Other factors affecting speed?

[terryt]

hi i'm new here and well i need to ask, are there other factors affecting speed?

I was downloading Y file this morning and it had a download speed at around 25kB/s~41kB/s (by the way is this speed normal?)

seeds 7 of 57 connected (140 in swarm)

peers 50 of 869 connected (861 in swarm)

availability 21.999

wasted 15.8MB (1 hashfail)

After it finish I start downloading X file but after 2 hours until now it still has a speed at around 2kB/s~10kB/s

seeds 24 of 132 connected (0 in swarm)

peers 35 of 461 connected (0 in swarm)

availability 29.997

Wasted 368kB (0 hashfail)

I only download 1 file at a time

My internet connection is 1.0M download 384k upload so i chose the xx/384k in speed guide and put protocol encryption enabled and did not change any other settings. My ISP is TMnet Malaysia

So in conclusion i want to ask:

1. Is the speed 25kB/s~41kB/s normal for my internet connection?

2. Why is the speed different?Are there other factors affecting speed?

3. What is (xxx in swarm)??what does it mean?

4. Oh and another thing, what is hashfail??

(sorry i'm new to all this BitTorrent thing)

[Switeck]

Almost every Malaysia ISP is known to HEAVILY throttle bittorrent traffic.

Some go so far as to throttle almost anything outgoing that's not recognized.