Pass! But data should be 1000 and modem sync speed 1024.

If it were 1024 your suggestion that you get more bytes per Gigabyte on A&A would be true!

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

No idea what you mean, that happens often I know lol

The was the clue. You are clocking up fewer GB than you expected - maybe the AA Gigabytes are bigger than other ISPs' Gigabytes. So a 10GB file at the source might be only 8GB when AA process it.

It's to do with Einstein and relativity - the faster the data moves the more massive it gets. Or not!

I go on the 1000GB from http://aa.net.uk/broadband-home1.html

I seem to remember that tbbMeter uses the same figure for both data and speed. I don't remember which though.

Jelv's question was about the fact that for data stored on disc a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, a megabyte is 1024 kilobytes and a gigabyte is 1024 megabytes.

Connection and transmission speeds work with a kilobit being 1000 bits, a megabit being 1000 kilobits, and a gigabit being 1000 megabits.

Specially designed to confuse people .

It becomes good fun when you see a download of a file being shown while running at n kilobytes per second. Are they talking the number of storage kilobytes or the number of transmission kilobytes? I doubt if all meters use the same value, but in my opinion to be meaningful it has to be storage.

Then we have speed tests. They should use 1000. But when you run a test such as the thinkbroadband file downloads, what unit should they report in? It depends what the question is!

Using strict definitions, the time to download a 1GB file at 1Gbps is not 8 seconds. I'm assuming 8-bit bytes of course, otherwise it gets even more complex, and ignoring the protocol overheads. It is 8 x 1.024³. (I think I have the exponent right!)

okay, I know I am thick when it comes to this sort of thing, you lost me at "Jelv's question: but I do thank you for the explanation i will read it lots and try to understand as you put in time and effort to create it. I'm not being sarky either. I genuinely do appreciate it

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Jelv's question was about the fact that for data stored on disc a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, a megabyte is 1024 kilobytes and a gigabyte is 1024 megabytes.

Whilst it's true that many operating systems report 1024 bytes in a kilobyte, it is in fact incorrect of them to do so. A kilobyte is 1000 bytes regardless of medium.

It always leads to rants in product reviews of disk drives, since the drive manufacturers correctly use 1000 bytes in a kilobyte leading people to think they have been short changed when they see the drive size figure within their operating system as being lower than the manufacturer quoted size.

Indeed. Using IEC binary prefixes (KiB = 1024 bytes) or SI (kB = 1000 bytes) where appropriate would help to avoid confusion.
So many standards, so much history, so much "I mean what I mean".

I shouldn't bother if I were you. The basic part is that file sizes are measured in kilobytes where a kilobyte is 1024 bytes. But data transmission speeds (sync speed or connection speed) on a line are (should be) measured in kilobits where a kilobit is 1000 bits.

These days we normally regard a byte as 8 bits, but this hasn't always been the case and probably still isn't for some applications.

The 1000 for transmission perhaps comes because data transmission came before disk storage existed. For disk storage it is convenient to work in powers of 2 so you get chunks (called blocks, sectors and so on) of 256, 512,1024, 2048, etc... bits. Which are 32, 64, 128 and 256 bytes respectively.

When you are working in binary in the early computer programs doing the storage it's easier than in 10s. In the same was as for most purposes working in money in 10s (decimal currency) is easier than in sterling (£sd with units 20, 12, 1).

Edit. I see there are intervening posts. You see what I mean? Don't worry about it, just be aware there is the problem. Remember this all started as a joke about you using fewer GB than you expected on AA, and wasn't even anything to do with this techie stuff. More like a Walls ice cream cornet may be bigger than a Lyons one. (Do Lyons still make ice cream?) So maybe AA GBs are bigger than Plusnet GBs. Or whoever you were with before.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 29-Jan-17 13:56:09)