Taking full advantage of Gigabit fiber

A week ago, I had AT&T fiber installed. I've been wanting fiber for forever and when I found out it was available in my area and for only $5 more a month than I paid Comcast, I jumped on it. Everything seems to work great, except I'm not getting anywhere near the ~940Mbps download speeds I thought I would get. The best speedtest results I've had for download speed was ~500Mbps and the best for upload is ~944Mbps with the AT&T server. I'm just curious why I'm not getting better download results. I've tried 6 different servers listed in the Speedtest app, but none are any better. I'm averaging ~300Mbps for both upload/download. My computer is older, but it does have a LAN card built into the mobo that's 1G capable and while I'm only using Cat5e, I don't think it's a need for a Cat6 cable, though I could be wrong. I don't think I'd get ~944 upload on the AT&T server if the cable was an issue. Just thought I'd check and see if there's something obvious I need to check?

BTW, don't get me wrong, getting an average of 300Mbps is great. Even if it never gets better, it's worth the extra $5 I'm paying vs Comcast getting ~120Mbps speed.

You will rarely get an honest speed that approaches 100% of a port's rated ability. Overhead from the IP stack and PC/OS take their share. I generally feel good when I get 75~80%. So 800mbs on a gig rated port and that is when the two devices are the only things on the line. Start adding other devices and your speed goes down.

In your case, you are sharing an upstream hub with a bunch of other folks in your neighborhood. Probably why you are seeing a real speed of 300mps.

Cat 5 or 5e plenty good enough if the runs are fairly short(<60 or so feet for 5, longer for 5e) I get gig speed from old Cat 5.

Do check all the cables. Replace any that pets or kids have played with. True gig speed is less tolerant of wiring issues. Make sure all 8 wires are correct at the ends.

If AT&T did for you what they did for me, you were 'Gifted' with a Uverse modem that includes a WiFi AP that isn't yours. It is theirs for use by other AT&T customers. Still adds packets and overhead to your fiber traffic.

ATT is real big on the language - "Up to Speed X" and doesnt guarantee anything.

My Charter acct promises me me 60/4 and I usually get 70/6 and very rarely go below 60/4.

NOTE: I just want to add this up here, anytime you believe you are not getting the speed you are paying for, especially if it is less than 75% of the BW, and very especially if you are averaging only 33% of the BW, you should contact your provider and make a stink about it.

There could be a number of different factors, but as far as claims of sharing and such, that isn't quite how these new systems work. That is based off of older technology. ATT uses a similar PON system as Verizon. The way these systems work is they deliver the full bandwidth out to various OLT nodes and those nodes divide up into strands and it divies up the bandwidth between these strands. However, these days there is dedicated amounts that go to each node and each strand. So from the local OLT node to your house you should get your full bandwidth. There are some internal complications that could occur, but it's not that common. More common are problems with upload speed.

However, that doesn't include what happens outside of your network. Outside your network there could be any number of ways you may not get the full speed. The server serving the files may not have enough bandwidth, a router in-between may not offer enough bandwidth, or there could be some congestion or rerouting going on causing your traffic to travel farther and over slower links.

Personally I have Verizon 1GB fiber and I regularly get 940/940 with Speedtest. But I am also fairly close to a Speettest hub.

wtburnette said:

A week ago, I had AT&T fiber installed. I've been wanting fiber for forever and when I found out it was available in my area and for only $5 more a month than I paid Comcast, I jumped on it. Everything seems to work great, except I'm not getting anywhere near the ~940Mbps download speeds I thought I would get. The best speedtest results I've had for download speed was ~500Mbps and the best for upload is ~944Mbps with the AT&T server. I'm just curious why I'm not getting better download results. I've tried 6 different servers listed in the Speedtest app, but none are any better. I'm averaging ~300Mbps for both upload/download. My computer is older, but it does have a LAN card built into the mobo that's 1G capable and while I'm only using Cat5e, I don't think it's a need for a Cat6 cable, though I could be wrong. I don't think I'd get ~944 upload on the AT&T server if the cable was an issue. Just thought I'd check and see if there's something obvious I need to check?

BTW, don't get me wrong, getting an average of 300Mbps is great. Even if it never gets better, it's worth the extra $5 I'm paying vs Comcast getting ~120Mbps speed.

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I have Verizon FIOS Gigabit. It's really hard to find a server that can provide gigabit downloads. In Speedtest try to find a server in a big city near you. I went to NYC and found one that can send me close to 900mb. Also Steam downloads can provide close to 940mb/s downloads at NON peak times.

To be clear, I've tried all of the nearby servers in the Speedtest app. There are like 8 listed for Indy and none of them give me any better than the ~300 down 944 up that the AT&T server gives me. Most average 300/300. I was just wondering if there was something wrong with my system, but it sounds like it's just AT&T. I guess I live far enough out from whatever to get any better speeds. Dunno, was just hoping for better, even though I'm grinning ear to ear with 300/300 average

I'll definitely contact support and see if they can help, or provide a good explanation of why I'm seeing slower speeds.

wtburnette said:

To be clear, I've tried all of the nearby servers in the Speedtest app. There are like 8 listed for Indy and none of them give me any better than the ~300 down 944 up that the AT&T server gives me. Most average 300/300. I was just wondering if there was something wrong with my system, but it sounds like it's just AT&T. I guess I live far enough out from whatever to get any better speeds. Dunno, was just hoping for better, even though I'm grinning ear to ear with 300/300 average

I'll definitely contact support and see if they can help, or provide a good explanation of why I'm seeing slower speeds.

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If you are consistently getting the slower speeds, I would contact them about it. You should put their feet to the fire to deliver what you are paying for. Saying the provide "up to" only covers their ass so much. If you are consistently not achieving that speed, they are not holding up their end of the bargain.

Honestly, it is hard to get those speeds, and why the cable company around here does not guarantee the gigabit speeds to your computer, just to your connection point. So they come over, do the install, put their meter on it, which goes back to their office or something, get 940 Mbps, and call it a day. So after I had that done, it took me some time to get the 940ish numbers on my PC. The first thing I would try is connecting directly to the modem or whatever, bypassing your router. When you do that and still get poor speeds, you need to start looking at your PC. When I did mine, the PC connected to the cable modem would get the 940ish numbers during dead times, like 4am, but then like 400 to 600 during evening. I bought a new router, (Netgear x8), which helped a little bit. I had to read some tweaks and stuff to get the router throughput right. After about 3 days of messing with it, I could get 940ish numbers from both primary gaming PC's in the house. The laptops just will not do it even direct connected.

I would suggest that while you're testing you only test using the AT&T Residential Gateway connected directly to the device you're testing with. Do not use your firewall. I would also suggest that you try your testing with and without AV or other network filtering software active. I can say from personal experience that if you're testing against an AT&T server and are seeing double digit pings something local is probably in interfering. In my case it was the web filtering agent I forgot was installed on testing PC. Once that was shut down I've never seen pings higher than 5ms to their servers via Ookla. As Holmes said "eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth." Once you get the one PC performing well add back in your software and if you desire your firewall. I will say the AT&T gateway, the Pace 5268, isn't the worst I've seen so there is no real need for an additional firewall. That said, I ditched mine completely.

At this time I'm using their router and the PC I'm testing with is connected to it directly (it's on a table 3 feet away) via cable. I'll have to disable the firewall, AV and other software to see if that makes any difference. thanks for the suggestions.

I'd try disabling the firewall/av stuff or use another system to see if there's any difference. Otherwise, it might be a duplex setting as I had something similar happen to me at one point. Last thing to check would be the cable, which wouldn't surprise me either. Definitely let us know what you figure out.