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Confusion over internet speeds,etc.
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Old 13-04-2012, 20:59   #1
hughesdecorator
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Confusion over internet speeds,etc.

I had a new Superhub installed on Wednesday and I am using it as a modem / wi fi router.
Initially for 24 hrs speeds fluctuated at 2 Mbps to 28 Mbps on a 30 Mb rate to which I am supposed to get.
On my Netbook the signal was steady at 54 Mbps but on my HP desktop the signal fluctuated as above.
When i disabled the wi fi the status reading in the wired local network showed 1Gbps.
Does this mean that the wired isgiving me a far faster speed than the wi-fi.
By the way the wi-fi speed has now become steady on the desktop , has the superhub had some firmware updates since starting up ?
Do these Status speeds mean that the cards in the computer are capable of handling the speeds , i.e. 1 Gbps or just 54 Mbps
Help please , total novice but trying to learn.
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Old 13-04-2012, 21:21   #2
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Re: Confusion over internet speeds,etc.

The router is a Gigabit router, that means, in theory at least, you will get 1gbit across the LAN. Therefore
Quote:
reading in the wired local network showed 1Gbps.
is perfectly correct. You were connected to the ROUTER at 1Gbps. However your router will only connect to the internet at the speed for which you pay.

I have a neighbour who is always asking me to "fix his pc" because it shows him as connected at 1gbps, but he can only get 30mbps download speed. I imagine it confuses a lot of others too.
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Old 13-04-2012, 21:35   #3
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Re: Confusion over internet speeds,etc.

In very simple terms your connection (no matter how fast each segment is) is only as fast as the slowing bit.

Your PC connects to the superhub at 1Gb (or 54Mb over wifi) yet the superhub connects to the internet at 30Mb, so downloading from the internet will only ever be as fast as 30Mb..
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Old 13-04-2012, 22:55   #4
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Re: Confusion over internet speeds,etc.

each device you use is rated at different speeds. The best way to think of it is that you are in a car which can do 130mph, you are driving on a motorway with a speed limit of 70mph and you are using space saver tyres with a max speed of 50mph. How fast are you going to go?

Most pcs these days will have onboard gigabit (1gbit) network controllers and that is the max speed it can connect to to another device. In this case the shub also has 1gbit ports so you can transmit data to and from the shub at gigabit speeds. If for example you was using an older router which only had 100mbit ports, windows would report that the connection is 100mbit when yo click on the globe on your taskbar and look at the connection properties.

Like Kymmy said, your connection is as fast as the weakest link. VM control your speed going off to the internet and even though your max speed in this case is 30mbit, the weakest link analogy works for the internet as well. You might get full speed right across the UK but if for example you are trying to get a file hosted on a home server from someboday on dialup then all you are going to get is 5k/sec. Think of it as your 50mph tyres having to drive round a multi storey car park at 5mph.

As far as the wireless goes, the shub is very dodgy for wireless but I won't get in to that. When you are looking at 802.11g (54mbits) the most you can expect is half speed which is 26mbits ish which equates to download speeds of around 3mb/sec.

3mb/sec is very fast for small downloads. If you were looking at larger files which are going to take some time then you really want to be looking at wired connections.
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Old 13-04-2012, 23:24   #5
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Re: Confusion over internet speeds,etc.

Many thanksfor all that , very well explained.
Is it better then to disable the wi-fi part on the desk top and just to rely on the wired connection
Downloading an audio book i seem to get around 200 kb/sec? is that right.
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Old 13-04-2012, 23:39   #6
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Re: Confusion over internet speeds,etc.

The other thing to bear in mind is that a 54Mbps WiFi connection shows you are running 802.11g and despite the 54Mbps in the advertising G can only deliver just over 20Mbps in practice (and often a lot less). To make best use of a 30Mbps connection you need to either run wired or upgrade your WiFi adapter to N (802.11n).
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Old 14-04-2012, 09:33   #7
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Re: Confusion over internet speeds,etc.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hughesdecorator View Post
Many thanksfor all that , very well explained.
Is it better then to disable the wi-fi part on the desk top and just to rely on the wired connection
Downloading an audio book i seem to get around 200 kb/sec? is that right.
ish. 200k/sec = 1.6mbits which is nowhere near your max speed. But like I said, it depends on the speed you are getting from the server you are connecting to. If you imagine the server you are connecting to is on a gigabit line and you have got 10,000 people downloading a new mp3 or audiobook or something, each user is only going to 100kbits each = 12.5k/sec download speed. I can download at 12mb/sec on my connection (and I get that speed most of the time for what I download) but when I download games off Steam I never get more than 3-4mb/sec. In my case it is 25% of my speed (so I can still download whatever else I want and do whatever I want) but in your case it would max out your connection for you.

You wont always get your full speed on everything you try and do. If you tried to download a couple of audio books at the same time you would probably find you would get 200k + 200k + 200k. The whole point of connections these days is multitasking so you are downloading an audio book, streaming some youtube video videos while it is downloading, wife is chatting to friends on laptop and children are playing games or something.
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Old 14-04-2012, 09:54   #8
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Re: Confusion over internet speeds,etc.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hughesdecorator View Post
Downloading an audio book i seem to get around 200 kb/sec? is that right.
Again, slowest speed is what you'll get..

You might have a 30Mb internet connection but that doesn;t mean that all the servers connected to the internet are at the same speed.. The server you're downloading the audio book from probably throttles each donload at 200k, which means that many people can download without effecting the server.

The only ways of testing you full speeds is either by a reliable and close speedtest, newsgroups or finding a downloads/servers that are good speed which you can do more than one at the same time and add the speeds together.

In very simple terms if the internet was a selection of pipes carrying water different servers will have different size pipes which means that some will be slow and some will be fast but never faster than your own pipe to the internet.
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