What does Mbps mean - Your broadband ISP is fooling you? Find out why your WiFi is not working!

How to calculate the true internet speed?

The Internet is the reason why you’re reading this article on our website. In a normal sense, it connects the entire world through a channel. You can read, watch, work, or get into anything from anywhere in the world because of the internet. But sometimes, we encounter issues like getting stuck on something, unable to load the website or page anymore, or experiencing slow internet. But why is the internet not working? Or why is my download speed so slow on my PC? What could be the possible reason? There could be many reasons such as:

Broken lines
Bad routers or switching devices
Bad connection

In today’s article, we are going to talk about the reasons behind your slow internet connection.

Why there is no internet

So, the bad connection can occur for many reasons such as:

Slow internet speed
Weak signal strength (in case you’re using a WiFi router)
An old switching device that can’t supply the maximum data as per need
A bad receiver on the receiving end (cellular device, desktop computer, or laptops)

But sometimes, people also complain about internet speed. In SpecDecoder, we often hear lines such as “It’s a 50Mbps line, but why is it still not working properly?”. Even though we disclose it with the broadband service provider, the issues remain unsolved. Why? Because it’s not how it seems. The speed that we are seeing or the marketing that our broadband service provider or ISP (Internet Service Provider) is using is not what we understand.

Indeed, they are misusing the theory instead of making their consumers understand what it is actually and how it works. So, we are going to see an example today, and after that, everyone will understand the math here and how to figure out the actual internet speed at home!

Mathematical Explanation:

Let’s say, in an average house, we use a 20Mbps internet line, which seems really good in a normal sense. But what does this Mbps mean specifically? And why is it important to use proper case letters? Here, in Mbps, only “M” is the capital letter, and the rest are small letters.

In data transmission to express speed, we often use the unit Mbps - megabits per second. Notice, it’s not BYTE, it’s a BIT. There is a difference between BYTE and BIT. MBps stands for megabytes per second. To define the capacity of our storage devices, we often use the latter unit. For example, “I have 512MB microSD cards” or “I’m going to buy 16MB of RAM.”

According to the binary formula, 8 bits = 1 byte. So, that means the relationship between bit and byte is the multiplication factor, which is eight (8).

So, 5000 bits = 5000 / 8 = 625 bytes. [8 bits = 1 byte]

Now, let’s get back to the previous calculation and break down the 20Mbps (megabits per second) to equivalent MBps (megabytes per second) and see what it becomes at the end:

The below calculation has been done according to the binary system, instead of decimal:

Mbps >> bps [1 mega = 1,000,000 units]

20Mbps = 20 x 1,000,000 = 20,000,000 bps

bps >> Bps (B/s) [8 bits = 1 byte]

20,000,000 bps = 20,000,000 / 8 = 2,500,000 Bps

Bps >> kBps (KB/s) [1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes]

2,500,000 Bps = 2,500,000 / 1024 = 2441.41 kBps

kBps >> MBps (MB/s) [1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes]

2441.41 kBps = 2441.41 / 1024 = 2.38 MBps

So, finally, we got 2.38 MBps (megabytes per second).

Why is the internet still slow?

Now, after all these math and calculations, we already found out how much data it becomes when converted to a megabyte from a megabit. But in both theory and reality, 2.38MBps is more than what we can even imagine. So, why is your internet still not working?

Well, simple – it’s a theoretical calculation. Your internet service provider might be fooling you, but not entirely. Behind low speed, some other practical facts are responsible as well, such as:

Your wireless router's technology could be outdated or affected adversely
Your old or cheap switching device
Your receiving device's capability
Losses in the transmission cables, as the latency of the internet connection increases due to travel distance
The type or quality of the fiber optic cable that carries the optical signal from the distribution office to your address

As a result, instead of that 2.38MBps, you could be getting somewhere between 1.5-1.8MBps. Even this speed is enough for a single device or a few. But as local or obscure internet service providers don’t care about their consumers much, that’s how we end up getting only a few hundred kilobytes.

Best Internet Service Providers in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, some of the best high-speed internet providers include:

Link3 Technologies Ltd.
aamra networks limited
BRACNet Ltd.
Access Telecom BD Ltd.
And a few others

Though we are not associated with any of the mentioned companies, based on our practical experiments, these companies have shown us satisfactory results.

Internet Speed Test

You can also use https://www.fast.com (by NETFLIX) to test your current internet speed. Just go to Fast.com, and it will automatically show your current internet status. You can also visit https://www.speedtest.net (by Ookla).

We hope this content helped you figure out the actual problems. If not, please let us know your specific issues, and SpecDecoder will try to provide a proper fix if possible. In a future article, I’ll try to explain and show you how you can test your WiFi router’s signal strength using the Command Prompt in Windows 10.