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what is the normal transfer rate while downloading files from internet?

whenever we download any file i.e picture or software, a dialog box appears in which the transfer rate of the data is displayed. in my pc it is shown as 40 kbps and then it reduces to 7kbps and keeps flucutating around 7kbps sometimes it reduces to 2kbps during peek hours of usage. Can anyone tell what is the normal transfer rate and why it reduces with the passage of time. i mean how can it differs from 40kbps to 6-7 kbps?

Public Comments

1. Could be server usage or your internet provider. Your transfer rate will depend on how fast your connection is, if you are on dialup...there really is never a guaranteed but if you are on broadband, I would contact your ISP, you could just be seeing some latency. Of course, do the normal like scan for viruses, spyware and adware first.
2. Two things can effect your download speed. 1. where its coming from. Some sites are just fast due to mirror sites they use. You can't do anything about their speed. 2. what type of service do you have? If its dial-up and thats all you can get I really feel for you. If not your download speed is still dictated by your web service provider. When they advertise 3 Meg download speed you can expect about 125 kbps on a slow site to over 350 kbps for a faster site. From what you mentioned for your speed of download it looks like dial-up and there isn't much you can do about that. Remember dial-up is dial-up so get the cheaper of the services. AOL is not best. They put too much junk on your computer.
3. First of all, the transfer rate depends on your connection. A dial-up modem has an advertised speed of 56kbps, but due to various factors, an actual rate of 40 kbps is about as fast as you'll get. (DSL has rates of 256 to1000 or faster; cable modems can be very fast too if you're not sharing the connection with a lot of other users, with lots of users, the connection is shared and transmission rates go down.) Second, the rate which is displayed onscreen is an average of the transfer rate over the last several seconds. When you start a download, it's just looking at the first burst of transmission (which is at 40kbps), but with your description of your connection there seem to be "gaps" when no transmission is occurring. So (and this is a very rough example with invented numbers) for the first second you're getting 40, but the next 5 seconds, you're getting zero. This averages out to about 7. Then you get a second of 40, then five more seconds of zero. Since the avaraging is done over a period of, say 20+ seconds, your average rate will decrease to 6 or 7 seconds and stay there until the transmission completes. (In actuality, the bursts and gaps aren't in terms of seconds, but small fractions of seconds.) When the line is very busy, your "share" of the time available will decrease even more, and you may get the very slow rate of 2 kbps.