whats a normal download rate these days?

[chefcliff]

i live in south africa where our internet was monopolised by the only landline provider in our country...recently radio internet competitors have arrived and my mate got an account with iburst.they promised him a one gig download rate but at the moment the most he hits is 115kb with 12kb being his steady rate.is this normal?

[mbossman2]

if this is the package he bought, the speed is up to 1mbps (please note the term "burst" rate - this is max speed that can happen, but usually only for short periods of time and is highly dependent upon the available bandwidth and amount of traffic).

the company apparently guarantees up to and you actual performance is dictated by location and their coverage map. based upon that, if he is in what they call the "extreme outdoors" or "outdoor indoor" areas, then this speed can be expected.

[Al Pollock]

Just my two cents. I have road runner and its been a constant source of agravation with them as to what I am paying for and what I norally see especially when I have a vonage phone.............
I am suppose to be getting download 3meg and upload 392 kbps...........I have seen it as bad as 200Kbps /82 kbps useing speedtest.net . It always seems to happen when the weather is bad or its very hot outside. (problem as all over the country) building many new homes and everyone coming on line and NO increase in the updates on equipment or services .........Result poor performance due to congestion and bandwith ..................wonderful ISP's and don't even get me started on service with time warner..................

One unhappy time warner customer in New york../.