Hi, I know this question is a bit vague. What is the highest download rate possible with Nigerian internet connection? I mean the fastest. Could someone possibly get a speed of say >100kb/s? With what company?

Your topic is not vague.. i am not IT savvy, but have a VSAT solution by our (usually) leading ISP.

BOTTOM LINE (the rest is story)

I have tried 7 "leading" ISPs in Nigeria, and payed over N180,000 monthly, you will never get beyond 20kbps regardless of the method, Radio, VSAT, Dialup. they claim to give you broadband but you end up with snailway traffic. they collect your monies and charge you per byte of download besides charging you monthly access.

Like all Niajans all I can do is complain and hope Virgin does VSAT or starts providing internet services.

The following suck (in case you are thinking of them)
1: DirectonPC
2: Accelon
3: Siotel
4: Linkserve
5: Hyperia
6: Emperiom Networks
7: HEIRS Technologies

I have used the above for critical work, and though they promise heaven, all i am getting is hell+ more.


I am supposed to be doing 256up/256down on my Dell Desktop. I believe this is meant to be the "quickest" Naija standards. I am paying a huge sum monthly because I use GIS to do my work, unfortunately i never get to do 256kbps. instead I get 10 or 12 at most.

Brother, they may advertise "broadband is real" and tell you stories, you will never get the kind of speeds I arrogantly snubbed while in Nevada for $40 per month. (my dial up is a lot cheaper and faster than my VSAT package in Nigeria.

Note: 256kbps means (256 ÷ 8) kilobytes per second, i.e. 32 kilobytes per second.

On my Multilinks Internet connection, my download manager reports speeds of up to 8.5 to 9.0 kilobytes/second during off-peak periods. I usually tell people I have an 8 kilobyte per second (64kbps or 8kB/s) download rate because that's what I get at best.

Most of us in Nigeria are on shared bandwidth, because the truth is that no one of us is going to be able to pay for a 32kbps dedicated satellite link. it would be just too expensive. That's why the NITEL IP Wholesale service is very important.

Hey lagerwhenindoubt,
I am not sure the Emperiom networks you referred to is the same as the Emperion networks vsat solution i used when i was at Abeokuta. at a point , I subscribed for dedicated 512 by 128 kbps, got a deal for 1mbps and my Mrtg bandwidth showed i got it. I can remember doing a download at 80kbps(the same kilobyte per second dear seun refered to). Furthermore, countless number of times i did 2 or 3 downloads at 20kilobyte per second concurrently . maybe you were on their shared bandwidth solution.

vsat solutions in Nigeria are not reliable and its difficult to get god speed but its possible to get good speed.

A friend of mine was online with me on yahoo messenger one lovely sunday morning. he was almost "shouting" that he just clocked a finishing speed of more than 300 kbps for a download on his gs telecoms office network. maybe he had the whole network to himself!!

bottom line.....you can get it or rather.. good money can get it

Thanks to everyone for the reply.
@Seun, I don't seem to get you. Did u say you are getting 8kbps or 8 kilobytes per second? I mean what's the difference between kbps and kilobytes per second? Are they not the same? I thought "kbps" is just an abbreviation of "kilobytes per second". Anyway, if what you are actually getting is 64kbps, it's kind of manageable at least. Although it is still very slow.

Alright! I see. I just went to check it in google. kbps is kilobits per second and not kilobytes per second which is kB/s. Thamks!

Just to clarify things abit files are usually measured in kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes etc where as transfer speed is measured in kilobits, megabits, gigabits, terabits. To find out the true speed you are copying at just devide the kilobit, megabit, gigagbit, terabit by 8 and you'll get the true speed.

To go from megabytes to kilobytes times it by 1024 (1024 is the exact measurement, 1024 bytes = a kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes = a megabyte)


So I have a 10 megabit connection with 128 kilobit uplink, a real pain because of mixed numbers!
so we times the 10 by 1024 and we get 10240 kilobits per second and 128 kilobit uplink.
Now this is no-good for us either because what website measures in bit's per second (BPS) so we devide it by 8 to find out the MAX speed you can transfer at and the answer comes out to 1280 kilobytes per second, and if you want to make it even easier to read devide it by 1024 to find the megabytes per second.

You should end up with an answer of 1.25.

Obviously due to other factors you will never the speed advertised, due to things like packet overhead, congestion etc.

Anyways if anything needs clarifying don't hesitate to ask.

Quick answer to this question: I was downloading at 60 KB/s in Apapa!
Yes, I plugged my laptop in my friend's house, and I was downloading at a speed of 50 to 60 KB/s (Kilo Byte)
He is using a very expensive Vsat connection.

Aside: I get an average of 8-9 KB/s on my multilinks, which is good.

Multilinks has 'bout 8kbps download speed for sure,
anybody here using starcoms, intercellular, mts or reltel internet should give us details on download speed....

I just recently heard of diskcom or something like that, someone using it said it's DSL and very fast....

With Starcomms, you get between 6 to 9 kiloBytes per second on average. Same with Intercellular. Plus Nigeria is way behind when it comes to Internet connections. I don't even want to get started on this.

well i'd like to say at my office we mk use of DSL modem not a VSAT n i could download at an average of 60kbps n 100kps peak rate. just finished downloading 4cds of fedora core4 635Mb each=2.5Gb.(took a whole working day hour)( mandriva, berrylinux, slax,knoppix, have been my previous downloads thru same link)
lucky,huh?
What most people don't know is dat most cybercafes dat utilize VSAts have bandwidth manager. eg linux has a programe called squid dt manages bandwidth, hence u end up gettin a limited download speed.(not their fault i think, just want to prevent people like me dat loves downloadin huge files like 2Gb from slowin down their link).pretty wise.
To configure squid for bandwidth managing, contact me.FREE!

good news guys!
i did an update for my download accelerator plus 7.4 and now i can download at a rate of 150Mbps!!!!!

niggy how did u costomize your download manager and i got emperion network (tranter) it downloads at a speed of abt 60kb/s when its quick
but about 4kb/s in the day time i have seen a speed of about 123kb/s thats the highest i have seen

I download files of 85MB in less than 10minutes with my connection.

Am using a wireless grid antenna to subscribe to a vsat connection and sometimes especially at night, am the only subscriber on the network. I get average speeds of up to 70-80 KB/s when downloading files.

thats tight!!!!

sometimes, your download speed is a function of your download manager speed.
who knows which manager is the fastest pls?

Try Downloading the Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) It really helps and speed up any programs or files you're downloading, you won't regret you do.

Try Downloading the Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) It really helps and speed up any programs or files you're downloading, you won't regret you do.

lusheun:

sometimes, your download speed is a function of your download manager speed.
who knows which manager is the fastest please?

Internet download manager a.k.a IDM

@Topic
here's my test as at tonight


better than last test.

I agree with dualcore, IDM is the best download manager.

Orbit is the best

try swift internet broadband with a DAP. check www.swiftng.com/

be good,

Ex Inferis:

Orbit is the best

i just went to check out the orbit thingy now, no where near idm. not very conclusive now though, let me toggle around settings on the orbit. wld do a video at night comparing both download managers.

I downloaded openoffice.org 2.4.1 suite which is about 128MB on my WURU-WURU mtn internet connection in 25 minutes.Is dis fast or what?Dis was afta I had tried 2 download it many times at diffrnt cybercafe's and d fastest I could finish downloading it was in about 3hr41min.
@dualcore,please how do u configure idm to ur browser?

that is FAST!

Who doubts d power of IDM?

:the best internet Zapper: !

i clockd 200kb+ (download speed) using IDM.

Wht u see below is a screenshot of both Orbit (top) and IDM (bottom). i started download with IDM and paused after about 7 seconds. Started up orbit and left it to run for more than 30 seconds, at tht point i took the screenshot.

So below,
IDM is paused showing the last speed it was at before i paused (it even got to a steady 180 kb/s until download completed)

Orbit is running (been running for over 30 secs).



Orbit doesn't stand a quarter of a chance with IDM and it would hardly stand half a chance with DAP

In other words,

In four times the time of IDM, orbit can only do twice the download size of IDM.

Kind of poor alittle bit.

Inze

@DC
hmmmmm u neva stil tel us d secret behind dis ur starcom fast download ohhh!!!
Anyway, hw u dey?

Done a 180Kbps B4 on d galaxy broadband.Please does anyone have a Rapidshare account and is willing to share? DualCore? Anybody?