Does this "download speed" determine the speed at which i can download files from the internet or does it show the speed at which i can load web pages
You can speed up how fast webpages load on a computer by playing with the Browser Cache settings. It would make static pages load faster by dynamic pages like Yahoo etc that are constantly changing there probably wouldnt be much benefit. Its one way to load webpages without having to redownload all content that makes up that web page on each visit.
Here is a way to do it with firefox. Other browsers have similar cache settings that can be adjusted to see if it makes things better.
http://lifehacker.com/speed-up-firefox-by-enabling-its-new-http-cache-1570488335A long time ago back when I had a single dial up connection with 2 computers sharing this running Windows XP around 2002, I used Squid Proxy Cache to make pages load way faster, BUT... back in 2002 the web was far more different than it is today. More static web pages back then and fewer dynamic. These days over 90% are dynamic changing on the fly, whereas a guess of 2002 internet websites maybe 50% were dynamic and the other 50% only changed when the webmaster went in and pushed an update to their website webpages manually etc.
I dropped my bandwidth from 25/5 to 5/1 download/upload mb/s to save $30 a month and the biggest problem I had was with multiple users on that lesser bandwidth and streaming and download sucking up all the bandwidth at times causing problems such as the Vonage phone would cut out or get choppy during a phone call etc. I ended up fixing this issue by flashing my router with DD-WRT and configuring priority of service for critical devices to have an allocated section of bandwidth when in use. I limited all systems in my home to a maximum of 2m / 768k so that one with a download will not choke off others trying to watch netflix etc as well.
If you are sharing this connection with others and want to have some control over how much bandwidth each device/user gets, DD-WRT works great. However 1mb/s bandwidth is really tight. I tested my network by intentionally bottlenecking my bandwidth with DD-WRT settings to see how little bandwidth I could get by with before it really crippled the network use. I thought I got down to 3m/768k and everything was good with that, but because I have Vonage, when the phone was in use it ate up too much bandwidth and so Netflix would cartwheel, so 5mb/s is the minimum download speed that my household can get by on due to our use requirements. I was hoping to drop down my internet service to 3m/768k and pay even $15 less than what I was paying for the 5/1 service as for the pricing we have for bandwidth last I checked was:
25m/5m = $79.99 a month - Broadband Premium Service
5m/1m = $49.99 a month - Broadband Regular Service
3m/768k = $34.99 a month - Broadband Starter Service
It would be nice to make the cost per month cheaper, but we need 5/1 in our home. I miss the days when ISP costs were $25 a month or less .
