Download Faster than ISP Speed - Possible?

[Leopardos]

Hello,

I have 2.5MB connection , my MAX Download speed is 320K/bs

Some times i get 560K/bs in EA games Origin program and Steam..

How can i download with a speed that i dont already have ?!

Wierd ! im happy tho ... but how can it be ?

 

[Leopardos]

700k/bs :X , how?

 

[kornphlake]

My ISP advertises something they call "powerboost" which allows peaks in download speeds in excess of the rated connection speed (for certain downloads depending on network congestion.) This feature seems to conflict with the way certain speed calculations are made, one speed test will say I get 8mbps, another test will say 15mbps. I believe I pay for 10mbps but I've had downloads as fast as 20mbps.

 

[Despoiler]

Depending upon where the ISP has rate limiting setup you can see higher *burst* rates than your advertised speeds. Rate limiting typically takes a bit to kick in depending on the type of router, transport equipment, and implementation at the ISP level. You should see a high initial burst with the speed leveling off over the course of the download. This assumes the download is large enough to see such a change.

 

[lord_emperor]

Are you confident in all your units of measurement here? You've inaccurately used your bits and Bytes a couple of times already.

 

[Lithium381]

is it like a peak download speed, or pretty consistent?

 

[Leopardos]

Some times when i download files it start with 400 and then to 320 constant ..
but yesterday it was 700 all the time for 10-15 mins .. now back to 320 ... wierd ..

And as you guys saied .. i rly have no idea ... just wierd ...
isp test = 320-335kb download speed limit

 

[JackMDS]

The high momentary reading in Internet traffic has nothing to do with the real Speed.

It is an artifact of the way the measure is done (using a short period of time for the averaging while the actual time is bigger, or having a momentary noise spike).

If 1000KB were downloaded in 1 sec. then the speed is 1MB/sec.

However if the 1000KB where erroneously divided by the application's software as though it is only .7 Sec. Then the "Speed" will say 1.4MB/sec. (Unlike people computer are Not perfect 😉 ).

Thus the real Speed is the one that appears in a Stable Download, and Not temporary measurement mistakes.

The so call "boost" offered by some ISPs has nothing to with the physical speed of the connection.

It is based on caching frequent revisited pages of sites by the user.

I.e., if you spend a lot of time on AT forums, the ISP "Boost will cache part of the forums so it appears quicker on your screen because it comes directly from the ISP's server instead of going all the way to AT's servers.

This "trick" makes cached pages appear faster but the actual line physical Speed is the same. Downloads or games' traffic that must come from the original server, as a result they will not "appear" faster, and would gain anything from the ""Boost"".



😎

 

[onelivinlarge]

When im at home I peak at maybe 500k dl from torrents and steam. But when I'm at college I peaked at 8mbs a second torrent and steam. And iTunes. At home we pay for 5meg a sec and at school we have 56mb a sec according to speed test

 

[Crusty]

It's a known problem with both Steam and Origin, neither of them report the correct speeds. I've seen speeds of 10MB/s which is over 5x my speeds.

 

[Matt1970]

We have Time Warner in our area. At my girlfriends house I can see 1.6 megs a second downloads while at my house I only get 1.2 megs. Both of us are on a 10 Megabit service so both of us show higher than the rated speed downloads.

 

[JackMDS]

Unlike DSL that is usually stable at the specific connection (end result depends on the distance from the DSLAM and lines quality). Cable Internet varies according to the node's load (Node is a connection shared by few customers).

In an office building in NYC (or similar locations that share Nodes) there are more than few customers on the same Node, stable download can vary between 1.2MB/sec to 1.9MB/sec. on a (as an example) TWC ~12Mb/sec. connection.



😎

 

[Bryf50]

I know some isps will throw you some extra bandwidth if you have VOIP or IPTV through them. My 35/35 fios connection consistently gives me 43mbps down because of this.

Another thing I found recently in Origin is if you cancel a download(not pause) then start it again the download rate jumps to some ridiculous level until it was caught up to where you were previously.

 

[Painman]

My household recently switched over from Verizon 3 Mbit/s DSL to Comcast HIS with a supposed "burst" rate of 20 Mbit/s.

I've been beating the snot out of this new connect for the past couple of days. My sustained DL rate for large files is more along the order of 30 Mbit/s, and the burst rate seems more like 40.

We went ahead and took their Trifecta package, which may have something to do with it. We don't like Comcast very much, but Verizon apparently decided that my locale was too far-flung for FiOS and the rollout here is DOA. Meanwhile, Mr. Comcast technician has handed me a shiny, new Arris D3 cable modem.

I'm not exactly about to call Comcast CS and complain that my Internet is too fast...

 

[JackMDS]

@Painman

The best thing that you can do now is daily praying that No more folks will subscribe in your neighborhood to the same service and Share the Bandwidth with you. 😛 - :biggrin:

 

[Emulex]

oh yeah i get 100meg down with comcast business most of the time. during the day it drops to 30-79 meg - but after hours 100 meg all night long. upstream is about 13-14 meg 24x7 -