I was downloading the other day and my download manager said I was getting like 5200 b/s what does that mean or how much is that? Then well it jumped to 9200 b/s and stayed there for several minutes not just when it first started. It even stayed on 10+ b/s for a few seconds.

How come it wont stay that fast all the time instead of 5200 b/s?

Bytes per seconds right? Is 9200 more than whats supposed to be on dial up?

Actuallt it is bits per second. ... Binary digIT
bps

Short for bits per second, bps is a measurement of the data transmission speed. bps is an indication of how many bits that pass a certain point in one second. The larger the bps rate the faster the download and/or upload time will be.
Bps which is short for bytes per second and also sometimes abbreviated as B/s is the same as bits per second, but instead of bits, the speed is measured in bytes. The difference between the two abbreviations is the uppercase and lowercase b.

Byte is data equal to either 7/8 bits depending if it needs error correction (parity). A byte is spelled as byte and not bite.

From

http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/b/bps.htm

This link will explain the speed things, why they vary and a ;ot of other info on using a modem.

http://www.modemsite.com/56k/what56.asp

I think ther was a tool called netstat that had some handy functions