Experiencing slow internet connection?

Why is my internet connection slower than expected?

On paper, your subscription to the Internet should allow you to surf at 18 or 20 Mbps. In practice, downloads do not exceed a speed of a few hundred kilobytes per second. Your ISP is deceiving you ?

- To set the speed of a connection to the Internet, access providers calculate the amount of data that are transmitted to your computer. In fact, they retain the smallest units elementary bits, which can not represent that 0 or 1. It requires 8 bits to form a byte, a binary information that the computer can interpret. So, to a rate of 20 Mbps, you get 2.5 megabytes per second.

- The data transmitted by the ISP must be converted by your box or your ADSL modem cable in a format compatible with your computer. This operation is losing about 20% of the initial flow. Thus, for a transfer speed of 20 Mbps, the computer obtain a speed of 16.6 Mbps (about 2 megabytes per second).

- The rate announced is always the one that corresponds to data transfer between the dispatcher of the ISP and your computer, the so-called flow down. It does not take into account the speed of transmission between your computer and Internet servers, ie the flow ascendant, which is always lower.

He must also know that the rate announced by access providers is the theoretical maximum throughput. Depending on the distance between your home and the dispatcher of the operator, and depending on the quality of your line, this flow can easily be halved. The connection mode also plays a box plugged into an Ethernet connector gives better results than modem connected to the computer via USB. The latter will seek to effect further the computer’s CPU and its performance will decrease depending on the number of devices connected to USB.

– One final point: if your computer connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi adapter or CPL, the speed of data transfer necessarily correspond to the maximum rate of this relay. In Wi-Fi, 802.11 g standard allows for a rate of 30 Mbps, but the standard 802.11 b is five times slower. In addition, the flow decreases depending on the distance between the computer and the terminal which must be added encryption, which tends to slow down the route, and transmission, which can be disrupted by obstacles (walls, floors, etc. .) And other electronic devices or appliances (microwave ovens, wireless mouse, etc.)..