Understanding Download Speeds
Why are download speeds important?
Understanding download speeds is an important part of enabling students in your course to access your content online. It is important to realise that the time it takes to access your files can be impacted dramatically by the download speeds available to your students. Download speeds will vary greatly depending on their geographical location and this can impact a student's online experience.
Downloading
The below table can be used to gain an indication on the approximate download times for a variety of connection speeds and file sizes.
File Size |
Examples |
Download time in some regions (0.5 Mbp/s) |
Download time on common NBN (24 Mbp/s) |
Download time on UQ Wireless (56 Mbp/s) |
| 200 KB | PDF Document or Word Document |
3 Seconds | Less than 1 second | Less than 1 second |
| 5 MB | Large PDF or PowerPoint |
1 minute 21 seconds | 1 second | Less than 1 second |
| 75 MB | 2-hour lecture downloaded from Echo360 in standard definition | 20 minutes 28 seconds | 26 seconds | 11 seconds |
| 210 MB | 2-hour lecture downloaded from Echo360 in high definition | 57 minutes 20 seconds | 1 minute 13 seconds | 31 seconds |
Warning: The times presented in the above table are estimated speeds and should be used as a guide only. Many factors can impact the speed in which a file is downloaded, these include computer hardware, network congestion/interference, distance and protocols.
Example of downloading files at 0.5 Mbp/s