Why does an 1.5 MBps internet speed translate to a ~200 KBps down?

[roderick_young]

Think of bits as eggs. 1.5 Mb (small b means bits) is 1.5 million eggs per second.

A byte is like a carton of eggs, actually with about 10 eggs in it, 8 of the eggs are actual data, and 1-2 of them are used for protocol (not useful to you). So you divide the number of eggs per second by about 10 to get the number of cartons per second. 1.5 megabits per second is equivalent to 0.15 megabytes (0.15 MB, with a capital B) per second, or 150 kB per second.

That suggests that when you get 200 kB per second on download, you're actually getting much better than 1.5 Mb/sec speed, so your'e getting a good deal.

As for the upload speed on DSL, it's usually a maximum upload speed that's specified. It's not uncommon to have half that.

Note that anything below 4 Mbps is not considered broadband, nowadays. If the speed is insufficient for your needs, you can probably get much more speed for not much more money.