Computing Your Internet Speed?

john_uy asks: "I am from the Philippines working in a university. We currently have a frame relay E1 link to the Internet. The actual rate that we are subscribed for is 1Mbp/s (CIR) with an option to burst to 2Mbp/s (E1). Internet connectivity is very expensive and we pay around $9,000 every month. I want the best for the university and I just want to make sure that they aren't getting cheated." There are some hard and fast statistics in the article, so please read it to get the details. Based on these numbers, is the University getting the proper bandwidth for it's bucks?

"Here is the situation. On normal days, we get an average throughput of around 250kbp/s on some sites and 700kbp/s on others. This is done using bandwidth testers on around 20 different sites around the world. The 700kbp/s is around the best that we can get on a single computer with a single file download (from Microsoft, CNet, Tucows, Netscape, etc.) For multiple file downloads, we can get a max of around 1984kbp/s (that is if we download around 3-4 files or we download from the telecom company's test server.)

Is this an acceptable service? Initially, I thought having a bandwith this size will give us a download capacity of at least 1024kbp/s with an option to go full blast during the night. What are your experiences with links of similar line rates? What makes a single file download that slow. I know for sure that there may be congestion, router failures, routing instability, etc. If problem existed, it should be temporary (since we test on almost a daily basis.) I have heard from other forums that people can really download at E1 rates even in a Cable/DSL connection.

A hearty 'Thank you!' to you all for your help."

So if you see a broadband connection that offers {x} kbps/downstream and {y} kbps upstream, what kind of speeds are you likely to expect if you are getting your money's worth?