speed tester wrong?

[dr deciduous]

Hi all.
I've been on 2mb for a while now but i've only ever been able to download at a maximum of around 250kb. I just assumed that i lived in a bad area until recently i tried some online speed testers which told me my average speed was around 1.9mb which i've never reached before.
Why is my internet so slow if the test says i'm at the speed i should be?

[danielf]

What source are you downloading from? Your download speeds are limited not only by your speed but also by what the source can provide.

Try grabbing a few files (simultaneously) from here and see what the combined speed is.

Also, when you say 250kb do you mean 250 kilobit (0.25 meg) or 250 KB (kilobyte). 1 KB equals 8kb, so 250KB is about right for 2 meg. 250 kilobit is low. If your test reports in upper case B it's reporting Bytes, if it's lower case b it's bits.

[Graham M]

As danielf says you're probably confusing bits and bytes :)

[General Maximus]

run your test on www.speedtest.net and if it days something like 2000kbits that is the right speed for you.

When you are downloading files and you download window says something like 250k or kb, then that is also correct and your maximum speed because 250*8=2000. If you find you are actually achieving your maximum speed and you think things are slow because you like to download a lot, think about increasing your speed to 10mbit (1mb/sec), it is a nice jump for you.