Difference Between Surfing Speed And Downloading Speed
Janet Denzel
I have an internet connection that provides a bandwidth of 256 kbps. However, when I download a file, the downloading software displays numbers like 30 kbps, 40 kbp etc. and keeps changing. I have never seen it showing 256 kbps. What I want to know is that even though I have a connection which has 256 kbps bandwidth, when somthing is being download it doesn't use the full 256 kbps bandwidth. I want to know what do the numbers 30 kbps, 40 kbps indicate ? Do they indicate speed. Please help me to understand this.
There are 8 bits in a byte, which is how most applications will report how they're downloading. So 256 kbps is equivalent to 256 / 8 kBps which is kilobytes per second which is 32 kBps. In this case, note the large B to denote BYTES.
Your internet connection of 256 kbps is raw bandwidth. Every time you make a connection, there is supplemental information sent and received. These are generally protocol specific headers / additional information (e.g. TCP headers / HTTP headers) and they add overhead to the overall communication reducing (normally only by a small amount, but still reducing) the total amount of bandwidth you have available for raw downloading of data.
The bandwidth is a measure of theoretical speed and is determined by the connection between you and the source of the download. ISPs are able to adjust the speed, for example 'throttling' it when you reach a maximum, per billing period.
Remember that the speed of a download depends just as much on the computer at the other end of the transfer. Download speed may vary as you watch because some of the connection is shared with other users.
The 'bps' figures are measurements of speed in units of bits per second, although care must be taken that Bytes per second is not meant (which would be 1/8th of the bps speed, since 8 bits = 1 byte). I think it's fair to say that ISPs will always quote 'bits per second' figures because they're bigger and look more impressive.
Your bandwidth 256kbps means, the amount of data you can receive is 256kbps. It means the highest speed you can get is 256kbps but not means it always use to. Data reception always depends on the free space to reach.
My perception is that everything that you see in your browser is downloaded on your PC.The proof for this is: Let a webpage load in your browser and when its loading completes then select working offline or close your internet connection and save that page, which results in the saving of your webpage on your hard disk with the key to watch this page any number of time you want.
So, it shows that your page's been downloaded when you accessed it and the speed of accessing your webpage will surely then depend on your downloading speed, then where does this term "Surfing Speed" comes.
Download speed is how fast the connection is from your house to your ISP. It is tested by downloading a file hosted right on your ISPs network to your computer (all speedtests not hosted locally by your ISP are testing latency). It is the physical speed of your "last mile," between your house and your ISP's gateway to its backbone. Also known as throughput.
Surfing speed is a marketing term, and is meant to describe how fast the connection is, subjectively, from your house to items on the Internet. It is always variable, and is out of any one entity's control. It includes latency (as explained above, basically 'how long it takes information from servers around the world to cross the Internet and render on your machine'). Also known as goodput.
Therefore, downloading several small files is slower than one large file.
But not only because of the download speed, but also because of the handshake that needs to be done between the browser and the server in order to start a new download.
This can be optimized by the browser's reusing one connection to the server in order to download multiple files, but not all website administrators allow keeping connections alive, so as not too have too many concurrent connections open.
If it's so called, "user experience", then let's take easy example (I hope) - modern websites are using on javascript. Scripts are downloaded from server with some speed depending on your badwith, but they are executed locally by your browser. Those scripts can do some additional computing: database queries/generating data/html content, which takes additional time.
That's how I suppose term 'surfing speed' should be understood. But who is using it? If it's your ISP talking, then consider it as a smooth excuse for them no providing you a quality connection (like: "our badwith rox, it's your machines that sux") :)
However, when you were browsing the internet, the same delay occurred for every section that you downloaded. A webpage contained five images means you are downloading six items and the delay occured six times. So the delays mounted up.
Also, when you visit a webpage, all the content for that particular page can come from multiple servers across the world, like advertising, video's and such, so it depends on so many factors of how fast any particular webpage loads at any given time, regardless of your connection speed.
Not necessarily the same thing. Your actual speed of downloading data will be constrained by the bandwidth of your network connection, so suppose you can get X kB / second then that's how many actual bytes of data you can slurp.
Surfing is more dependent on response time. Downloading has more to do with bandwidth. Suppose I have an internet connection that takes 150 milliseconds for a www.google.com to respond... If I have 50 of those internet connections, it'll still take 150 milliseconds, but I'll have 50 time as much bandwidth, so 50 times the downloading speed. Surfing still depends a lot on download speed, especially when getting pictures or flash or movies.
Also a lot of ISPs cache certain websites to make them go faster. This just means that the ISP which is pretty close to you holds a copy of a website hosted in a foreign country, you're request doesn't always have to go to that foreign country to get that website if your ISP is holding a local copy of it. This speeds up surfing speed as well, though the same principle could apply to download speeds if your ISP chooses to cache any of those too.
Your ISP may consider them to be very different things. It's not uncommon for ISP's to advertise a "burst-rate" which means that files download very quickly initially, but slow-down over the long run. The implication of this is that small files (such as HTML, JS, CSS, etc) can receive much higher speeds than large files (ISOs, zip, hi-res photos, etc).
Another implication is that your "bandwidth speed tests" may be skewed--if the test sends only small files then it may report higher bandwidth than you'll see transferring larger files--and vice-versa.
Another factor is "which client". Back in the dial-up days download accelerators were popular for retrieving large files over HTTP/FTP; older webbrowsers significantly limit the number of concurrent requests allowed in retrieving resources (CSS, images, etc) compared to modern browsers, and so on. So the software you're using can also impact the performance you observe.
Regarding caching; you are correct that your browser tries to store and reuse files it has already retrieved--this cuts down significantly on bandwidth and server load. Using an HTTP debugger like FireBug or Fiddler2 you'll notice many pages that you've already visited will respond with an HTTP StatusCode of 304 -- "Not Modified". What has happened is your browser sent the request, and in that request said "I need SomeResource, I already have version X of that" if the server sees that version X is the most recent then it responds with a status of 304--basically telling the browser "use what you already have" rather than resending the resource.
Nowadays, every Internet Service Provider (ISP) boasts about offering high-internet speeds. From 40 Mbps to a whopping 1 Gbps - the options are many and alluring. Users jump on the opportunity to enjoy good internet speed and get high-speed streaming so that they can do more and have an overall better experience.
The answer lies in understanding the difference between internet speeds and download speed. This can help users get a better understanding of what they are actually getting when signing up for a high speed internet plan.
Internet speeds are heavily dependent on the kind of internet connection that is used. For example, broadband connections like DSL and cable offer faster speeds than dial-up connections. On the other hand, fiber optics offer faster speeds than cable and DSL.
ISPs often advertise the internet speeds they provide. Thus, users see speeds of 50 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 1 Gbps, and higher being advertised in marketing materials. The faster the speed, the smoother the connection. As simple as that.
Users often download movies, games, music, and other data from the internet. This is where the download speed comes into the picture. It is a completely different concept from internet speed or connection speed.
Every 'file' has a size associated with it. For example, a movie may be 5 GB in size, an ebook may be 1 MB, or a song may be 10 MB. Users should note that the 'B' here, when it comes to download speed, stands for bytes and not bits.
Internet speed refers to the overall bandwidth available for the internet connection. It is the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted over the connection in a given time period. Internet speed includes both upload speed (the speed at which the user can send data from the computer to the internet) and download speed (the speed at which the user can receive data from the internet to their computer).
Download speed, on the other hand, refers specifically to the speed at which data is downloaded from the internet to the user's computer or device. It is measured in MBps and not Mbps. Download speed is just one component of the overall internet speed.
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