What's the actual download speed if I have Internet speed of 3Mbps?

Question

I have an Internet plan of 3 Mbps, does that mean my download speed will reach 3 Mbps too? So far I'm only getting 300 KBps when I'm downloading files from the Internet.

Solution

As the name says, "actual download speed" is the actual speed, ie. the speed you get, 300 KBps. 3 Mbps is the theoretical speed, which is not necessarily equal to the actual speed (but should be close if your ISP is doing its job right).

The thing you're missing is that theoretical speed is measured in (mega/kilo)bits per second (lowercase b in Mbps) and actual speed is usually presented in (mega/kilo)bytes per second (uppercase B in KBps). It's really important, because 1 byte = 8 bits. So the theoretical speed of 3 Mbps is 0.375 MBps, that is around 375 KBps. This is the number you should compare with your actual speed.

Comments

[Austin T French]

As it should be read, @Ramhound. Does any ISP rate their speed in MB? Regardless, I am going to correct the units.

[gronostaj]

Network transmission speeds use decimal prefixes (source), so 3 Mbps = 3,000,000 bps = 375,000 Bps = 0.375 MBps. And 3 Mbps is not equal to 384 Kbps.

[Tonny]

And don't forget that communication-speed ALWAYS uses SI units for kilo (=1000) and mega (=1.000.0000). Computer capacity is usually (but not always) measured in 1024 byte units. (1 kbyte = 1024 bytes, 1 mbyte=1024x1024 bytes). 300 KB/s = 300x1024x8 bits = 2457600 bits = 2.457 Mb/s. That sort of discrepancy is fairly normal in case of ADSL with has always some loss. If you have a guaranteed 3 Mb/s (leased line ?) it is too much of a difference with what you should have or you are downloading from an extremely slow server which can't deliver decent speeds.

[almonte]

Ummm im sorry but you are not smarter than a bit calculator computer and you are wrong, 3 Mbps (megabits) DOES equal to 384 KB (kilobytes) , NOT 375 KB, you are confusing .375 MB with 375 KB. matisse.net/bitcalc/…

[gronostaj]

Size units use binary prefixes, so 1 MB = 1024 KB. But transfer speed units use decimal prefixes and 1 Mbps = 1000 Kbps. Please note that your calculator lets you choose between decimal and binary prefixes, but binary is default, which is wrong. See the Wikipedia article I've linked in my comment above and Tonny's comment under my answer.

[almonte]

"...Network engineers describe network speeds in bits per second, while web browsers usually measure a file download rate in bytes per second...." source So when he saw on the browser the 300 KB/s he was seeing KiloBytes, not Kilobits. So when he reaches his full internet speed (3Mbps) his browser will reach 384 KB/s.

[gronostaj]

That's what I wrote in my answer; browsers use byte-based units. And here's the quote from your link: "In networking, metric prefixes (e.g. kilo, mega, and giga) refer to their decimal, not binary meaning." So 1 Mbps = 1000 Kbps and 3 Mbps = 375 KBps, not 384 KBps. (but 3 MB = 384 KB)