Broadband speeds - what does this mean?

[anonymousbird]

I ran a speed check on my broadband and got the following:
Your download Speed: 6.15 Mbps
Your uplink Speed: 0.38 Mbps

What does this mean? Is it usual/right that the uplink is so much smaller than the download?

Thanks

That's about right.

Download speed is the speed at which things are sent to your computer from the internet.

Uplink speed is the speed at which things are sent from your computer to the internet.

The speeds you quote seem about right and it's correct that your uplink is much slower than your downlink.

And if you're interested read on.....

Broadband is sometimes referred to as ASDL, which means Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Asymmetric means it's quicker one way than the other.

Behind the scenes the line can handle a certain amount of traffic in total. You could just split that traffic 50:50 and you would have an uplink as fast as your download.

However most people don't need that speed to upload stuff. What you send to the internet is usually pretty tiny, the address of a file for example, where as what you get back is pretty hefty, the file itself. So what they do is they skew the line in favour of your download speed.

Well, thank you. You learn something every day!

Cheers.