Broadband Speed Help

[ihugtrees2]

Im pritty sure that my house is running on a 1MB connection from NTL.
there are5 computers at times in the house and i think that 4 of them are connected to the internet. (not sure about the fifth)
most of these computers are simply browsing the web at most and when i am downloading it says i am averagly getting about 10kbps. This cant be rigtht surly?
but there are lots of times when i am in on my own and was wondering if there is a way so i can harness all of the power of the connection into my one computer so i can download a lot quicker?
any help is apprecated.

[vehelpfulguy]

Run this broadband speed test utility.

http://www.broadbandspeedtest.net/

It will tell you what Broadband speed you are actually getting.

If you are on your own and no other computers are using the internet then you WILL get all the power of the internet connection.

Remember that other factors can affect things, like the overall load on the internet.

Try using the internet early in the morning (6am) and it will probably be a lot faster.

[darth vader]

downloading (and uploading) is a two way thing and the important factor here is not what your connection can do (which could be up to 1mbit) but what the other end (where you are downloading from ) can transmit on. Servers are usually configured to allow a maximum bandwidth per connection, thereby not allowing a single connection to grab all the bandwidth. It stops the server being screwed