90Kbps, is it both up and down?

Posts: 86 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Mar 29, 2008 Posts: 86

when Vonage says it uses 90Kbps of bandwidth max, does it
apply to both up and down?

My cable modem service is 5Mbps, which I assume is 5000Kbps.
Is this correct? If so, 90Kbps is relatively small portion out of
5000Kbps, correct?

Thanks! Smile

Posts: 881 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Nov 05, 2005 Posts: 881

Vonage recommends an upload speed of 90kbps or greater per phone line. The 90kbps only refers to upload speed.

5Mbps = 5000kbps which is what your isp is advertising to you as your download speed. You can go to this web site, http://speakeasy.net/ and run the speed test choosing a server closest to you and it will tell you exactly what your download and upload speeds are.

Posts: 323 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jan 29, 2006 Posts: 323

90kbps in both directions and yes 90kbps is a small part of your 6Mbps.

The thing to keep in mind is that most cable internet services have fairly high downstream (5Mbps) but fairly small upstream (usually 384kbps or 512kbps). There are exceptions to this, but generally this is true. The main exception I can think of is Verizon FIOS service, of course this isn't cable.

Most people only use downstream, or more specifically use much more downstream than they do upstream.

Things that use upstream are things like this:
file uploads (from your PC to a server)
bit torrent
online games

If you aren't a heavy bit torrent person of a heavy duty internet user, even using 90k of the 384k that you probably have is fine.

Hope this helps.