Why does uploading take so much longer than downloading?!
Hold up....first things first. What's the difference between them?
For starters, uploading files to the Internet refers to transferring a file from your computer to the Internet. Downloading files, on the other hand, refers to transferring a file from the Internet to your computer.
Usually, the larger your file, the longer it'll take to upload or download. For most people, however, uploading files can be a lot slower than downloading files. Is this normal? Unfortunately, yes.
But why? Well, this has something to do with your ISP (Internet Server Provider). Most high-speed Internet connections, including cable modems and DSL, are asymmetric. This means that they're designed to provide a much faster speed for downloading files from the Internet than uploading files. If you think about it, this makes sense since most of the people using the Internet spend much more time downloading things (such as webpages, images, music, videos, games, etc) than they do uploading. Although this is starting to change, because more and more of us want to share our stuff with the rest of the world, Internet providers still give priority to downloading and put a cap on upload speeds. Their logic is, pretty much everyone downloads, but not everyone uploads.
So if you've ever wondered, why the heck is it taking so long to upload this video, when I can download it to my own computer in just minutes?! Know that in most cases, this is an expected and unfortunate reality.
On a happier note, our friend Eric always has some pretty cool ideas! Check out Ask Eric Episode 10: Top 5 Uploading Tips Revealed to see what you can do on your end to make uploading your videos faster and better.
Happy uploading. =)
May 20th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
this was really helpful....thank youuu!