[GTALUG] Wget under-reports data transfer rate ("bandwidth") by 5%

[Peter Renzland]

Wget can be used to measure download data rate.
For example, 
wget --output-document=/dev/null http://speedtest.wdc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test500.zip

Then observe the progress meter and kill the process.

IMHO, wget thinks a MB is 2^20 (== 1MiB), instead of 10^6.  This results in a 5% error.
(Softlayer seems to have made the same error.)

Am I wrong?  Have others noticed that?  According to wget's definition of "bug", this error does not seem to be a "bug".  Or?
(It doesn't crash -- just gives a wrong answer, based on a wrong assumption.)

-- Peter Renzland at gmail.com