speed test results confirm I get the speed i am paying for:
fast.com reports 1.0 Mbps

but when i do a speed test from the terminal my download speed only averages 130k

downloading an iso file right now, 1090.3 MiB and at 4% done it estimates 143 minutes to complete [now averaging 123KB/s in firefox download bar]

i now run fast.com speed test while the iso is downloading and it reports speeds roughly balancing out the remainder of my download limit...900 to 923Kbps...

my question to you is. why don't i get the full download speed that fast.com says i should?

my question to myself is. am i throttling myself somehow?
or has my pooter been zombiefied...

linux mint os, firefox 53.0.3
[let me know if there is a better forum for these questions]

Speed tests i.e upload/download speeds are typically in bps i.e. bits per second but download transfer rates are in Bps i.e. bytes per second. There are 8 bits per byte.

The estimated time is about right at 1Mbps. Here are the numbers for a 1GB file.
125,000=1,000,000/8 Download speed in Bps
8000=1,000,000,000/125,000 The number of seconds to transfer 1G bytes
2.22hr=8000sec/3600sec/hr Number of hours to download 1G bytes

Is the terminal results bytes or bits?

i ran these in the terminal:
curl -o /dev/null http://speedtest.sea01.softlayer.com...ds/test100.zip
wget -O /dev/null http://speedtest.sea01.softlayer.com...ds/test100.zip

curl returned Average Dload speed of : 130k in 13:04 minutes

wget returned speed as : 131KB/s in 13m 22s

you are confusing Byte with bit.

1KB=8Kb

The command line results are in bytes so as already explained 1Mbps~=130KBps.

Speed test sites are really such a general sort of number.
In reality there are a lot (LOTS) of factors the go into a large file download. Your ISP makes some silly claim of "up to" generally. I feel that most folks never get up to that number often.

I'll ask then, assuming about a 70% rate of claimed max speed, what would you calculate the download time should be?

i agree speed test sites only give a general indication of download speeds

still trying to wrap my head around what my isp is selling me
they offer download speeds as Mbps(capital M, lower case bps)
I am expecting 1 megabyte per second (1 meg per second or more than 2/3 of a floppy disk!)

I suspect ondoho is correct about KB and Kb
134KB/ps x 8 = 1072Kb hmmm, is that more than what i am paying for, i better stop complaining

yet the wisdom of the web says:
1 Mbps = 0.125 MB/s
1 Mbps = 1000 kbps
1 Mbps = 125 kB/s (hopefully kB is interchangeable with KB)

so...1 Mbps does not equal 1 MB per second
a lousy 8 bits turns a reasonable 1 MB per seconds into a measly 0.12 MB per second
oh well, it looked too good to be true

too bad my download readout was not in Mbps instead of something you need a computer to figure out...
thanks for the replies

Not sure I know if there is a problem yet. Downloads seem to be slow at first glance.

I was hoping to get you to calculate or use online calculator to decide my question.

I think whether you get the speed has a lot to do with the technology employed. In the UK, at least, people on ISPs that use phone lines are often limited by the line quality, with only a few getting the "up to" speed. However, those of us on cable tend to get the 100Mbps,or whatever, specified in the contract -- that's verified by downloading huge files as well as using speed test sites (though, it has to be said, the upload speeds tend to be around 5Mbps). 4G doesn't tend to be sold on any specific speed figures here, which is good as I've found it so variable that even an average seems pointless with download speeds from 0.96Mbps to 124Mbps, and everything in between, in my speed test results and upload speeds between 0.44Mbps and 47.5Mbps and the upload and download maximum and minimum values weren't recorded at the same time.

hi jefro, just a quick reply to say i will give a better response to everyones comments shortly
sidetracked right now researching error code #isak idiot.sitting.at.keyboard ??
not even sure i have that right
as it stands right now it appears my download speed is spot on for what i am paying for.
i just did not understand the conversion figures...kb, KB, kB, MB, Mbps...etc...

i hope to wrap it up and mark as solved time permiting

Just to clarify things:
Base unit:
b = bit
B = byte = 8 bits

Prefix/multiplier:
m = milli = 1/1000
k = kilo = 1000
Ki = kibi = 1024
M = mega = 1000*1000
Mi = mebi = 1024*1024
G = giga = 1000*1000*1000
Gi = gibi = 1024*1024*1024
And so on through tera/tebi, peta/pebi, etc

There is no "K" prefix, but sometimes people use it in place of "k" for kilo. "m" milli isn't used much either since you can't really divide down less than a bit, so usually when you see it it's somebody that means mega but can't be bothered to use the right case.

The worst, then, is people who write "KBPS". Do they really mean kiloBytes, or is their caps lock stuck on? Same with "mbps". Capitalization is VERY important when working with unit abbreviations.

ID-10T error code temporarily under control
frustration led me to old reliable LQ when after all is said and done, I simply had to duck it...
punch in "133kB/s" in my goto search engine duckduckgo, and pick one of many answers

I wish to thank all of you who resisted the option of suggesting what I should have done in the first place.

the problem lies with deceptive isp's, I think I am buying an orange(1MB per second) when all I am getting is one segment of a very expensive orange (1 Mb per second)

I will mark this solved: 133 Kilobyte/Second = 1.03906 Megabit/Second (what I pay for)



anything beyond this point is just for entertainment:

to reiterate where I went wrong:
my isp offers 1Mbps download rate (no longer available to new customers)
nasty words could be scrapped off the walls when i could only get 133kB/s download rate
my iso help desk claims i am getting full download speed and when i tell them i only get 133kB/s they say maybe its your modem or router, not once explaining 133kB = 1Mbps
error code now: id10t-abe (at.both.ends) no offense intended


using update manager in Mint18, 18MB download averaged 133kB/s

software manager
download stellarium, 104MB, (no download rate) approximately 13 minutes
(no need to do the math thanks)

from this site, theunitconverter.com, converting kB/s to Mbit/s

133 Kilobyte/Second = 1.03906 Megabit/Second

jefro, not sure if you need to pursue this any further but i am willing to continue if needs be.

recent speed site test (speedtest.net) confirm download speeds of 1 Mb per second (end of story)
ping 14ms, download 1.10Mb, upload .28 Mbps

as for great expectations 'assuming about a 70% rate of claimed max speed, what would you calculate the download time should be?'
I would be happy with 50% of claimed max speed if that meant half a meg a second, 1 gig in 2000 seconds or less than 33 minutes. I now understand 1Mb/s is 8 times slower than 1MB/s
I am happy I am getting what i pay for, not happy that i need a computer to figure out what isp's are advertising...speeds only look fast because they are measured in inches not feet, feet not miles, bits not bytes, Mb not MB
oh well...

It's just one of those things you have to get used to. Network speeds are VERY often measured in bits vs bytes. I think it goes back to the dialup and old serial modem days when speeds were (and still are) measured in baud rate, which is bits/second. In other words, it's telling you the equivalent serial clock speed, not data throughput.

On a somewhat similar note, hard drive manufacturers specify capacity in GB or TB, while computers typically report sizes in GiB or TiB. That results in the drives measuring ~10% smaller than advertised (1000^3/1024^3 = 0.93 for GB vs GiB, 1000^4/1024^4 = 0.91 for TB vs TiB).

Although they are often used interchangeably baud rate and a bps are not the same. It probably goes back to analog since bandwidth is measured hertz i.e. cycles/second. As you have discovered a number is meaningless without knowing or understanding its reference i.e. units...

maybe you mean pebkac?
Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair