Download Speed??

[fireballs]

I've no idea how you can find out? contact your provider? I just found this in my providers small print...

Will I really get 24 megs?

The actual bandwidth that you will receive is based on the following factors: the length of the wire that connects your premises with the BT exchange, the quality of the copper, and environmental issues which include electrical interference and even sometimes bad weather and the distance you live from the exchange. If your line is two kilometres long then you can expect to receive up to 15 megs (dependent on the above circumstances). Your bandwidth will decrease further as line length increases, and we do not offer our service if you are further than 5.5 kilometres from the exchange. While bandwidths are not guaranteed, we do offer the highest bandwidth available using ADSL2+ to your premises. Be pro members will receive a download speed of up to 22 megs, but an upload speed of up to 2.5 megs. Be value members will receive a maximum speed of 8 megs, and a maximum upload speed of 1.3 meg.

[soybean]

I have a 1 mg/s cable modem hooked up to a 54 mg/s router. If i run an online speed test (i.e. http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ ) It says my best download capability is over 900 kb/s WHICH MAKES SENSE, BUT when I actually download a file, the highest bit rate i've ever gotten is 128 kb/s....why 

Generally, I think downloads are not a very good indicator of your connection speed. I suspect the speed of download from many sites is determined by their server, not your connection speed. 

Just run a speed test periodically.  If the results from one time to another are fairly consistent and are about what you should expect from your service, then you probably have nothing to be concerned about.

Here's another test site, in case you want to compare results: http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest

[EchoLdrWolf316]

907 kb/s download speed on the flash 8 plugin........117 kb/s upload speed ....163ms latency

[Broni]

163ms latency

This is pretty poor. Good latency shouldn't exceed 50ms.

Download, and install TCP Optimizer: http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php
Open it, and put a checkmark in Optimal Settings. Click Apply changes button.
Restart computer, and see if it helped.

[EchoLdrWolf316]

will try that and post results...

[EchoLdrWolf316]

same speeds, but im now getting a 39ms latency to the next town. still over 130 to California. (im in New Jersey)

[Broni]

but im now getting a 39ms latency to the next town. still over 130 to California

It looks fine.
Now, about downloading sample file in question.
As said before, download speed depends mostly on how busy server is.
Your advertised speed is 1Mbps, and you were downloading with 128kbps (13%).
My tweaked speed is about 15Mbps on average, but when I was downloading your file, it was reading 900kbps (6%), so actually your speed was even better. Obviously, we tried that download at different times of the day, which would explain the difference.