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How Is The Bandwidth Calculated?
For the first time in South Africa, we offer our revolutionary packages consisting of 3 different independent networks, or bandwidth "lines"
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(A) International Network
- Data (downloads, streaming, etc) to or from websites & servers in the US, EU, Asia, etc.
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(B) National / Peered Network
- Data (downloads, streaming, etc) to or from websites & servers hosted or cached in South Africa. Eg.: ShowMax, YouTube, FB, Apple, Microsoft, Steam, Origin, anything on networks that we directly peer with (eg. Liquid Telecom, Hurricane Electric networks, etc.), etc.
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(C) Local 123NET Services and Customers
- Data sent directly from one 123NET user’s IP to another 123NET user’s IP
- Data downloaded from or uploaded to a server hosted by 123NET (including Netflix streams and some P2P)
This means that a 123NET customer could potentially download simultaneously from servers/peers located in the different networks "A", "B" and "C" at the same time, resulting in a total bandwidth speed of up to 3 x the "base" speed of the package.
If, for example, the customer is using Plan S, he could simultaneously download up to 15mbit/sec from Network "A" (eg. a graphics card driver from www.nvidia.com), another 15mbit/sec from Network "B" (eg. streaming a 1440p video from YouTube), and 15mbit/sec from Network "C" (running a speedtest from http://123net.speedtest.net or video-conferencing direct with another 123NET customer). The total maximum download speed would be up to 45mbps.
What's the difference between megabits and megabytes? One megabyte is equal to eight megabits, but the terms are used in specific ways: Megabits per second (mbps) are generally used to describe the speed of an Internet connection, whereas megabytes (MB) usually refer to the size of a file or storage space. Please note that speedtests might have option to show the results in either megabits/sec or megabytes/sec. It is important to know that we are advertising our speeds in megabits/sec only!
Speed Testing?
It is not possible to get a single speed test to show the full possible capacity of your link. But if you start 3 tests at the same time, using servers located in networks A, B and C, then one could see a total bandwidth speed of 45mbps (using a network bandwidth measurement tool such as "Networx" or even Windows’ "Task Manager" / "Resource Meter").
There are many services online that pretend to show your online speed. We can only trust the standards. Our advice is to use Ookla's Speedtest.net or Netflix Fast.com