When you subscribe to an internet plan, your provider advertises a number like "100 Mbps" or "1 Gbps". But what does that number actually measure, and why does your internet sometimes feel slow even on a fast plan?
Bandwidth vs. Throughput
To understand internet speed, it helps to imagine a highway. Bandwidth is how many lanes the highway has — the theoretical maximum amount of data that can travel at once. Throughput is how many cars actually make it to their destination without getting stuck in traffic. SpeedPaw measures your actual throughput.
Megabits per Second (Mbps) vs. Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
A common source of confusion is the difference between bits (lowercase
b) and bytes (uppercase B):
- 1 Byte = 8 bits.
- Network speeds are measured in Megabits per second (Mbps).
- File sizes on your computer or phone are measured in Megabytes (MB) or Gigabytes (GB).
Quick Rule of Thumb: To estimate download times, divide your connection speed in Mbps by 8. For example, a 100 Mbps connection transfers roughly 12.5 Megabytes per second in ideal conditions.
Download vs. Upload: Why is Upload Slower?
Most residential internet connections (cable, DSL, and some fiber) are asymmetric. They allocate far more bandwidth to download than upload because typical internet usage involves consuming media (streaming, browsing, gaming) rather than hosting servers or uploading giant archives.