Bits and bytes help!!!

[DanUK]

Hello, I hope you can clear up some confusion here!

We have a Leased Line to one of our offices of 128k, which I beleive is 128 kilobits (can you confirm that for an Internet connection, when 128k is written, it means kilobits?).

On a website, there is 750Kbits/sec.

Which is faster?

Thanks. :)

[Stephen Philbin]

Common rule of thumb:

8 bits = 1 byte

[ray326]

Network guys always talk bits. Your office line is probably a 128 kilobit (Kb) line similar to ISDN. A 750Kb line is roughly DSL speed, although about 1Mb (1024Kb) is the average download bandwidth DSL delivers around here.

128 < 750 so your office is slower.

[DanUK]

Ok thanks.

Was wondering and that's cleared up that confusion.

That 128k Leased Line even compares to my home 1mbs cable at most times, it's just a solid speed and so reliable... guess that's why offices and companies have them.

Thanks again.

Regards,

[Stephen Philbin]

I'm assuming you're here in the UK given your name. And if you've got a 1mbps line I'm also assuming you're with a cable company. The most likely explanation for your ISDN line being comparable to your home "1mbps" line would be the laughable quality of the UK cable network. Especially with regards to upload speed. Most 0.5MB ADSL lines easily out perform the so called 1MB lines on cable (and cost less too).

[DanUK]

Hi there.

Yes, I'm in the UK, and at the moment with NTL. Absolutely ****.

Our office isn't a ISDN, it's a dedicated leased line ( http://www.uk.clara.net/claraaccess/leasedlines/dedicated.php )

I've heard a lot abotu the horrible state of the UK's cable networks, it's very unreliable too.

That's why I started this thread, because our office leased line is so good!

[Stephen Philbin]

Yeah I thought it'd be NTL.

[ray326]

Originally posted by DanUK
That 128k Leased Line even compares to my home 1mbs cable at most times, it's just a solid speed and so reliable... guess that's why offices and companies have them.As you've found, the overall throughput of a given network conversation is almost never driven by the network bandwidth, especially at your end. When I dropped cable Comcast had opened it up to about 4Mbps but the overall speed difference between that 4Mbps cable connection and the 1Mbps SBC DSL connection that replaced it is nil. Even when I'm running across the power lines in my house there is no noticable difference end-to-end.