"Peter R." wrote

When I was a Time Warner Road Runner cable broadband customer, they
claimed
4mbps, too, but in reality I was seeing a consistent 1.5 mbps (190
Kbytes/sec) down and a dismal 300kbps (38kbytes/sec) up.

Similar figures with charter. What you get when you ping a test site, or
whatever rare fast server is not the real test of what you are able to do,
in reality.

In reality, (so I've been told) the majority of servers limit your rates,
usually in the 350 to 780 range. For the occasional super fast download, I
find it hard to justify the extra cost, but I still pay it...sigh.
--
Jim in NC