Download speed

Question

Download speed

What does it usually take to download a movie (say 1.5 GB) from iTunes via cable (Comcast in my case)? I downloaded a 1.15 Gb movie and it took 30 minutes (which is only 0.63 Mbps. I read on AppleInsider that typical internet downloads should be between 1.5 and 3 Mbps. Did I get the lower speed because I was also sync-ing my AppleTV at the same time? What is the best way to optimize downloading from iTunes Store?

G4, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Jun 23, 2008 11:35 AM

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Answer 1

Chenks

Level 5

7,435 points

Jun 23, 2008 11:54 AM in response to guido Deboeck

will entirely depend on how much your ISP throttles your connection. regardless of what they say, Comcast have been notorious for throttling bandwidth on certain types of data.

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Answer 2

Jun 23, 2008 12:01 PM in response to Chenks

throttling bandwidth....you mean slowing the speed on certain data? Do you know when throttling is heaviest (peak evening hours maybe), what data is being throttled? what do others get interms of download speeds from iTunes Store?

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Answer 3

Chenks

Level 5

7,435 points

Jun 23, 2008 12:11 PM in response to guido Deboeck

there is no precise calculation on this.

in the UK throttling can happen 24 hours a day, but increases during peak times (4pm - midnight). most ISPs will say that they don't throttle, but almost all with "traffic shape" to some extent (there are exceptions though).

a few month back there was a US ISP (it may have been comcast) that made some changes to their "traffic shaping" and it virtually killed itunes. big fuss in the news etc, it was retracted but who knows what level they still do it at.

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Answer 4

Chenks

Level 5

7,435 points

Jun 23, 2008 12:19 PM in response to guido Deboeck

also, 1GB in 30 minutes isn't really that bad. i've seen (and had) a lot worse than that.

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Answer 5

F Shippey

Level 7

21,500 points

Jun 23, 2008 2:12 PM in response to guido Deboeck

What does it usually take to download a movie (say 1.5 GB) from iTunes via cable (Comcast in my case)? I downloaded a 1.15 Gb movie and it took 30 minutes (which is only 0.63 Mbps).

I suspect you are mixing bits (b) and bytes (B)

A 1.5 GB movie is 12 Gb in size. If this were downloaded in 30 minutes ( 30x60=1800 sec) the download speed would be 6.67 Mb/sec (that's megabits/sec)

You went on to say "1.15 Gb movie" - that would only be a 143.75 MB movie and is much smaller than any of the full movies I have downloaded. For example, the 720HD third trailer of WALL*e runs 2 min 29 sec and is 101.7 MB. Your movie seems more likely to be 1.15 GB.

In any event, your speed is a lot better than I get with DSL on old copper telephone lines - you should be happy!

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Answer 6

Jun 23, 2008 2:23 PM in response to F Shippey

I don't think I am mixing bytes and bits. Most full length movies are 1.5-1.8 Gbytes. I downled one which was only 1.15 GB ant it took 30 minutes, hence 1.15 *1000 = 1150 Mbytes divided by 30 and then by 60 gives 0.63 Mbytes per second. Is this wrong?

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Answer 7

F Shippey

Level 7

21,500 points

Jun 23, 2008 3:37 PM in response to guido Deboeck

0.63 Mbytes per second

By convention, Mbytes/second is shown as MB/sec, and yes, the answer is 0.63 MB/s (but not 0.63 Mb/s).

Internet speeds are usually given in Mb/s (megabits/s) which makes things appear to be faster than if they were given in MB/s.

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Answer 8

F Shippey

Level 7

21,500 points

Jun 23, 2008 4:35 PM in response to F Shippey

Comcast isn't too open with information about typical download speeds but I did find 6Mbps mentioned as a typical value.

Note that this is 6 megabits/sec OR about 0.75 megabytes/s (MBps). That sounds to be very close to what you are seeing. (Your 0.63 MB/s)

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