-story-
Now my points:
- there are computers with slower CPU. Keep this in mind. My case was extreme, but it's just proof, that CPU is also very important during downloading the blockchain, and people having problems with slow downloads perhaps have probelem with CPU, not network.
Yes, the overal speed depends on more than just bandwith.
- precomputation is just reasonable. Why everyone should compute the same blocks every time they start a new node?
You either used the "bootstrap.dat" in which case you did not safe any computation time, but rather wasted it by seperating download and verification. From the times you states and "precomputation" however I assume you downloaded a preverified blockchain. This is naturally faster, because you dont do all the work. Thus the comparisson is invalid and you need to trust the other party to not have messed with the blockchain.
You should verifiy the blocks to avoid this exact problem, trusting someone else. The same way you verify the binaries you download or the signed message you receive.
- if you prepare "certified" blockchain (can be GPG signed, etc.), you will show the people that you CARE about them, and about their time, and freedom of choice of downloading method. This is important for people that are hesitating about running a bitcoin daemon.
Thanks for reading.
Which will require you to trust that person and their ability to secure their PGP key. People are not hesitating to run a full node because of the initial time it takes, but because of the constant time it needs to download and verify data. If it would just be 1-3 days (relativly modern desktop/laptop computer) it would not be an issue.