In reply to a post by tide:

I download at about 1.1MB per second, that's all I need to know. The file will only download as fast as it will, but at least the file, listed at e.g. 30MB online will then come in about 30sec. I know there are timers, but when shopping for broadband you don't easily see the Mb or MB difference, its a capitalisation that most people *will* miss.

Its just not what people expect.

Frankly that is their problem! It's similar to mpg!

You know what, I have no idea what mpg my car does. Fuel is sold in litres not gallons. Do I have to do all that maths to work out how far I can go on a litre of fuel? OMG it just isn't right!

The fact the measurements being in different units bothers you, or other people is not the problem of the people doing the measuring. If you are that bothered go and educate yourself. In my example I don't care enough, I know I get about 50 litres in a tank and can do around 450 miles on that. so what is my mpg? doesn't bother me, and doesn't effect me greatly.

No, no, no! The confusion is right there with the use of Mb, because nobody ever sees a file in terms of its Mb value ever, they see the MB vale of the file when online or on their computer.

A file online is listed in MB, when on one's computer is listed in MB so the transfer -or rather the advertised speed (which is what this is abut)- should be listed in MB to avoid confusion!

As far as I see just becuase people dont understand what a measurement means doesnt mean it should be changed just becuase - same goes for mph and kph, most people have a good idea how far one is but not the other. Surely the problem here is a failiure of the companies advertising the products to adequetly convey the speeds of which the customer should expect.

There's no confusion. There's no need to download files just stream them.

Its going to be a sticky subject if we start talking about Europe and metric vs imperial. The issue of technology is that it is born to evolve and to evolve fast, the reason we still use Mb is because broadband is still new. But it will soon be the case that MB will be what people are looking for, when right now one's lucky to achieve 1MB per second - which doesn't sound as fantastic as the equivalent in Mb.

Streaming in what? HD, well that'll be a couple of MB a second then won't it!

You might have been top set maths at school, but you were probably bullied too. Because most people didn't think your way of thinking was right. Say what you like but there's more of them than you, so they win.

You have to change, or accommodate it.

In reply to a post by tide:

Streaming in what? HD, well that'll be a couple of MB a second then won't it!

I don't know, and it doesn't matter. If I stream a film, I'll watch it for 90 minutes or whatever the running time is, regardless of file size.

Technology does change fast, but often the underlying principles stay the same and have done for decades - if it works why fix it?

Lets not talk politics, lets keep Europe out of it please.

All I am saying is that technology moves quickly and the old dial-up is over and we all use MB now.. did you see light peak, that's not going to be measured in kbps is it. Sure its a 10Gbps transfer but the lead tekkie at Intel showed the speed gauge in the demo video at 1:16 explains things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kidmWiqKzqY


Even Intel know people measure in MBps not Gb. Its got to change, we are approaching the multiple MB speed now. If you like, we're going metric, from inches to metres (if your in the UK)