I had the painful experience of downloading movies from the Apple store yesterday on my PC,the wife and I selected four movies with a total of 6.65 Gig, I started at 10:00 am and the download was finished at 2am this morning. I wanted to walk away and return later but could not do that as it kept asking for my Apple password every time it stopped downloading,and when you typed in the password it kept popping up as soon as you finished typing it in.
And all this with a very fast DSL line.

Al.

Never had that issue, your DSL must be loosing connection.

Not so the connection never broke but it was slow,the Apple tech said it would take hours because of the large files.,I have a very fast DSL line,at least thats what I'm paying for. Would like to hear from others how it went for them. If it was down-loading direct to the Ipad it would have taken a week.

Al.

I just completed three different tests,I did two and my IP did one and they were in the limits of my area,Download Speed was 2.90Mbpm Upload,Upload was 0.93. Ping 56ms. It also said at this speed it would take the following files this amount of time...
MP3 File 14 secs. Video Clip (35MB) 2 min, Movie (800 MB) approx 36 min. As I posted previously my file was 6.65 GiGs.

Any Technician on the board up on this kind of stuff.


Al.

Lets do the math.

If you got a consistent 2.9Megbit (that bit part is important) download speed (which you don't it fluctuates) and that means you can DL an 800MegaByte (that Byte is important) in 36 minues then:

800MB/36min = ~22MB/min
Now lets assume (I know it's bad to ASSUME) that 1GB is 1000 MegaBytes (I Know it's not but lets just round).
That means that your 6.65GB is actually 6,650 MegaBytes.
So, 6,650MB/~22MB/min-=~302 mins or about 5 hrs (302/60).

Now remember, that assumes you have a consistent DL speed of 2.9Mb/s. You almost never do. And I will bet that there were times where you had a DL speed of 0. Nothing you did or wrong with your equipment. Your ISP probably capped/slowed you down because they saw a huge amount of data being moved.

In addition, things can and do happen all the time. Traffic between you can Cuppertino (assuming thats where the files are stored) could have gotten snarled, lots of people started DL'ing stuff, etc.

And last but not least, the Dl speed of 2.9Mb/s (there's that little b again) is good but I have a 20Mb/s connection. A test I just ran gives me 27.61Mb/s DL speed from Tampa to my home in Deltona. Over to San Jose, CA it just tested 30.05Mb/s. But I can sometimes have a DL speed of just 12Mb/s. It all depends on what is happening on the 'net when you are testing or using. And what your ISP is doing to throttle/cap you. Buggers advertise unlimited high speed but then do things mess with you.

Now, that little "b" is the bugger. That little b is "bits" not "bytes". Bytes would be a big "B". So you can't think that it is 6.65GB/2.9MegaBytes/s, it is 2.9Megabits/s.

Hope that helps alittle.

Could someone check my math, my head hurts now.

Thanks rsave for that short explanation,I did know about the big B and the little b. I tested my speed at Geeks,and at Broadband,my ISP used the website called Speedtest,I also found out by reading over their website that they have an App at the Apple Store as a free download so you can test your Iphone or Ipad.

Al.

i used to have DSL before cable, there is no way 800mb size movie can finish download in 36 minutes, no matter how fast DSL in your area, sometime cable takes 36 minutes in my area, beside one time i downloaded 500mb file in Itune, took me almost 2 hours eve i have cable speed, i guess part of it was Itune cause.

I have a 20Mb/s cable connection. I can download an 800MB file in about 6 minutes on a good day (which is most days because I have very few people on my "node").

While cable connections are usually "faster" than DSL, DSL has a more consistent speed (less fluctuations) as well as less "jitter" which is why DSL are usually better for VoIP.

In addition, depending on the distance from the switching station, DSL connections speeds vary from house to house. The farther from the switching station, the slower your speeds. Cable does not suffer from this (as much), cable suffers from the "shared" line or "node".

If you do the math, an 800MB file on a 2.9Mb/s connection takes about 36 minutes:
800MB=6400Mb
6400Mb/2.9Mbs=2206.89 seconds
2206.89/60(number of seconds in a minute)=36.7815 minutes

All they do is do the math when they present these numbers.

And if it was taking you 2hrs to download a 500MB file, you've either have a slow cable connection or something wrong with your network.

Originally Posted by Al Rogers

Thanks rsave for that short explanation,I did know about the big B and the little b. I tested my speed at Geeks,and at Broadband,my ISP used the website called Speedtest,I also found out by reading over their website that they have an App at the Apple Store as a free download so you can test your Iphone or Ipad.

Al.

Yes, I use Speedtest.net all the time. I also have the app on my iPod and iPad.

I think you may have just had a fluke day where the planets didn't align right for downloading. It happens.

If your made that its taking so long to download its your ISP speed to blame. Sorry but any DSL connection is not going to be "very fast" DSL is now considered to be slow when it comes to broadband connections.

I have Comcast cable internet and get speeds of around 24mbps. You can only download as fast as your connection allows.