Saturating broadband connnections?

[Loopy]

In theory shouldn't one be able to saturate one's broadband connection?
Like for example if I have a 20Mbps connection and if I download from a server that can't provide that much bandwidth too me shouldn't I be able to fill the rest of my "pipe" by downloading from another server at the same time?
To at least get close to the 20Mbps, maybe 18Mbps realistically.

[slgrieb]

Yes, but. There are lots of FTP clients that support multiple download or upload sessions so that you can send or receive several files at once. If you are asking whether is is possible to increase the speed of a single download by accessing multiple servers, the answer would be no, unless the servers all supported the BitTorrent protocol or something functionally similar.

[Loopy]

Yes, but. There are lots of FTP clients that support multiple download or upload sessions so that you can send or receive several files at once. If you are asking whether is is possible to increase the speed of a single download by accessing multiple servers, the answer would be no, unless the servers all supported the BitTorrent protocol or something functionally similar.

No, sorry if I'm not very clear, but that's not what I meant.
What I'm saying is by doing that (doing multiple download sessions at once) shouldn't I be able to saturate my connection?

[slgrieb]

Again, yes, but. You've already found that download speed can vary a lot based on the demand on the server you're connecting to, your ISP's load, load on the entire Internet, hardware issues, and so forth. Of all of these factors, bottlenecks on the server end are likely to be the most significant.

So, let's say that you want to do a bunch of downloads, and you are getting good performance from every download you do. Call it 300 Kbps average speed, and let's further assume you are going to get that rate from every site you are going to connect to in this session. Alright, you've got 20 Mbps bandwidth. 1 megabit = 1024 kilobits, so you have a theoretical bandwidth of 20480 Kbps. Divide that by 300. That is roughly 68 simultaneous downloads. Just how much system resources would you think that 68 browser windows or 68 multiple FTP sessions would use?

Sure, in theory, you could saturate your bandwidth. In practice; ain't happenin'.

[Loopy]

Again, yes, but. You've already found that download speed can vary a lot based on the demand on the server you're connecting to, your ISP's load, load on the entire Internet, hardware issues, and so forth. Of all of these factors, bottlenecks on the server end are likely to be the most significant.

So, let's say that you want to do a bunch of downloads, and you are getting good performance from every download you do. Call it 300 Kbps average speed, and let's further assume you are going to get that rate from every site you are going to connect to in this session. Alright, you've got 20 Mbps bandwidth. 1 megabit = 1024 kilobits, so you have a theoretical bandwidth of 20480 Kbps. Divide that by 300. That is roughly 68 simultaneous downloads. Just how much system resources would you think that 68 browser windows or 68 multiple FTP sessions would use?

Sure, in theory, you could saturate your bandwidth. In practice; ain't happenin'.

Yes, understood but shouldn't I be able to reach more than half of that 20mbps?

And by the way, why the heck do they even offer high bandwidth connections to consumers(other than business reasons)?