Why is my cable connection so damn fast?

#1 10-20-2005, 09:58 PM

I have a cable modem through comcast. I am now getting in the neighborhood of 700K to 800K per second download speeds. That's kilobytes, not kilobits, which means about 6 megabits a second, doesn't it? How can it be that fast?

I'm paying $45 per month including tax and such, and I thought this only got me 4 megabits per second at most.

edfurlong · #2 10-20-2005, 10:03 PM

I noticed the same thing. I read elsewhere about people getting emails at their comcast email that they increased it. I have no clue what my comcast email is though.

stabn · #3 10-20-2005, 10:06 PM

Comcast bumped most of them up during the last few months. It was formerly 4 standard.

#4 10-21-2005, 04:16 PM

I had this happen to me once. It didn't last. Sometimes they upgrade their services in waves... so when there's not a lot of people on their hardware using it - you'll get some super speed... or so I've been told. Enjoy it while it lasts... it may not last for long.

pc in NM · #5 10-21-2005, 08:03 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I have a cable modem through comcast. I am now getting in the neighborhood of 700K to 800K per second download speeds. That's kilobytes, not kilobits, which means about 6 megabits a second, doesn't it? How can it be that fast?

I'm paying $45 per month including tax and such, and I thought this only got me 4 megabits per second at most.

[/ QUOTE ]

600 kilobytes = 0.6 megabytes

kilobyte = 1000 bytes

megabyte - 1,000,000 bytes

TheTROLL · #6 10-21-2005, 08:09 PM

What's your point?

Freakin · #7 10-22-2005, 02:59 AM

They increased it to 6-8Mbps a few months ago. I heard it mostly on radio ads in Seattle. I can download at 4MB/sec from newsgroups from my home connection

fluxrad · #8 10-22-2005, 03:20 AM

[ QUOTE ]
What's your point?

[/ QUOTE ]

He was trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about.

Benholio · #9 10-22-2005, 04:57 AM

[ QUOTE ]
600 kilobytes = 0.6 megabytes

kilobyte = 1000 bytes

megabyte - 1,000,000 bytes

[/ QUOTE ]

[nit]
These conversions are wrong, and irrelevant. The OP never talks about megabytes, and your numbers should be 1,024 and 1,048,576.

To go from kilobytes to megabits, you multiply by 0.8192. His download speeds are ~5.5 to ~6.4 megabits per second.
[/nit]

wonderwes · #10 10-22-2005, 07:42 AM

all broadband is rate limited. So maybe the area you live in, they decided to increase the bar to 6 mbps.