Embarrassing DUH moment regarding ISP speed.

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Frek77

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 16, 2006
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I've been tinkering with computers since I owned a Radio Shack 64k CoCo. I'm about as geeky as you can get when it comes to anything computer related. I have a Degree in Information Technology, I've dipped my hand in just about every aspect of modern computing that you can think of.

Today for the first time I realized that I've been making one of the biggest noob mistakes ever.

This is actually quite embarrassing to share this. I just realized this morning for the first time that when ISP's rate speeds that it is in Mbps NOT MBps.

I just ran a speedtest on my line this morning because I'm considering switching ISP's. I need a better upload speed. For the first time I thought about what is "Mbps". With my background I can't believe I've never noticed this for this long. Boy do I feel dumb right now.
 
We all have DUH! moments. As long as your learn from those moments, and remember that others make mistakes too, all is good. Thanks for sharing!
 
Your, not the only one that had this DUH moment.

I had it a few years ago.

Luckily you didn't call and yell at the ISP about it like a friend of mine.
 
Take it from me, even many ISP employees grapple with the Mbps MBps concept ;)
 
Yeah man its 30 meg service, sure~! Bits? What are those? No, I don't need any drill bits we are talking about technology here!
 
Frek77 said:
I've been tinkering with computers since I owned a Radio Shack 64k CoCo. I'm about as geeky as you can get when it comes to anything computer related. I have a Degree in Information Technology, I've dipped my hand in just about every aspect of modern computing that you can think of.

Today for the first time I realized that I've been making one of the biggest noob mistakes ever.

This is actually quite embarrassing to share this. I just realized this morning for the first time that when ISP's rate speeds that it is in Mbps NOT MBps.

I just ran a speedtest on my line this morning because I'm considering switching ISP's. I need a better upload speed. For the first time I thought about what is "Mbps". With my background I can't believe I've never noticed this for this long. Boy do I feel dumb right now.
Click to expand...

awww we all do dumb stuff... sometimes after working all day i do the dumbest stuff on my home network...

i upgraded my home internet from 10/1 cable to 25/5 and i was still getting 10/1 speeds... this irritated me immensely, i just knew it was the cable company not flipping the right switch (i went to the place and picked up the new modem as it was < a mile from the house and i didn't feel like waiting for an installer)
so.... i called up the cable company hoping they wouldn't tell me to unplug my router and plug my PC in directly (which i always do at work before i call because they always expect your router is the culprit) because i was just tired and didn't feel like it...

get on the phone "can you please just check to make sure i got the speeds i'm supposed to have"

guys like "yea, everything checks out in your cable modem"

i'm like "what?"

so finally i begrudgingly unplug my router and plug my pc in.... what do you know! full speed! i was kind of irritated with myself, apologized to the guy for wasting his time, and plugged my router back in... expecting something to have reset itself when i plugged it directly into PC... my speeds went back down to 10/1 :( :( :( :confused: :confused::confused:

i had to rack my brain until i realized i had the QoS set on the router and of course manually entered my speeds

d'oh
 
I did the same sort of thing when I moved into my house two years ago. Connected straight into the modem with a laptop, getting 1/8 the speed that is advertised I'm paying for. Ended up spending an hour on the phone with the representative trying to get them to tell me whether it was bytes or bits. >.>

They swore up and down that the advertised speed was in bytes and had no idea why my service was so slow. I wonder what would happen if someone recorded these calls and took them to the Better Business Bureau for not providing the service they advertise.
 
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