download speed

[#1]

I downloaded a 167Mb file the other day and it took over 2hours.
The file was from a well known commercial company.
Would the time this took to download be normal or are large file downloads restricted on speed ?
I am on the cheapest broadband connection.

[#2]

Impossible to answer as there can be loads of reasons why downloads are slow. The most common are: Remote server does bandwidth limitations to stop it being swamped, local exchange contention, network problems between remote server are your PC.
Also depends on the speed of your connection which you haven't stated.

[#3]

my speed is around 460 -480 on a 512 connection.

[#4]

Hi there,
If you were running at full line rate, I'd generally expect a download that size to take 45-60 minutes.
As Peter has mentioned, it is quite possible that the place you were trying to download from (assuming that it is over http) was suffering from some congestion, reducing your download speed by approximately 50%.