In order to understand download times, you need to understand the difference between bits and bytes, and how they impact your download speeds. They both represent an amount of data, just different amounts of data. A bit is a binary digit of 1 or 0 and a byte is equal to eight bits. A bit is represented by a lowercase b and a byte with an uppercase B.
This means that a kilobyte KB is eight times larger than a kilobit Kb , and a megabyte MB is eight times larger than a megabit Mb. Part of the reason for the confusion is that files sizes are usually displayed in bytes, but internet speeds are always shown in bits. All internet speeds are measured in bits per second, and so a broadband package with an average speed of 8Mbps means the maximum you will get is eight megabits per second, or the equivalent of one megabyte per second.
Technically, all internet speeds should be written as 'Mbps' and not 'Mb' because without specifying the time taken, it's a size, not a speed. A download time is affected by many things:. The main exception to this rule is if you're using a full fibre connection, also known as fibre to the premises FTTP , which is unaffected by the distance you live from the exchange.
Even with this more reliable kind of connection, however, your speed will still be impacted by the number of customers using the service at any one time. Looking for a bit more detail on the difference between bits and bytes? Take a look at our guide. We use cookies and similar technologies. You can use the settings below to accept all cookies which we recommend to give you the best experience or to enable specific categories of cookies as explained below.
Find out more by reading our Cookie Policy. Do not mistake this with streaming, where the data is used immediately, while the transmission is in progress. Such data usually is not stored long-term. Streaming usually is used to display video or audio in a web browser or application. For example YouTube is a video streaming service.
Such streaming services even prevent the storage and use of the downloaded data. Please note that downloading is not the same as data transfer. The term "data transfer" is used to denote moving or copying data between storage devices. Receiving data from the Internet is downloading. The duration of the download is known as download time. Download time is the time needed to transfer a file from the Internet to a local computer, phone, tablet or other Internet-connected device.
The download time is determined by the connection speed between the two devices and the size of the transferred file. The connection speed is determined by the hardware capabilities of the two devices and also the ISP Internet Service Provider that they use. Before you dive into other methods, try a good old restart.
How long it takes depends on your Internet connection. With DSL broadband which is what most people have it could take anywhere from minutes. With some especially high speed connections, it may only take 5 minutes. I have a 30Mbps download connection, so it would take me about an hour. An average connection is about 10mbps down, so expect it to take at least a few hours.
Uploading is the process of putting web pages, images and files onto a web server. Downloading is the process of getting web pages, images and files from a web server. When users are copying this file to their computer, they are downloading it. However, when moving a file from one computer to another, the maximum transfer speed will depend on the slowest bandwidth that the data has to go through - which can be anywhere in the route. To better understand this, let us consider an example.
Let's say that your friend wants to send you his new MB megabytes video creation over his 10 Mbps megabits per second internet connection. On the other hand, you will be receiving the video file over your 5 Mbps home internet connection.
For this example, let us assume that the upload and download speeds for both connections can use their entire bandwidths. Since the file will also be coming through the much lower 5 Mbps connection, this will be the maximum transfer speed that we can get for this data transfer. But, to determine the upload and download speeds of your connection, you can use any third-party speed test applications that can be accessed online through your browser.
Now that we know how to determine the transfer speed for our uploads and downloads, we can now calculate a file's download time or duration. Calculating download time is as simple as dividing the size of the file you wish to transfer by the transfer speed of the network that the transfer will go through. However, we have to be careful with the units we use, since this could be quite confusing.
Let us consider the example above for our sample computation. To calculate how long to download the MB video over a 5 Mbps internet download speed, we can use the equation below:. But first, let us convert the units of the file size in terms of megabits, which is equivalent to 1 million bits. To do so, we'll be using the conversion table above under the SI system. With that said, we now have this computation:. As shown above, the MB video file will finish downloading in less than 11 minutes over a stable 5 Mbps connection.
However, if somebody else in the house uses the internet while you're downloading this video file, it could take much longer to complete the download because of congestion in the data transfer. Aside from calculating the download time of a file from the internet, you can also use this calculator to determine the transfer duration from, let's say, a computer to an external storage device like a USB flash drive.
However, you must first know the transfer rate of your connection to calculate the transfer duration. You can also use this download time calculator to determine your download speed.
However, for this, you have to time how long to download a particular file. Then, by entering the file size and the download time in our calculator, you'll be able to calculate your internet's download speed.
If you want to determine the actual time your download will take to complete, you can input the estimated download time into our time duration calculator.
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