you can't download it at 8 m/s, unless the server you download it from has an 8 m/s upload, right? I don't know of any server with an 8 m/s upload. I'm guessing most servers have a >1 meg upload. So why do people go for those way fast connections when they won't see a difference? Is there a difference in speed, what am I missing?
Abhishek Reddy posted this at 00:54 — 3rd March 2007.
He has: 3,348 posts
Joined: Jul 2001
They do see a difference, because they download from multiple different hosts at once.
For instance, your web browsing speed isn't affected when you're listening to your favourite streaming radio station while updating your system packages and downloading the latest GNU/Linux distro's ISOs and ... so on.
teammatt3 posted this at 02:39 — 3rd March 2007.
He has: 2,102 posts
Joined: Sep 2003
Ahhh, so if you have that 8 meg connection you can download a bunch of stuff at once without slowing down. And it is probably especially important if you're on a network with a bunch of internet users.
Now let me ask this, a few days ago I was trying to download the latest version of SuSE. When I first started downloading, I was downloading the iso at about 500 k/s. However, it steadily declined until it consistently held up at ~120 k/s. Is that normal for the download speed to continually go down on a large file? All I was doing during the download process was browsing the web. And that same type of thing happens with all big files I download. It's pretty annoying!
Abhishek Reddy posted this at 11:01 — 3rd March 2007.
He has: 3,348 posts
Joined: Jul 2001
I think so. The indicated download rate near the start is usually unstable and inaccurate anyway, because not enough time has passed for a sensible rate to be calculated.
For a large file, traffic shaping by the server or ISPs is probably in effect too. One possibility is that you may enter high on a priority queue at the start, and gradually get demoted, being allocated less and less bandwidth. This is so that one connection won't slow things down greatly for a lot of people over long periods.
demonhale posted this at 06:41 — 3rd March 2007.
He has: 3,278 posts
Joined: May 2005
Usually big files download like that, when they reach 80-90% the dl speed goes down. Greater Download speeds are useful when youre using torrent to download stuff... also helpful when using download accelerators... since it uses different instances when DLing...
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