How much bandwidth does MSN mobile use?

Modems-Why do we only use a fraction of the bandwidth available to us on our dial up modems/cable connections?

• This has been bugging me for a while. Why when you use a dial up modem/cable are you only able to utilize aprox 10 -20 per cent of the available bandwidth. Par exampler. on a 56 kbps dial up modem you usually find the maximum D/l speed is around 5.6 Kb/s (about 10 per cent of the total), And on a 1mb Cable connection (like the one i am currently using) i have found again 100-120 kp/s seems to be the top speed. approx 10 per cent of total bandwidth(Note* although when using bittorrents that seems to double to a max of 200-240 kbps (20 per cent of total bandwidth) Anyways basically i have a 1Mb connection so why the blooming heck cant i fully utilize it as opposed to only being able to use 10-20 per cent. In Depth answers would be appreciated. Thanks - Dan.

• Answer:

  Different mesurement. MB and Mb are two differnent things. MB is mega bytes and Mb is megabits. There are 8 bits in a byte. The internet companies sell data service in mega bits. Your computer monitors mega bytes. Now, on speed test sites you will not measure you full advertised rates. The reason for this is because they test you connection speed by having your computer download a small file. Well, because its data, there is information inside that byte that tells the routers in between how to transmit the packet (overhead). This will translate into a slight loss on your speed test. at 1.5Mb line will show about 1.2Mb on a speed test site.