Testing upload/download bandwidth speeds for verification

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Friday 14 August 2009 18:23:41 Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-08-14 at 12:42 -0400, Chris Tyler wrote:
> > Yes. 3 megaBITs per second is just over 300 kiloBYTEs per second.
> > There
> > are 8 bits per byte, plus there's packet and protocol overhead, so a
> > 10:1 ratio between the numbers is normal.
>
> Actually not. Even discounting protocol overhead, a 3Mbps connection is
> 3 million (3x10^6) bits per second. 300KB of data is 300 kilobytes
> (300x2^10) bytes.

I don't understand your point. However you choose the base for M and K 
prefixes, the ratio is roughly 10:1. I mean, 3 Mbits = 300 KBytes because there 
are 8 bits in a byte (or say 10 if you simplify and/or count the overhead). It 
has nothing to do with prefixes.

Besides,

   1 Ki = 2^10 = 1024 = (roughly) 10^3 = 1 K ,   and similarly
   1 Mi = 2^20 = (roughly) 10^6 = 1 M,

(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix for details ;-) ...), so even 
if you mix them, 3Mbits = (roughly) 300 KiBytes, or any other combination you 
might think of. Even Gi:G is 1:1 within an 8% error. 

I would say Chris is completely correct. For the OP: don't worry, your ISP 
seems to be providing you with what you expect.

HTH, :-)
Marko