When it comes to internet speeds, I never understood what was download speed was. The upload speed seemed to be the internet I get. For example, downloading a game from Steam or a file downloads at ~2.5mb/s (which is my upload speed). And uploading a file to the cloud like Drive or Box is much slower like 50kb/s to 300kb/s. So what is download speed? Is it like bandwidth or something? (Don't hate me pls, network geeks) Post your internet speedtest if you want. http://speedtest.net and share the image link. Spoiler: My Speedtest
Your upload speed to a server is the maximum speed that your connection can upload to a server, your download speed is the speed at which you can download from a server, it's a simple as that. You can't however download more than something can provide. For example, lets say you really fucking love pies and you could eat like 2 pies a minute (2p/m). And you could happily do that (That's your maximum possible connection). But lets say I'm really horrible to you and I sit you down and I give you 1 pie every minute, and you eat that pie each time, you're can only eat with a speed of 1p/m. Your upload speed has nothing to do with how quickly you download things, it is however based on the server's upload speed. The server's upload speed is the cap when downloading from them unless their upload is larger than your download (In which case you can't download all the data through your network so it's capped). The reason you see 22 on ookla is because it's designed to just have you download its shit at maximum capacity, it's not complex stuff and it's the only thing its servers are doing so it can get away with just giving you a bunch of the same stuff to download, whereas steam's servers have to cater for millions of people downloading a lot of data, they can't expend as much to each individual. Spoiler Pretty peeved with this result, think it's limited because of the fact that I'm on wireless, but I used to get a stupid 256 down.
Yea, I get this but... This is where I get confused. Whenever I download a large file ZIP from a server that has a higher upload speed, my speed to download the file never goes past my upload speed (~2.5mb/s). I used to have a slower internet connection of ~20mb/s download and 1mb/s upload. I could never download any file over 1mb/s. What you're saying should be like this example (theoretically without other users/traffic)? Server download: 10mb/s upload: 50mb/s My download: 20mb/s upload: 2mb/s If I download from the server, I could only download 20mb per second. If I upload to the server, I could only upload 2mb per second. But what I would actually get... If I download from the server, I get only 2mb per second. If I upload to the server, I get only <2mb per second.(Hope I got that example right...) Btw, when downloading a game from Steam, what is your mb/s? If you have my problem(?), I would guess your download would be ~12mb/s.
Alright, so I don't know too much about networks but I think that this might have something to do with the TCP protocol (Which I now expect is used when sending a lot of data, it would make sense). TCP protocol basically means that when you're downloading something from a server the server expects an acknowledgement back about it, so it knows it's not wasting its time on you. Server sends packet Client receives packet, sends a packet back requesting next packet And so on... For something like steam (Streaming a lot of data with limited resources) this would make sense, because this way the server isn't wasting a bunch of time sending data down a path that doesn't lead anywhere. I think that when downloading smaller files, ZIPs etc. it doesn't really matter to the server whether or not it gets lost (UDP protocol) So yeah, I suppose that you're limited in certain senses to your upload and in some just to your download.
One thing that most people don't realise is that internet providers show their speeds in Mbit/s, whereas what you really care about is MB/s. 100 Mbit/s internet will give you a theoretical download speed of 100/8 = 12.5MB/s MB = MegaByte Mb = Megabit Speedtest notes all the speeds in megabits. Upload speed has nothing todo with downloading files, stop talking rick pls @Dr. Pit Lazarus : 22.9/8 = 2.8MB/s, which is very close to your download speed. And just to show my eboner:
Thanks for clearing that up @Donkie 34.8/8= 4.35MBps 5/8= 0.625MBps Looks like my internet speeds were upgraded
I felt like I had to redeem myself after over complicating the question you asked, and my previously awful wifi speed. Here's my wired connection.
