Does Bandwidth Go Hand in Hand With Download and Upload

Does net speed confuse y'all? Exercise you scratch your head when you hear the words megabits, bandwidth or latency?

Don't worry, you're non alone.

Lots of people are confused with internet speed. They don't know what internet speed is, how information technology works and why they should pay actress for more than of information technology. Simply it's the net service providers biggest selling signal, so speed must exist important… right?

I'll go out that up to you lot to respond. To assist you out, though, this article will respond the following questions:

• What is internet speed?
• How does net speed work?
• What is kbps, mbps, MBps and gbps?
• What is the departure betwixt upload and download speeds?
• What affects my cyberspace speed?

Let's get started.

Providers – phone numbers

We've nerveless telephone numbers for the biggest Isp's within the US. Attain out at present, and go a plan that fits your needs.

Provider	Phone number
DISH	833-826-1132
FRONTIER	855-917-9691
Hughesnet	855-917-9685
Centurylink	833-270-5717
Windstream	833-826-1196
Spectrum	855-917-9721
ATT	855-917-9634
Verizon	844-603-6536

Want the fastest net speed at an affordable price? Detect the best provider based on your needs:

• Gaming (click here)
• Family (click here)
• Students (click here)

Each page volition open in a new windows so that yous tin finish reading this guide.

What is Cyberspace Speed?

Net speed, the number they give you (five Mbps, for example), has nothing to exercise with how fast your cyberspace works. It's non like a machine or motorcycle where you can measure how fast it goes in miles per hour (mph).

Instead, internet speed is your (allocated) bandwidth. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be sent to you, normally measured in seconds. For example, 5 Mbps would mean that you lot tin receive up to 5 megabits of data per second.

How Does Bandwidth Work?

The best way to explain (and understand) how bandwidth (and your internet speed) works is by using an analogy.

Think of bandwidth like a superhighway. All cars (data) travel at the same speed, so to get more than information from the net to your computer faster, the state highway needs to be wider.

In other words, say 1 Mbps is the equivalent to a ane lane freeway. And allow'due south say that you were trying to download an epitome, which is 5 Mb in size. So if you had a bandwidth of 1 Mbps (1 lane state highway) information technology would take y'all roughly 5 seconds to download the image.

Now let'southward say that you have a 5 Mbps (bandwidth) connectedness, or a 5 lane superhighway. How fast will you receive your image? 1 second.

More than bandwidth means that you'll receive more data at the aforementioned time. In this example, you can download five images with the wider bandwidth in the same time you could one with the narrower bandwidth.

What'due south important to note here, and this confuses a lot of people, is that your internet isn't any faster from 1 Mbps to five Mbps, or however much bandwidth your connectedness has. Your data is merely transferred to you at a faster rate because more data tin can be sent at the same time. It'southward more than efficient, making your internet perceptually faster, not technically faster.

All of that said, there isn't just i net speed. However, real "cyberspace speed" has to do with latency and that topic is outside the scope of this particular article. You can read about latency here.

What is kbps, mbps, MBps and gbps?

Some other disruptive aspect of shopping for cyberspace based on speeds are all the terms or abbreviations being used. Mbps, MBps, kbps, Gbps; what does all of this hateful?

These are the abbreviations for the amount of data that is existence sent per second. Here is what each of them mean. Below that I've outlined a basic conversion guide and a crude idea as to how large each piece of data you consume is.

• kbps – Kilobits per 2d. This is used when talking about dialup (56k for example) and low speed DSL.
• Mbps or mbps – Megabits per second. Some people confuse this with megabytes. The divergence between the ii is how the "b" is written in the abbreviation; Mbps = megabits and MBps = megabytes. This is the virtually common unit of speed used.
• MBps – Megabytes per 2nd. Megabytes aren't ordinarily used in (residential) cyberspace plans.
• gbps – Gigabits per second. Gigabits are hardly used for internet plans, and the costs make them unpractical for families and pocket-sized businesses.

Converting Units of Net Bandwidth

To give you a better idea how much bigger or small each unit of speed (bandwidth) is, hither is a handy conversion chart. You tin too visit Numion and play with their calculator.

• Bytes ==> Bits: Multiply by eight
• Bits ==> Bytes: Divide by 8
• Mega ==> Kilo: Multiply by one,000
• Kilo ==> Mega: Divide by one,000
• Giga ==> Mega: Multiply by 1,000
• Mega ==> Giga: Split up by 1,000
• Giga ==>Kilo: Multiply by 1,000,000
• Kilo ==> Giga: Carve up past 1,000,000

Units of Bandwidth & The Data You Utilise

Here are some things that y'all do on the internet and how much bandwidth (and data) it uses upward:

• 1 Web Folio – 1 MB
• 1 Text Email – .97 MB
• 10 Min YouTube Video – 43 MB
• Download i Image – 2.5 MB
• xxx Min of Gaming – 2.five MB

What is the Departure Between Upload and Download Speeds?

Some other confusing thing about shopping for internet is when you run across speeds listed like this:

5/1 Mbps

What does this mean? Well, that means that internet plan has a download speed of 5 mbps and an upload speed of i mbps.

The reason why your upload and download speed are different is because nigh cyberspace connections are asymmetric. In English this means that the bandwidth is a different size going ane fashion compared to the other. Since virtually users eat content rather than upload it, the bandwidth for download speeds is larger (than the upload).

What Affects My Internet Speed?

There are a number of things that volition (negatively) impact the speed of your internet.

Connection Type

Connection type plays a big part in how fast of an internet connection you lot'll accept. Using my analogy from earlier, some roads (bandwidth) are fixed or capped — they can't be widened or increased. Dialup, and to some extent DSL, are perfect examples of this.

Traffic Congestion

Ok, I can't help it; I'one thousand going to use my analogy over again. It'due south just goes hand in manus with net speeds.

Anyhow, your internet can get congested only like a throughway can. The more than data (or cars) that is being requested and sent, the more bandwidth (freeway lanes) that is beingness used at one time. At some point every lane is going to exist taken up, and then the cars (data) will take more time to go to yous.

Congestion usually happens during peak usage times, like when everyone gets off work and logs onto the cyberspace. Only y'all can as well experience slower speeds if you have a habitation network (and everyone is online) or someone using your wireless connection from outside your domicile.

Bad/Former Wires, Connections or Equipment

Recollect of bad wires and connections like a freeway that goes from five lines to 1 all of a sudden. That forces all of the cars (information) to bottleneck, ultimately taking longer to go to you.

The same thing holds true for your equipment. If yous accept outdated equipment, or your equipment isn't configured optimally, that can slow downwardly how fast you lot receive your data.

Altitude

The further away yous are from your ISP (hub) the longer information technology'll take for the data to transfer from the internet to your estimator.

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Source: http://www.plugthingsin.com/internet/speed/

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