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Download times?

M

mauly

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 21, 2003
333
0
Manchester, England
I've just started to download the X-Plane demo! its 329MB, but it says its going to take 11hours to download - this seems very slow to me! is this normal or is there a problem with my new mac?

btw, I have a 1MB connection...
 
mauly said:
I've just started to download the X-Plane demo! its 329MB, but it says its going to take 11hours to download - this seems very slow to me! is this normal or is there a problem with my new mac?

btw, I have a 1MB connection...
Click to expand...
Probably just a slow server or something wrong with your ISP. What download speed is it showing?
 
mauly said:
btw, I have a 1MB connection...
Click to expand...

Err.. I kinda doubt that. More likely you have a 1Mb connection (that's MegaBIT, not MegaBYTE). There are 8 MegaBITS in a MegaBYTE, so at BEST theoretical speed, your 1 MegaBIT connection is 125KB (that's KiloBYTE) per second, which I must say, it's pretty darned rare that you get your theoretical maximum sustained. More likely you're seeing 50% or 33% of that speed sustained. Plus, you're probably downloading from a game website that has tens of thousands of other users at the same time downloading other things and sapping the host's bandwidth.
 
i think it's just becuase the x-plane servers are incredibly slow/overloaded.

i have a 2mbit connection (so i normally download at 200k/sec) but for me i'm getting 10kb/sec!

perhaps just try a different mirror (there's a few different links on the demo page)

hope thios helps! :)
 
yellow said:
Err.. I kinda doubt that. More likely you have a 1Mb connection (that's MegaBIT, not MegaBYTE). There are 8 MegaBITS in a MegaBYTE, so at BEST theoretical speed, your 1 MegaBIT connection is 125KB (that's KiloBYTE) per second, which I must say, it's pretty darned rare that you get your theoretical maximum sustained. More likely you're seeing 50% or 33% of that speed sustained. Plus, you're probably downloading from a game website that has tens of thousands of other users at the same time downloading other things and sapping the host's bandwidth.
Click to expand...

Err.. he probably does have a megabyte connection, it's more likely to be the tens of thousands of other users sapping the host's bandwidth, as you put it. No matter how fast your connection is, you're limited by how fast the host can throw the data out to you.

andy.
 
I have never seen an ISP, in the US or Europe that sells bandwidth based on megaBYTES. Never. Ever. Ever. Please find one and point me at it. Nor have I ever seen one that sells an 8MegaBIT connection. That would be sweet.
 
yellow said:
I have never seen an ISP, in the US or Europe that sells bandwidth based on megaBYTES. Never. Ever. Ever. Please find one and point me at it. Nor have I ever seen one that sells an 8MegaBIT connection. That would be sweet.
Click to expand...


i agree, there seems to be some confusion here between megaBITS and megeBYTES.

anyway, bulldogdsl (http://www.bulldogbroadband.com/) are now offering 4mbit in the uk and i think they're testing 8mbit, so we'll be at 1megabyte/sec downloading sooner or later :D

just think, it's amazing how much the internet has evolved over the past few years. who *doesnt* have broadband these days?
 
it's megaBITs for sure.
This is done so (in the days of modems etc) they seemed faster than people thought - marketing etc.
It makes sense to be BITs are the used measurement, as it is essentially saying how many "1"s and "0"s it can chuck down the line in one second. A "BYTE" is a string of 8 bits put together to form something (sometimes a byte is called a "word"). I.E. a BYTE: "01101011" a BIT: "0" or "1".
It would be odd to measure the speed of a digital connection in bytes, as this requires a (very simple though it is) conversion from raw bits.

FYI: FireWire and all other digital connects are measured in BITS. A FW 400 is 400 megaBITS per second, or 50 megaBYTES.

The reason a computer measures space in bytes is that a byte is the smallest size of a useable chunk of information (that can contain instructions, memory, addresses and date etc.

All off topic. I would guess slow server. I have a 10 (or more - never reached the limit) Mb connection here at UNI, and sometimes get D/L speeds like that from some serves (especially games servers). :) Patience!
 
asif786 said:
who *doesnt* have broadband these days?
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There's still plenty of folks, but I know I always choke a little when people say they're still on dial-up. In the US, there are far too many variations on speeds/price, so it's still prohibitively expensive for decent bandwidth.
 
ukonline

yellow said:
I have never seen an ISP, in the US or Europe that sells bandwidth based on megaBYTES. Never. Ever. Ever. Please find one and point me at it. Nor have I ever seen one that sells an 8MegaBIT connection. That would be sweet.
Click to expand...

i have www.ukonline.net ADSL 8Mbits.
 
Well, there you go. 8Mbps. Very cool.

That's fantastic. And something I referenced in my last post. It's a constant source of irritation to me that there are groups/places that offer such wonderful bandwidth for such a stellar price. For 7 quid MORE, I get 81% LESS of the bandwidth that you do, and I live in a fairly large metropolitian area. I'm tired of being ripped off. Unforuntately, like cellular service here, they all suck in different ways.
 
yellow said:
I have never seen an ISP, in the US or Europe that sells bandwidth based on megaBYTES. Never. Ever. Ever. Please find one and point me at it. Nor have I ever seen one that sells an 8MegaBIT connection. That would be sweet.
Click to expand...
Somebody on here, in Finland or Norway, claimed they were getting 100MB/s and I can't find them now:(
Having said that this lot do 100Mb for $60 . Fibre is the way to go - damn Thatcher had the chance to do it here and blew it :mad:
 
That would be sweet. Here at work I've been completely spoiled by having 100Mb for my office Macs for the last 6 years or so. So when I get home and have to deal with the THEORETICAL 1.5Mb (I'm lucky if I get 100Kb my DSL sucks so badly), I feel like it's a kick straight to the crotch.
 
Here in Germany they are offering 16MBit ADSL2+ connections now...

But that also would mean new hardware (DSL-Modem/Router), so I am just switching from a 2MBit to a 6Mbit connection within the next few weeks, since it is also a bit cheaper and should serve my needs quit well. :)

groovebuster
 
asif786 said:
who *doesnt* have broadband these days?
Click to expand...

There are still a lot of people in remote areas who only can use dial-up modem connections at 56kBit/s. Here in Germany there are still many little towns whithout high speed internet because the investment wouldn't make sense for the providers. The same applies to Canada. The family of my wife lives in a little town on the country side half an hour from Ottawa. No cable TV (only sattelite) and no Broadband internet, only modem dial-up.

I remember the last time we were visiting them and I went on the internet. I couldn't believe how I could use the internet with 56kBit (I even started with a 9600 baud modem in the old days) a few years ago. Everything was soooooooo slow.

groovebuster
 
groovebuster said:
There are still a lot of people in remote areas who only can use dial-up modem connections at 56kBit/s. Here in Germany there are still many little towns whithout high speed internet because the investment wouldn't make sense for the providers. The same applies to Canada. The family of my wife lives in a little town on the country side half an hour from Ottawa. No cable TV (only sattelite) and no Broadband internet, only modem dial-up.

I remember the last time we were visiting them and I went on the internet. I couldn't believe how I could use the internet with 56kBit (I even started with a 9600 baud modem in the old days) a few years ago. Everything was soooooooo slow.

groovebuster
Click to expand...

that's very true. i guess what i was trying to get at was the fact that broadband technology has caught on like wildfire - somethign that doesn't normally happen too much with technology..

we're very lucky it's an open system, so there's lots of competitors which is always driving the price down :)
 
The UK is miles behind other countries with broadband speeds, some people still can't get it, my exchange only got it on the 15th December, only 1 other village near me has it and I live just outside Glasgow. But with ADSL2 coming later on this year it's set to change. Apparently we'll be able to get 16mb-32mb connections :) Still can't beat Japan's 100mb though :(
 
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