Why am i not getting my full download rate?

Question

hi, i hav a 512kbps download connection, atleast that is wat my isp says. the max speed i get is ard 59kb. i ran a speed test and it says tat my dl speed is 480kbps, however i am not getting anywhere near tat. i hav a router and all my ports are forwarded for required programs. even tho i connected my comp directly to the modem, but the download speed was abt the same, just went up 1kb. when i try to download from any site the download rate is 59kbps MAX. so i dont kno why im not getting my full download rate, any help guys?

Answer 1

512kbps means kilo BITS per second. When your downloading things its in kilo BYTES per second. There are 8 bits in a byte so when you divide the 480 that you are getting by 8 you get 60 and that is the speed you are downloading at. The difference between bits and bytes are denoted by a small b for bits such as kbps and a big B for bytes such as 60KB/s