HELP - Downloads slower than speed test

Deadalus3000

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I've been stuck for weeks on this and spent countless hours on the phone to Sky Broadband technical support.
My speed test is coming up with a ping 32ms, d/l speed 7.23Mbs and u/l speed.
However when I use Firefox or JDownloader, the maximum speed it will ever download at is 740kbs.
I've tried testing if using different sources, using wlan and a different pc on the network. With nothing working and all my downloads painfully slow, I need some help.
Before anyone starts telling me about speed being restricted and only being as fast as the other end can send. I know all of the places I download from are faster than 740kbs.
Does anyone have any ideas?
 
Have you disabled the WiFi and plugged an Ethernet cable directly into the router and tested peak and off peak using the BT wholesale checker?

You need to build a case, but it's also down to a gazillion reasons why. Its a long trek, good luck.
 
Are you sure that you are comparing like with like?

Speed tests usually are quoted in multiples of bits per second (bps) but actual downloading speeds are often in multiples of bytes per second (Bps). There being 8 bits in a byte, and if you add on some overheads for error correction, you could be talking about a conversion factor between the two of up to x10. So that would make your two figures very similar.

740 kBps (0.74 MBps) download x 10 = about 7.4 Mbps speed test.

Is that the problem perhaps (ie. there isn't a problem)?

The difference between "b" and "B" is very significant in this context. Just to further complicate matters, the speed test or the downloading information could be quoting the wrong units to you.
 
Last edited:
Are you sure that you are comparing like with like?

Speed tests usually are quoted in multiples of bits per second (bps) but actual downloading speeds are often in multiples of bytes per second (Bps). There being 8 bits in a byte, and if you add on some overheads for error correction, you could be talking about a conversion factor between the two of up to x10. So that would make your two figures very similar.

740 kBps (0.74 MBps) download x 10 = about 7.4 Mbps speed test.

Is that the problem perhaps (ie. there isn't a problem)?

The difference between "b" and "B" is very significant in this context. Just to further complicate matters, the speed test or the downloading information could be quoting the wrong units to you.

You know what, annoyingly, I think you're spot on. Doing some reading and a few calculations. Thanks mate for your help, and the irritating thing is I know about bits and bytes, guess it was abit of denial. .lol
 
So much for Sky Tech Support. :(

Hope that proves to be the case and you can relax from that problem.
 

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