I'd always had the standard 2MB speed; never downloaded that much, so it suited me fine. Just assumed my ridiculously low speeds were characteristic of Limewire and other people's speeds, or that I maybe hadn't configured everything correctly.
It was taking stupid amounts of time to download anything and for people to download from me.... and that's assuming in the first place that the hosts were prepared to stay on line for the time it would take. Which most of the time - they weren't.
Can't blame them though, to be fair. 15 minutes or so to download your basic 3-4 min song! A bit of a pain for someone with a good speed if they'd just come on to download a couple of songs themselves....
I never got beyond 4KB/s upload speed and pretty much the same when downloading.

Well I've just upgraded to 20MB. WOW - the difference! I know I seem to be stating the obvious here, but it wasn't obvious to me at the time that the problem was actually MY end. My speeds are now around 90KBs upload and 200-300KBs download!

I just don't know how anyone can use Limewire *happily* on a speed any lower than 20MB.... used to drive me mad how long everything took!

If you use Limewire a lot and you can afford to, then I would absolutely recommend upgrading. So worth it.

Very definitely!

I started using LW on dial up 6-7 years ago. lol It was a major struggle. Learnt tricks along the way. But then I upgraded to 256/64 kbps. Then up higher ... about 2 MB. Since improvements in the lines it's even higher now, sometimes getting download speeds beyond 1 MB/s. However my uploads are limited to around 100 KB/s which is disappointing. My country has one of the biggest differences between uploading & downloading speeds in the world. I read where uploading is more technically difficult. But still not sure how some countries do better than others. I'm sure ISP's play some guilty part there somewhere.

BTW my ISP does not advertise it's bandwidth speed. Only their bandwidth total limits per month. However I was told by their techs that the actual speed is around 24 MBps. But that very few people would get even close to those speeds due to many reasons such as using old lines along the way, & distance between user & ISP (which is in another state to me.)

I'm really happy with my download speeds; I seem to have a permanent 20MB and it very rarely goes below that.
Considering it's Virgin Media we're talking about here, I'm shocked and stunned! Though *apparently*, they "don't support uploads".... so I'm stuck at 90KB/s - which annoys me somewhat - considering all other suppliers *claim* to have minimum upload speeds of 1GB.

I really can't complain though.... the difference to my Limewire 'experience' is major, it has to be said. It's a pleasure to use these days.

Do you find your downloads improve with more uploads? I certainly did. Also I browse my uploaders very frequently & find they're sharing material I'm after. For that reason I share a wide variety of material. Some shared material simply to attract those with the hard to find files, so it's nice to have them knocking on my upload window. lol People I'd spent years chasing after to find.

Not that I've noticed, no. Though given Limewire's unpredictability - give it time

What I do notice though, is when I've got three or four uploads going on quite happily at a decent speed - all it takes is for someone with a really slow speed - and those previously quick hosts' speeds just plummet! Guess that applies to everyone though....
I'll tend to go with it if they're sharing; just one of those things.... but if they're leeching, it's nothing the Kill Download button won't sort.

I too share a lot.... but I'd say 90% of my uploads are leeches.
I have a way of dealing with them though lol.... if they've got a fast speed and they're not affecting any other downloads or uploads, then I'll go with it.... but if their speeds are constantly dropping or sitting at 0% for ages - I just block 'em. Simple as.
Why don't these 'leeches' realise that all they have to do is share one solitary, single file??
If people are downloading from me and I realise they're not sharing (and if I should also happen to be in a particularly bad mood that day lol), I'm more likely to block them - or at least certainly kill their download.
Do they not understand that if they want the 'security' of ultimately getting the whole song, it's a whole lot more likely if they give a little bit back themselves....
And I absolutely agree - it's rather nice when you get a queue of people at your upload window.

.... Following on ( and apologies for the double post ) .... so irritated am I (and I'm sure I'm not alone!) at the continual and ridiculous upload speeds on a 20MB broadband connection - I contacted Trading Standards.

Virgin Media *claim* to have an upload speed of 768Kbs - which in itself is slow; most other major broadband suppliers *claim* to have 1GB.
Fair enough, I always seem to be getting my full 20MB connection - but that's not the issue. Whatever time of day I test my speed, I'm getting no higher than 512Kbs - 550Kbs upload speed.... pretty much what I was getting on my previous 10MB connection.
I've contacted Virgin so many times and I'm not getting anywhere!
If it was at least near to what they *claim*, then that would be one thing, but it isn't. It's not even close!
What makes it worse is that all over the net, they *claim* to have speeds that they clearly DON'T!!

Anyways..... seems they're in breach of not just one, but two separate Trade Description 'Acts'.
I won't go into details; don't really want to get 'caught up' in any legal stuff .... but it would seem that *technically*, they're breaking the law.

Anyone else wound up by their broadband supplier's *claimed* speeds?

One thing you need to keep in mind is that nobody gets exact advertised speeds, unless perhaps they are living next door to the supplier company. lol Speed losses are caused by a few factors naturally. One is line losses due to distance away from supplier. Another is equipment at home including modem/router (especially if it's not designed for such speeds.) Generally on average there is a 15-25% drop in speeds from advertised speeds.

Also, USB does not handle high speeds well, should use ethernet cable instead. And wireless devices such as routers tend to have unreliable speeds.

Scroll down about half-way down this page & read under the heading The real world - Speed Enemies: rogers yahoo hi speed internet. This article has been rewritten once or twice since I originally found it some years ago.

Although I didn't note it down, I do remember that discussion following on & suggesting 15-30% overall loss in many cases. Oh .. at bottom of article.

(BTW your post was held up in moderation queue ... that's why it didn't show immediately. It needed a moderator to approve it.)

I realise that; was just getting really niggled at how much the difference actually was....

Thanks for this though.... rogers yahoo hi speed internet.
Read it all with great interest; didn't actually appreciate there were so many contributory factors....

If broadband suppliers would just put the words "Up To...." before the speeds they *claim* to provide, it would clear up so much confusion and give customers a much more *honest* idea of what it is they're actually getting for their money....

Glad to know the fault was your end btw - how many times did I press Submit Reply!!

Not that too many people read it, but I did note it here http://www.gnutellaforums.com/site-f...tml#post325519 with a link to it from the forum rules when people first join the forum. Certain words trigger a spam moderation filter that may hold certain posts until a mod sees it. That way very rarely does any spam actually get 'seen' on the forums. There are people who spam all the forums they can find, they get paid for it via marketing.

Back to topic, to find closer to your exact speed .. at least this test should be done at various times of day since it may vary: Choose nearest location for a speed test & only have your browser open: Speed Test Internet Speed Test DSL Speed Test Broadband Speed Test Bandwidth Speed Test

Different test locations will give a variation of speed. If they quote in kbps then divide by 8 to get KB/s (kilobits versus KiloBytes.) LW quotes speeds in KB. Some other gnutella programs you have the choice of which to use. For me KB is easier to understand.
About leeches, yes sometimes I browse a host who is uploading from me & find most of the files they have are mine. lol Fair enough if they are just starting out, but ...

I didn't get any kinda message popping up telling me I was in a 'moderation' queue, so I didn't have a clue what was going on.... pressed Submit originally; nothing happened.... so I pressed it again - still nothing. Got quite puzzled and frustrated at this point to say the least lol - so gave up and went to bed
Next morning.... there's my post.