8 meg = 800kb/s download speed???

[TAKTAK]

Personally, given the whole "upto" mess in the first place, I think MB p/s would be much simpler for joe bloggs average consumer to understand. I don't suggest getting rid of Mb p/s for other situations, particularly those in the trade so to speak, but I think it clearly does mislead at worst, and confuse at best, a lot of people.

But then I also dislike the HDD manufacturers for their particular usage of GB vs GiB - I understand the difference and that technically they're right, I just feel that you can't get away from the fact that it is down right misleading for the vast majority of consumers.

All a personal view though obviously

But we just can't keep dumbing down anymore... We're at rock bottom already, if they're unwilling to learn what a simple term of Upto means then that is their own problem...

It is clearly stated and perfectly laid out in the T&C's (if anyone bothered to read them), there is no problem with it...

You simply cannot state a speed that can be given as everyone's line is different, therefore Upto is the most accurate description available, as it applies to every single customer, as you can receive Upto 8Mbps, no more, but it can be less... They're specifying the upper bound, not the actual speed.

It isn't our problem that the vast majority of this country are incapable of utilising 'common' sense and looking at situations rationally.

HEXUS is great in that it is full of people that are everyday ordinary people (from shelf-stackers to top-brass), except everyone is full of common sense, which differs from the norm, and it shows in the way that the community interacts

Unfortunately 'common' sense isn't all that common anymore, and it really does show when you take a look at society nowadays ...

[Tumble]

...except everyone is full of common sense....

How very dare you cast nasturtiums in my direction young man.... the very thought!

[WESSIE]

I remember laughing at the console adverts in the early 90s when they talked about their amazing 8 megabit cartridges. I pointed out that was actually the same storage capacity as a 1 megabyte amiga floppy disk.

Just goes to show how long the deception has been going on.

[.walls]

Unfortunately 'common' sense isn't all that common anymore, and it really does show when you take a look at society nowadays ...

Explains a lot, really

[jim]

Why?

Just because some people don't understand it, doesn't mean we should do away with it...

I just think that measurement systems should be as simple as possible - the metric system was a good idea. Having a dual-measurement system isn't really ideal. Doesn't really go much further than that to be honest.

[Mblaster]

Doesn't help when adverts on tell advertise as 'X meg' broadband. People now days deal with bytes mostly not bits, its a clever marketing trick and nothing more.

No, it's not a marketing trick at all, network speeds are generally specified in bits, and data storage in bytes, it's the standard way of doing things from long before the take off of the computer consumer market/internet.

[Terbinator]

No, it's not a marketing trick at all, network speeds are generally specified in bits, and data storage in bytes, it's the standard way of doing things from long before the take off of the computer consumer market/internet.

Well thats what you can believe, but when you hear and advert and they say 'twenty meg broadband' why do they never say the 'bit' at the end - yes it might be in the T&C's but my point was with the initial selling of the product. Now add to this consumers deal with consoles, seperated by gigabytes, digital cameras, laptops, iPods where byte capacity categorises them.
On the 'Mega' front they deal with images, songs, and video files all presented to them in megabyte form, its hard not too see why the consumer wouldn't expect to have a network connection delivered to them in megabytes rather than bits.

[TooNice]

Well, they could always be forced to display both metric. I am not sure if it is an obligation, but we have both kilojoules and kilocalories displayed in our food packaging. That said, I don't recall anyone complaining they weren't getting 56KB/sec on their 56kbps broadband.

[KowShak]

I don't recall anyone complaining they weren't getting 56KB/sec on their 56kbps broadband.

Its a few year since I had a 56Kbps internet connection, it certainly wasn't broadband... a 56k modem was good for about 5KB/sec and certainly wasn't broadband!

[Terbinator]

Its a few year since I had a 56Kbps internet connection, it certainly wasn't broadband... a 56k modem was good for about 5KB/sec and certainly wasn't broadband!

No one had the internet when 56k was all the rage so no one complained anyway

[scaryjim]

No one had the internet when 56k was all the rage so no one complained anyway

I did, and was well chuffed at my 5KB/s download speed

I was somewhat less chuffed when I got a mobile "broadband" dongle a couple of years ago and had to put up with the same download speeds, mind...

[Terbinator]

I did, and was well chuffed at my 5KB/s download speed

I was somewhat less chuffed when I got a mobile "broadband" dongle a couple of years ago and had to put up with the same download speeds, mind...

Haha, i remember them times.

The 'x network' anyone one ?, or whatever it was called - free internets for everyone !

[peterb]

I had a Compuserve account - in a busy week I might have got one e mail! And they they introduced an Internet Gateway - with dire warnings about what might happen if you went out there!

[TooNice]

Its a few year since I had a 56Kbps internet connection, it certainly wasn't broadband... a 56k modem was good for about 5KB/sec and certainly wasn't broadband!

Amateur! Ph43r my 7KB/sec [once in a blue moon]! And I've used the internet on a 386 on a 14.4 (or was 9.6?)k modem too. Not sure what was more painful: the loading speed, or the 16 colours display that did Amy Jo Johnson (AKA Kimberly Hart, the original pink ranger) no favours.

[chris6273]

The maximum throughput you can get on a BT 8MB Package (If you are syncing at 8128kbps) is 849KB/s (6792.5kbps) Because of the 7150kbps profile minus the overheads unless you can get a good optimum MTU. I manage to get 860KB/s out of my connection when it is maxed out though because I have adjusted the MTU to the optimum setting.

[Saracen]

But we just can't keep dumbing down anymore... We're at rock bottom already, if they're unwilling to learn what a simple term of Upto means then that is their own problem...

It is clearly stated and perfectly laid out in the T&C's (if anyone bothered to read them), there is no problem with it...

You simply cannot state a speed that can be given as everyone's line is different, therefore Upto is the most accurate description available, as it applies to every single customer, as you can receive Upto 8Mbps, no more, but it can be less... They're specifying the upper bound, not the actual speed.

It isn't our problem that the vast majority of this country are incapable of utilising 'common' sense and looking at situations rationally.

HEXUS is great in that it is full of people that are everyday ordinary people (from shelf-stackers to top-brass), except everyone is full of common sense, which differs from the norm, and it shows in the way that the community interacts

Unfortunately 'common' sense isn't all that common anymore, and it really does show when you take a look at society nowadays ...

Whilst all true, the problem is that carriers are very good at giving, and in my opinion, very deliberately giving a very misleading impression, with their "up to" claims. It's called "marketing" which, far too often, is a case of abusing the fine line between saying something they know will give a misleading impression, and outright lying. They might be technically right, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be more tightly regulated. For instance, when a shop claims "up to x% off" in an advert, there are regulations as to exactly what that means .... though I'd bet most people didn't know that, and certainly don't know what it means. It does go some way to keeping over-enthusiastic marketing in check, and broadband suppliers have been playing the numbers game ever since BB was invented.

In my case, my 16Meg ADSL service gives me, on a good day, about half what I used to get from my 8 Meg NTL cable. Shame NTL's customer service was, at least in my case, so flaming atrocious. As it happens, though, I get the "16 Meg" service as part of a bundle, and don't really much care about actual throughput, since I don't download films or music, and software downloads is little more than AV definition updates and an occasional Ubuntu release. But if I did care, I'd not be pleased about being told I was getting an "up to 16 Meg" service, and actually getting more like 3 Meg a lot of the time. I feels like a con, and pretty much, it is.