I have DSL and my internet is really slow. When I try to download something I get a transfer rate of about 20KB/sec. My computer is new so thats not the problem. Does anyone know what is happening that is causing such bad performance?

try reseting your modem. Sometimes that clears things up for my DSL connection.

What's the advertised speed (what you're supposed to get)?

Isnt that the 512K - 256K IDSN? I should of calculated it out before I got mine, but I got the same at home. 20kb/s max....so slow.

He has DSL, not ISDN. Typically, DSL can take more punishment (theoretical 8mbps limit), but nothing is quite close to the 20KB/s he gets.

 

DSL is, however, quite sensitive to distance because of medium limitations so you should look for the maximum download rate and the minimum guaranteed transfer rate.

 

E.g., a 256 kbps link means (depending on notations, but roughly) 256.000 bits can go through. That is, 8 bits in a byte, 32000 bytes a sec, which is some 31 KB. Substract overhead of TCP/IP and you are left with some 28 K/s. Also, remember that for some types of connections and subscriptions, a "transfer rate" is advertised which is upload + download. Not typical for DSL though.

 

Over long distances, things like lag, loss, noise, etc can further lower your maximum speed. Even weather. If you have a 256kbps line, you might have a noisy line - for example. Or you might benchmark against a far away server. Try something close to you and match that. The ISP's outside connection might be shady. Try a download from the ISP's site itself, simplest method (not full-proof).

 

As a rule of thumb, ask for the speed you should be getting, divide by 8 and then substract some 10-15% for overheads. A megabit line gets roughly 96-104 KB/s actual transfer. Expect more losses if connected via unshielded long distance lines like DSL.

 

If you want the relaxed opinion of some person, my bet is you have a 200-256 kbps download line +/- some line noise.

 

Oh and a 386-486 can handle gigabit links so computing power is not the issue, stop your worries. I also doubt there is a computer configuration issue, either.

Depends on what your doing. If you are downloading torrent for example, you might want to open certain ports on your router firewall.

call your ISP.