what download speed should I get with 7mbs DSL

[frozentundra123456]

Hi, guess this is a noob question, but I dont know much about networking or internet download/upload rated speeds.

I just upgraded to 7 megabit per second DSL, and my download speeds through a wireless router and a USB wireless adapter to my desktop are in the range of 700 kilobytes per second. Is this what I should expect?? I dont really understand what the download and upload rated speeds really mean I guess.

A second question: would I get faster speeds with a long (25 or 30 foot) ethernet cable instead of the router/wireless adapter? I dont want to move either the router or the computer, which are in separate rooms. Signal strength is usually good but not excellent, and I am using wireless g protocol with the actiontec router/modem supplied by the phone company.

 

[spidey07]

That's exactly what you should expect. Divide the speed by 10, so 7 megabits is 7000 kilobits. So you should see throughput of about 700 KBytess.

Regarding the cable you shouldn't see better speeds if you're getting 700 KBs now.

-edit-
well this is embarrassing. Totally screwed up big B bytes and little b bits. Fixed.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well, theoretical max for 7Mbps speed is ~900KBps. Add in TCP/IP overhead of ~5% and you are looking at 850-870KBps. Your real world 700KBps seems reasonable. You might see a little faster speed if your wireless really is a bottleneck (i.e. if there are a lot of people within range of your wireless network who are also operating other wireless networks).

Basically to translate bits (b) to bytes (B), you simply divide by 8 (8bits make 1byte). So when you go from 7Mbps, first convert that to bits (instead of Mb), as there are 1024*1024bits per Mb, there are 7*1024*1024bits in 7Mb = 7340032bits; next convert 7340032bits to bytes is 7340032/8 = 917504bytes; convert bytes to KB 91750/1024=896KB (to be exact).

Now again, that is the theoretical possible. In the real world, there are things like dropped packets, partial packet reception, fragmented packets, etc., etc., which all affect the actual speeds that you will see, and that is just for the wired aspect of the connect. Add in wireless issues such as concurrent broadcasts on same channel, cross channel talk (a channel really is a group of frequencies, to remove cross-channel interference, you should use a channel that is at least 5 channels away from any other network in range of your network, i.e. if someone is using channel 1 already, you should at least use channel 6, but there might be someone using channel 8 as well, so really in many cases, there is not much you can do)... And that doesn't even go into what type of wireless (a, b, g, n; multi-band/channel)... And wireless protocol has a much larger overhead, so for instance, if you are using "b", even though it is/was sold as 11Mbps, real world it was only like 6Mbps of real usable speed with just one device. And remember wireless is a shared spectrum, so for each additional device that you have in use at the same time, that is another chunk of bandwidth that is used (i.e. 2 devices, you cut the bandwidth in 1/2, for 3, it is 1/3, for 4, 1/4... etc., etc. and if someone else is using the same channel as you, their devices ALL count for the number of devices).

The long and the short of it, ~700KBps is about right. You might be able to get a little more, but not much.

 

[JackMDS]

About 700KB/sec., provided that the TCP/IP stack is optimized for DSL.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Thanks to all who answered. I did not realize the the DSL speed rating was in bits per second, not bytes per second like the download speed shows. So that explains the numbers that I am seeing.

 

[spidey07]

Thanks to all who answered. I did not realize the the DSL speed rating was in bits per second, not bytes per second like the download speed shows. So that explains the numbers that I am seeing.

And it didn't help that I totally messed up big "B" bytes and little "b" bits.
D:

 

[Emulex]

don't forget pppOE overhead too if applicable. gotta love comcast they pushing 2 megabytes (2000k/sec) sustained on their mid-tier (normal tier is 42.95 mid is $10 more). all day long. i think thats the limit of docsis 2.0 or darn near close.

 

[imagoon]

don't forget pppOE overhead too if applicable. gotta love comcast they pushing 2 megabytes (2000k/sec) sustained on their mid-tier (normal tier is 42.95 mid is $10 more). all day long. i think thats the limit of docsis 2.0 or darn near close.

Theoretical is just under 4MB/s for docsis 2.0

Large chunks of Docsis 3.0 is actually just 2.0 channels being bonded. 2.0 only really allows for 1 channel, where 3.0 allows for an "undefined" amount that can be bonded. It also enhances upload channels.

There are more cool things but I think they did it so Docsys 3 modems could still work on docsis 2 networks.

 

[Fallen Kell]

gotta love comcast they pushing 2 megabytes (2000k/sec) sustained on their mid-tier (normal tier is 42.95 mid is $10 more). all day long. i think thats the limit of docsis 2.0 or darn near close.

Actually it depends on the area. If they have the bandwidth, they won't limit people to the "tiers" of service, just simply let everyone get the max speed available. I see a pretty constant 25Mbps connection, which is actually the limit of my router, not Comcast or the cable modem. I have a replacement router in hand, but have not swapped it out yet (just got it on Tuesday).

 

[Emulex]

let me know what you get when you swap docsis 3.0 for 2.0; some folks claim powerboost goes 40-50megabit just because of the modem swap and nothing else.