Why is downloading speed faster than uploading speed?
In: Technology
It varies according to different technologies.
Under DSL (which isn’t used much anymore), all of the upload requests were routed to the same location. The concentration of the upload traffic could easily overload the connection point to the internet with too much crosstalk between physical wire channels, so upload speeds were limited.
With cable technologies (using various DOCSIS versions), the data is broken up into different frequency channels. There are a limited number of these assigned to internet data transmission– many others are assigned to video content that travels on the same wire. Since people in general consume more content than they generate, fewer channels are assigned to upload data. This also allows quoting of faster download speeds without overburdening the network.
With optical cable (Fios, e.g.) there is so much bandwidth available that they can provide symmetric speeds (same speed up and down). This is more attractive now that people are generating more of their own content with social media, videos, zoom sessions, etc.
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