Sky broadband? How can I speed it up?

[Nosha123]

Hi all
Just switched from tiscali to sky BB (to save some money!). With Tiscali it said I was on the 'Up to 2mb' package. I am now on Sky BB only set it up yesterday and it states it can take 10 days to get optimum speed going. I went for the 'Up to 8mb' package but web is REALLY slow to load.. much slower then the 2mb Tiscali package.
What can I do to speed it up?
The router statistics state it is running at a Connection Speed of:
Downstream 7611 kbps
Upstream 412 kbps

What is 7611 kbps in megabytes????
ANy help much appreciated

[Nosha123]

As I am fiddling around.... I have noticed.. when I go to a website for the first time (say bbc news) it takes a while to load initially - but once I am in the site - its really quick... it is the same with AB. Initial page took a while longer than normal to load but now I am here its really speedy to go between topics.
Why could this be????

[ChuckFickens]

7611Kbs is roughly 7mbs though that doesn't mean you will get 7mbs, my router connects at 8mbs but I normally get between 5-6mbs

Go to the below link and do a speed test

http://www.speedtest.net

The difference in speed between first visiting a page and then being faster the next time is due to caching. Take for example this site, when you first come to this site the entire page has to be downloaded from the internet but when you then go to another page certain parts of the page are the same (like the AB logo at the top) so rather than downloading the logo again your computer just uses the copy of it that has already been downloaded.