Download speed

Yes, that's roughly right: 8 bits = 1 byte.

Which is why ones ISP's promised download speeds, or even connection speeds, are rarely what they seem!

Might get a bit closer to theoretical maximum by adding a couple of bits for overhead... divide by 10. 🙂

But you can tell somewhat better with...
http://www.dslreports.com/stest

FYI... little b for bits, big B for Bytes, kb=kilobits, KB=kilobytes. 🙂

Throughput is an interesting thing with packet-switched networks. Since you have packet headers which take a fixed amount of space the frame-data ratio depends upon the size of the packet. The smaller the packet, the greater the percentage of it dedicated to the frame. So the interesting paradox is, the heavier the traffic, the smaller the packets, therefore the greater the frame-data ratio, therefore the lesser the throughput.

Then there's packets that have to be resent. As far as your ISP is concerned, that's all data that went downstream. So for that packet you got half (less actually) the throughput than they say you got.

Might get a bit closer to theoretical maximum by
adding a couple of bits for overhead... divide by 10.

Now that's an echo from the past. I can vaguely remember... Something to do with modems and parity bits... Dim memories... fading fast...

If you're reporting exactly what they said, and not confusing bits and bytes, I'd be outraged. If your contract is for 2048 Kb/s - thats' 2,048,000 bits per second - then that's exactly what you should. If you're talking in bytes, that's roughly 205 KB/s - 205,000 bytes per second. Generally speaking, we measure sized in bytes and speed in bits. Bytes can be a strange measurement, for reasons I outlined earlier. If they said you could expect around 180-200 KB/s - 200,000 bytes per second, that would be okay. If they said 180-200 Kb/s - around 20,000 bytes per second - that would be way off.

OTOH, I remember the days when the high-speed link between WSU/StL and UIUC was 56Kb/s and we marveled at it.

Yeah... Modems! Remember how fast 300 Baud Acousticals seemd to 55/110 Baud Teletypes! :-D

Still, I think most people should be aware that to Get/Send like 1MB, we still need to transfer a rough, (hat number), 20% more Info about the Info we really are transfering! No? 🙂