Is 80kbps a bad download speed?

Question

I just took an upload/download speed test and found myself at 80kbps for downloading. Is this a terrible speed? Also, how long would it take to download an average 2 hour movie with this speed?

Answer 1

Where did you test your speed?



Internet speeds are measured in bits per second (bps). The results you get from http://speedtest.net is the speed in bps.



Some download sites measure your speed in Bps (B/s) or Bytes per second.



If your download speed is truly 80 Kbps than that is very slow by today's standards, not much faster than 56 Kbps legacy dial up connections



The average broadband speed in the USA is currently around 15.6 Mbps. http://www.fcc.gov/measuring-broadband-america/2013/February



As far as how long it will take to download a particular file,



As I stated, Internet speeds are measured in bits per second (bps). However, in the real world files are not measured in bits, they are measured in Bytes, KiloBytes, MegaBytes, etc.



So, when downloading actual files, your download speeds will be much lower.



There are 8 Bits in a Byte

There are 1024 Bytes in a Kilobyte

There are 1024 Kilobytes in a Megabyte

There are 1024 Megabytes in a Gigabyte

etc...



A two hour movie, on average, will range between 1 and 4 Gigabytes depending on the compression level and resolution.



For example if you only have a 80 Kbps Internet connection, it downloads at approximately 10 KB/s.(Kilobytes per second) Server loads and overhead can drive this speed much lower as described below.



The speed and load on the server you are uploading to or downloading from also has to be accounted for. There is much overhead involved. The web server may be located in India. There may be 10,000 people simultaneously trying to access the same web server. Your connection may have to be routed through 15 or 20 hops (different locations) to reach the server, etc.



Online torrents and game download servers such as STEAM are notorious for being extremely slow. They have thousands of users sharing the limited speed. Each user gets a small portion of the total speed.



Lets assume you want to download a 2 Gigabyte movie file with your 80 Kbps connection. For simplicity, I will not account for traffic or overhead. The absolute minimum time would be calculated as follows.



2 Gigabytes is equal to 2,097,152 Kilobytes

Your 80 Kbps connection downloads at a maximum of 10 KB/s

2,097,152 divided by 10 equals 209,715 seconds.

209,715 / 60 = 3495.25 Minutes



That's a whopping 58.25 hours for your download, not even accounting for overhead and traffic which usually will add an extra 10 to 20% to the total.



You definitely need a faster Internet connection.



A rough estimate of actual download or upload speed can be made by dividing your Internet connection speed in bps by 10. For example a 30 Mbps cable Internet connection downloads at approximately 3 MB/s, and could download your 2 GB file in around 10 to 15 minutes.



I wrote an article http://isp1.us/article/internet-speeds/ that explains Internet download speeds in much more detail.



Good Luck.

Answer 2

That's pretty terrible. It's about 1/40th the speed that the US government officially considers "broadband", and 1/12500th the speed of the fastest Internet commercially available (although only in some cities). It will take a bit over a day to download a 2 hour movie, more or less depending on the amount of compression used.



Assuming you mean 80Kbps and not 80KBps (the capitalization matters)- if it's the later, then it's only 1/5th of the lowest speed considered broadband and 1/1500th the speed of the fastest Internet available.

Answer 3

Well I have Telstra ADSL2+ WIFI which can get up to speeds of 2MBPS/2000KBPS. Usually when I have a download speed of 80KBPS is when I am downloading a series of TV shows with many leeches and only a few seeds. An average 2-hour movie at that speed would probably take.... Days i would guess, since a good quality movie is 1.5-2 Gbs. So maybe you should upgrade. 80KBPS is really slow, yeah.

Answer 4

On an 128kbps line the download speed it 128kbps. It is however 16KB file transfer per second. You might want to consider 1Mbps DSL which is 1024kbps. That is if it is available.

Answer 5

i have poor internet, and my upload speed is better than that.



your just over 56Kbps dialup speeds. if your getting that speed form your broadband, check your package and phone your ISP, because there is something not right on your line. your paying for it, you should atleast get 512Kbps, which is basic broadband in most places.

Answer 6

Well depend upon your internet connection and depends also on which website or torrent you downloading from.....Looks like your internet plan is 512kbps.....OR check with your ISP

Answer 7

80kbps is good speed to keep connected with internet. it is enough for single system. if you want to use it with more than 1 system then plan to upgrade.

Answer 8

Good argument, but I am not 100%