How Does 5 Mbps Upload Speeds Affect Me?

Does internet speed confuse yous? Do you scratch your head when y'all hear the words megabits, bandwidth or latency?

Don't worry, y'all're non alone.

Lots of people are confused with internet speed. They don't know what internet speed is, how it works and why they should pay extra for more than of it. Only it's the internet service providers biggest selling point, and then speed must be important… right?

I'll exit that up to you to reply. To help you out, though, this article volition answer the following questions:

• What is internet speed?
• How does internet speed piece of work?
• What is kbps, mbps, MBps and gbps?
• What is the difference betwixt upload and download speeds?
• What affects my internet speed?

Let's get started.

Providers – telephone numbers

We've collected telephone numbers for the biggest Isp's within the United states. Reach out now, and become a programme that fits your needs.

Provider	Telephone number
DISH	833-826-1132
Frontier	855-917-9691
Hughesnet	855-917-9685
Centurylink	833-270-5717
Windstream	833-826-1196
Spectrum	855-917-9721
ATT	855-917-9634
Verizon	844-603-6536

Want the fastest internet speed at an affordable price? Discover the best provider based on your needs:

• Gaming (click here)
• Family (click here)
• Students (click here)

Each page will open in a new windows so that you can finish reading this guide.

What is Internet Speed?

Internet speed, the number they give yous (5 Mbps, for case), has nothing to do with how fast your internet works. It's not like a car or motorbike where you tin measure how fast it goes in miles per 60 minutes (mph).

Instead, internet speed is your (allocated) bandwidth. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be sent to y'all, usually measured in seconds. For example, 5 Mbps would mean that you lot tin can receive upward to 5 megabits of information per second.

How Does Bandwidth Piece of work?

The best style to explain (and sympathize) how bandwidth (and your internet speed) works is past using an analogy.

Recall of bandwidth similar a pike. All cars (data) travel at the same speed, so to get more than data from the internet to your computer faster, the freeway needs to be wider.

In other words, say 1 Mbps is the equivalent to a 1 lane thruway. And let'southward say that you were trying to download an image, which is 5 Mb in size. So if yous had a bandwidth of one Mbps (ane lane freeway) it would accept you roughly 5 seconds to download the epitome.

Now let'southward say that you have a v Mbps (bandwidth) connection, or a five lane freeway. How fast will you receive your image? 1 2d.

More than bandwidth ways that you'll receive more data at the same time. In this example, yous can download v images with the wider bandwidth in the same time y'all could i with the narrower bandwidth.

What'south important to note hither, and this confuses a lot of people, is that your internet isn't any faster from one Mbps to 5 Mbps, or however much bandwidth your connection has. Your data is just transferred to you at a faster rate considering more information tin can exist sent at the same time. It'south more efficient, making your internet perceptually faster, not technically faster.

All of that said, at that place isn't just i internet speed. However, real "net speed" has to do with latency and that topic is outside the telescopic of this detail article. You can read near latency here.

What is kbps, mbps, MBps and gbps?

Another confusing aspect of shopping for internet based on speeds are all the terms or abbreviations existence used. Mbps, MBps, kbps, Gbps; what does all of this hateful?

These are the abbreviations for the amount of data that is being sent per second. Here is what each of them mean. Below that I've outlined a basic conversion guide and a rough idea as to how big each piece of data you consume is.

• kbps – Kilobits per second. This is used when talking about dialup (56k for example) and low speed DSL.
• Mbps or mbps – Megabits per 2d. Some people misfile this with megabytes. The divergence between the ii is how the "b" is written in the abbreviation; Mbps = megabits and MBps = megabytes. This is the near common unit of speed used.
• MBps – Megabytes per second. Megabytes aren't normally used in (residential) internet plans.
• gbps – Gigabits per second. Gigabits are hardly used for cyberspace plans, and the costs make them unpractical for families and small businesses.

Converting Units of Cyberspace Bandwidth

To give you a improve idea how much bigger or small each unit of speed (bandwidth) is, hither is a handy conversion chart. You can as well visit Numion and play with their estimator.

• Bytes ==> Bits: Multiply past 8
• Bits ==> Bytes: Divide by eight
• Mega ==> Kilo: Multiply past ane,000
• Kilo ==> Mega: Divide by one,000
• Giga ==> Mega: Multiply by i,000
• Mega ==> Giga: Divide by ane,000
• Giga ==>Kilo: Multiply past 1,000,000
• Kilo ==> Giga: Split by 1,000,000

Units of Bandwidth & The Data You lot Use

Hither are some things that you do on the cyberspace and how much bandwidth (and information) information technology uses up:

• ane Spider web Page – one MB
• 1 Text Email – .97 MB
• 10 Min YouTube Video – 43 MB
• Download ane Epitome – two.5 MB
• 30 Min of Gaming – 2.five MB

What is the Divergence Between Upload and Download Speeds?

Another confusing thing about shopping for cyberspace is when you lot run into speeds listed like this:

five/ane Mbps

What does this mean? Well, that means that internet plan has a download speed of 5 mbps and an upload speed of 1 mbps.

The reason why your upload and download speed are different is because most internet connections are asymmetric. In English this means that the bandwidth is a dissimilar size going i fashion compared to the other. Since nearly users consume content rather than upload it, the bandwidth for download speeds is larger (than the upload).

What Affects My Internet Speed?

In that location are a number of things that volition (negatively) bear upon the speed of your internet.

Connection Type

Connexion type plays a big role in how fast of an internet connection yous'll have. Using my analogy from earlier, some roads (bandwidth) are fixed or capped — they tin can't exist widened or increased. Dialup, and to some extent DSL, are perfect examples of this.

Traffic Congestion

Ok, I can't help it; I'm going to use my analogy again. It's merely goes hand in hand with internet speeds.

Anyway, your internet tin go congested just like a superhighway can. The more data (or cars) that is being requested and sent, the more bandwidth (freeway lanes) that is beingness used at one time. At some point every lane is going to be taken up, so the cars (data) will accept more time to get to you.

Congestion usually happens during peak usage times, like when everyone gets off piece of work and logs onto the internet. But you tin also experience slower speeds if you lot have a habitation network (and anybody is online) or someone using your wireless connexion from exterior your home.

Bad/Onetime Wires, Connections or Equipment

Call back of bad wires and connections like a freeway that goes from v lines to ane suddenly. That forces all of the cars (data) to bottleneck, ultimately taking longer to get to you.

The same thing holds true for your equipment. If y'all accept outdated equipment, or your equipment isn't configured optimally, that tin slow downward how fast you receive your data.

Distance

The further away you are from your ISP (hub) the longer it'll take for the information to transfer from the internet to your calculator.

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Source: http://www.plugthingsin.com/internet/speed/

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