4.6kbs >6.8> 11.4

If you have a phone modem i'm sure you have seen this download kbs rate displayed. now here is my problem/? when i first start a download( win98se, gen pent ll(r) 64mb ram v-92pci voicefaxmodem)the rate is high,oh i am using walmart and some times the connection speed is ,well it varies between 28000 and 48000, that is another issue. when the program starts to download it is high and then it decreases to about 3-4kbs. it there any way to make it faster other than cable or dsl. oh yea ,the same question on the connection speed to how to keep it high too . thanks roger in sc

 

You're basically not going to keep your connection speeds up. I'm not sure of the exact reason you see the high speeds when you start a download and then it settles out lower, but I think it has something to do with the cache. Just a guess. Regardless, it's not accurate of your true download speed. Even on DSL and Cable you will see that same high speed at first, then it settles out. I've seen initial speeds as high as 400kbps on downloads, I only wish.

There are some things you can try to get a higher speed, but you're not going to see much increase.

28.8 to 48k is pretty good on dial-up. I would leave it like it is. It's going to fluctuate from one session to another, there's absolutely nothing you can do about that. It's not your equipment, your lines or your modem, it's Ma Bell's system.

Good luck!

 

looks like i did it again , what i meant to say was the download starts at like 11-16 kbs then drops down to about 4.3 kbs then some times even less than that. roger.

 

4.3kbs is about "normal" for dial-up service. That is all I ever saw on mine when I was on dial up, once in a great while late at night it would sometimes maybe get to 5.

 

You start a download, and it starts downloading. Meanwhile, a window comes up asking if you want to save it, or run it, whatever. Eventually, you respond to that. It looks to me that the timer that is measuring download speed starts then, but you have already downloaded several seconds, maybe more. So you initial average speed is high, and then gradually decreases to the actual speed. With a dial-up connection, you are not going to do any better than around 5 kbytes/sec, each byte is 8 bits, and has a couple bits around it that keep things sync'ed (it's been a while since I really cared), so for estimation purposes 10 bits per byte. If you have a 50k connection that gives 5 kbytes per second. It isn't going to be any better than that.