Internet connection, KbPs or MBps

[Gabbe]

Im going to buy a 20 mb connection, finally i can play ANY game with 0 lagg... only last for 1 year or so though.

Whats your connection?

[jda]

Alledgedly mine is 54 Mbs (that's right, 54 Mega bits per second) but I'll be downgrading to another operator (and going DSL to 3,5G too) with 5 Mbs this month.
It's considerably cheaper and I don't really need more than 5 Mbs.

[Gabbe]

do you mean like your crad cause i can`t imagine downloading glest in 1 second...

Many people confuses your cable and modem and your connection speed, i got a 100mbps in the case of the card, so under a LAN im capable to take 100 MB but under my normal conection im capable of mere 1.5 mp. Ru serious about 54? thats like, whoaaaa!

[jda]

1. At least here in Portugal, "54 Mbs" actually means "up do 54 Mbs", as in "depending on how many other people in your neighbourhood are (not) draining bandwidth from your common node (out of which at least 54 Mbs should be flowing), how far you are from the node and how far the node is from the central it's connected to, how good is your cabling in your house, your node and even your central, ...), you get the picture...

2. I actually dowloaded the Loki Installer Glest 3.2.2 yesterday, it was like a few seconds but I can't be precise, I wasn't paying attention.

3. You may be confusing Mbs with MBs yourself, that's Mega BITS per second and Mega BYTES per second.
Considering a Byte (it should always be spelled with capital B) is, depending on the architecture about 6 to 12 bits long, on PC's usually 8, that gives you that your actual download speed will be about 1/10 (easy figure) usually measured in Bytes per second of your connection speed usually measured in bits per second.

[Gabbe]

I mean the 54 MEGA BYTES glest is, in afew secs? wow! i guess i could be on at night and see how much internet i really got...

[jda]

Well, assuming I get a speed of about 5.4 MBs (and it was dawn so... ) it should have taken me about 10 seconds to download it but the Loki installer package is actually 72 MB (I think) so it took a little longer.

There are some sites out there that will measure your Internet connection - you are advised to shut down all other connecting apps (IM, Torrent, POP3/IMAP4, any server you might be running, etc) to actually get a somewhat acurate result while the test is perfroming.
Still... this is usually measured in triangulation, using two (or is is three?) different computers far away from each other and from the third/fourth one, your own. But if you are e.g. in Europe and you're using a connection speed tester from the USA the results will have to take a lot into acount...
It's been ages since I last tested my connection so I can't advise you on a good site to do it, I don't remember what I tried...
Still, if you find a site that explains the above any better than I did, it's probably a good one. Also I remeber the results were not that much different from one testing site to the next so... maybe it doesn't matter that much. Try two or three and see what you get.

EDIT: A LAN connection usually is about 100 Mbs yes. That has absolutelly nothing to do with your Internet connection though, even if your modem/router connects to your Ethernet/LAN port. It's just the connection between your PC and the modem that will be 100 Mbs, the rest is between the modem and the ISP.

[Gabbe]

ah cause we don`t have the same setup for internet as you do, though, my dads planning on connect another 60MBs...im just sayin hes sick...he won`t listen...

[@kukac@]

finally i can play ANY game with 0 lagg

That's good, we couldn't achieve this in a 100 Mb/s LAN

[Gabbe]

how kuc?

[jda]

ah cause we don`t have the same setup for internet as you do, though, my dads planning on connect another 60MBs...im just sayin hes sick...he won`t listen...

Well, I did use to have a DSL connection though a cable link to my LAN port but I have a DSL -> Wireless connection now (with the same ISP) and it is faster now as the ISP upgraded my speed on its own initiative!
When it was DLS->Ethernet, I just got 12 Mbs (DSL speed)... So that doesn't really matter.

finally i can play ANY game with 0 lagg

That's good, we couldn't achieve this in a 100 Mb/s LAN

LOL  

[John.d.h]

Mine depends on whose wifi password I can crack.

When I really need fast internet (like if I'm downloading a new operating system or something), I go to my university.  They've got really fast connections.

[Omega]

I envy you all, even john.

My internet is a 1Mbps satellite internet. This puts my download speed at an average of 80ish kBps, though I've hit 130kBps on multi-file torrents.

That's pretty bad on its own, plus there's a ping of about 700ms, which makes FPSs impossible and makes games like runescape slightly annoying at times (remember the processor machine from the regicide and into the light quests? Imagine my pain with 700 ping!)

[wciow]

Currently get 1MB/s (10Mb/s), which is considered good around here 

I tend to find the limiting is at the other end since very few free internet downloads will give you 1MB/s.

[jda]

I totally agree, wciow, unless you're doing multiple downloads at a time, which I don't so...

[Gabbe]

I am trying to find a netowrk provider who could gimme better speeds...not going too well...