Maximum Download Speed

**1er** · 10-03-2010, 12:25 PM

To avoid my ISP strangling my connection for passing the download limit during peak hours I need to download no more than 1gb per hour...and that's not just torrents, that's the whole shabang. Being awful at mathematics, I wonder if anyone could help me out and tell me what the right download speed cap in kB/s would be to safely download things at using uTorrent?

I'm not sure if uTorrent is referring to kiloBITS per second or kiloBYTES either...

Any help is much appreciated

And don't worry, I'm not pirating anything

**Acreo Aeneas** · 10-03-2010, 01:51 PM

uTorrent by default refers to speed by KB/s (kilobytes).

So the equation is: (transfer bandwidth - 1,000,000 KB) / (60 minutes) / (60 seconds) = ~277 KB/s constant. Now that would leave you no breathing room (almost) for any web surfing or gaming.

** Note: The industry uses 1,000,000,000 bytes = 1 GB measurement because some accountant couldn't do simple math. Hence why the numbers are so rounded and even.

**Jeepo** · 10-03-2010, 04:28 PM

Hey 1er mate, who is your ISP? Sounds a bit like the Virgin Media traffic shaping, if you read it and you go over a certain limit at a certain time of the day then you get slowed down ALL DAY, even during off peak times. However, it is unlimited, and if I just miss the 9am - 3pm window, then I can go crazy. I work for the company that owns Demon internet, and it is.........well its good but it depends what you want to use it for.

**MrMojay** · 10-03-2010, 06:37 PM

I do not use torrents, but if you divide your connection speed by 8 that will give you a good estimation of what your download speed should be.

A 10mb/s connection would have a download speed of 1.25MB/s. 10/8=1.25 (1024x10=10240/8=1280 or 1.28MB/s).

**Flarfignuggen** · 10-04-2010, 03:57 AM

Originally Posted by 1er

I'm not sure if uTorrent is referring to kiloBITS per second or kiloBYTES either...

Shorthand for *bits uses a small 'b', *bytes uses a large 'B'. Easy way to remember is that ISPs like to advertise the former rather than the latter for obvious reasons, and they make damn sure to use the correct capitalization in the shorthand.

Note: The industry uses 1,000,000,000 bytes = 1 GB measurement because some accountant couldn't do simple math. Hence why the numbers are so rounded and even.

You sure about that? Verizon Wireless (for the godawful, horrible time I was stuck using it) very much so used the correct 1024 value.

**Acreo Aeneas** · 10-04-2010, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by Flarfignuggen

Shorthand for *bits uses a small 'b', *bytes uses a large 'B'. Easy way to remember is that ISPs like to advertise the former rather than the latter for obvious reasons, and they make damn sure to use the correct capitalization in the shorthand.

You sure about that? Verizon Wireless (for the godawful, horrible time I was stuck using it) very much so used the correct 1024 value.

Yes I'm sure about that unless somethings changed that I weren't aware of. If Verizon used the proper 1024 value, then they were probably one of the few that did.

If you had Verizon did you stay on long enough for them to roll out their FIOS packages?

**Flarfignuggen** · 10-04-2010, 01:54 PM

No. Due to the house's location (despite being inside a major metropolitan area), the only Internet options at the time were Verizon Wireless (using the little "mifi" thingy, otherwise known as a phone you can't call with) or dial-up. Thankfully, they've since upgraded to Qwest DSL but still. That 5 gb download cap? Such a ****ing colluding scam by all the wireless providers.

**Acreo Aeneas** · 10-04-2010, 02:11 PM

Originally Posted by Flarfignuggen

No. Due to the house's location (despite being inside a major metropolitan area), the only Internet options at the time were Verizon Wireless (using the little "mifi" thingy, otherwise known as a phone you can't call with) or dial-up. Thankfully, they've since upgraded to Qwest DSL but still. That 5 gb download cap? Such a ****ing colluding scam by all the wireless providers.

Ouch, that really sucks. If it was DSL, you should have had phone filters. That way you could still make and receive calls even when you're online. How much were you paying?

**Flarfignuggen** · 10-04-2010, 09:08 PM

For Verizon's, as titled, "Unlimited" 5GB plan? $60/month. All the carriers do it. It's all collusion, but hey, government regulation? THAT'S SOCIALISM!1!11!one!1!

Thing that makes it such a joke is that if you do just Windows' updates, you're going to be slamming your available usage pretty hard.

**Acreo Aeneas** · 10-04-2010, 11:16 PM

Originally Posted by Flarfignuggen

For Verizon's, as titled, "Unlimited" 5GB plan? $60/month. All the carriers do it. It's all collusion, but hey, government regulation? THAT'S SOCIALISM!1!11!one!1!

Thing that makes it such a joke is that if you do just Windows' updates, you're going to be slamming your available usage pretty hard.

Hmm, interesting. For the same price, you could have had the basic FIOS package with I think 6 mbps down and 1 mbps up. You'd at least have a fiber from the curb to your house connecting you to the interwebs.

Not sure if there's a bandwidth transfer cap in place or not with FIOS.

I count myself lucky that AT&T hasn't imposed a 5 GB a day limit on transfer or any monthly transfer cap. My 3 mbps down / 512 kbps up DSL connection's already pretty slow considering I share it with the other 4 members of my family and we typically see 3 - 8 GBs a day since we watch a lot of videos (half of which are academic/recordings of in-class lectures) and play games online. We'd be tearing our hair out if we'd had a 5 GB a day cap on our connection.

1er, any update on your situation?