Fast connection, slow downloads

FLECOM

FLECOM

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Ok we are all at wits ends here, Cogent (bandwith provider) AT&T (pipe provider) can't figure it out, none of us here can figure it out...

we have a 500/500 connection, speedtests show 480/480 which is fine... but when we try to download anything with a PC attached directly to the NID we can't exceed 100~ mbits, EVER... if we put several PCs we can pull an aggregate of maybe 300 or so mbits...

we have tried linux torrents, downloading from amazon, microsoft, file planet, usenet, anl.gov, everything I can think of... fastest thing we got were the torrents that would maybe touch 150mbits

nobody has an answer, already tried tweaking MTU settings and every setting the nics had, tried different (enterprise) hardware/servers etc, nothing

anyone have any ideas?
 
router is 10gb, but like I said, pc is directly on the NID (10gb in from AT&T, gig to PC)
 
and PC has a 1Gig nic i assume (and a good one, not built in realtek) and it is connecting at 1Gig?

Check cables?

the hard part is finding a site that will serve a single client at those speeds, this is why so many home links with 200Mbs and such are almost pointless because most sites will not serve content that fast to a single user.
 
Cogent is known to overbook their network "nodes" so I guess this is what you're seeing, also a reason why they're so much cheaper than anyone else. You can find a lot of this info using Google. They most likely do like other providers namely prioritize bandwidth tests over anything else, difference is that there's no bandwidth left for "real" traffic...
//Danne
 
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well ATT has the shittiest network ive ever seen, that might be it. i have ATT and Verizon cell phones and perhaps its different on their land side data but my mobile data speeds on ATT are very bad, usually slow, sometimes non existent even when i have full bars of 4glte. Probably about half the time I get full speed from att, other half its ok for a little while but if i keep using it there will be fluctuations and even completely drop no matter what city or state im in. Ive went to att store and made employees run speedtests on their personal att phone and they got the same results i did so I know its not my phone. I do however use it quite frequently so i notice it more than the average user. verizon on the other hand never changes speeds unless theres like 50000 extra people in town for a sporting event or concert or something, they have a much better network.
 
Which has nothing to do with this really, ATT is a Tier 1 provider just like Cogent.
//Danne
 
yea they are supposed to be a major cell phone provider too but they cant maintain mobile network speeds like verizon can for some reason.
 
Peering

Cogent is hated on by most ISPs. When you deliver a product or service that's better than the competition for less money, they tend to hate you. Hence the peering disputes between Cogent and so many ISPs.

Try Googling "cogent at&t peering" and you might just find your answer.

Example: http://www.warren-news.com/peeringpoints.htm

It's the same shit you are hearing about in the news between Verizon/Neflix/Comast. The ISPs want money from both sides.
 
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Well, the thing is that Cogent sucks and are poorer than other Tier 1 network operators. You get what you pay for, that said... I'd have a look at TeliaSonera or NTT but I guess they want more money than Cogent.

It's not like its the first time Cogent thinks that someone else should pay for upgrading peering nodes.
//Danne
 
it's most definitely cogent related peering, as others have stated. used to hop on cogent in boston (from maine, 10gb uplink) and it would be game over most days.

peering has since switched over to level3 and bell aliant, and i've had no problems, speed, latency or packetloss wise.
 
Having dealt with Cogent, I feel your pain.. unscheduled (scheduled the day before) total outages, speeds not up to par, packet loss, BGP flapping...

I'd find another uplink provider if you have the option at all. NTT, L3, Tata all have been very reliable.
 
FLECOM said:
we have a 500/500 connection, speedtests show 480/480 which is fine... but when we try to download anything with a PC attached directly to the NID we can't exceed 100~ mbits, EVER... if we put several PCs we can pull an aggregate of maybe 300 or so mbits...
Click to expand...

Well if you ignore the speedtest, it almost looks like someone is do link-bonding to provide the connection which is why a single PC only gets 100 but multiple aggregate get more.
 
Could be an auto-negotiate issue. Have you tried setting the NICs to 1Gbps full duplex?
 
have tried different cables, different machines, different nic settings etc... all the desktops and servers are running SSDs and PCIe nics, dual i7 xeons, tons of ram etc

fastest speeds I was able to get was starting a bunch of ubuntu/centos/fedora torrents, got 25.9MB/s or about 200Mbits

tried this on a couple different machines and got similar results... peers were all over the world on all sorts of providers so don't think it was peering... Cogent swears they have fixed their peering issues...
 
m1abram said:
Well if you ignore the speedtest, it almost looks like someone is do link-bonding to provide the connection which is why a single PC only gets 100 but multiple aggregate get more.
Click to expand...

ya it's freaking weird... EVERY speedtest I have found I get around 480~mbits up/down.. comcast, speedtest.net, dslreports, TWC, snappy, etc etc

EXCEPT for testmy.net, that one gives me the more real numbers, average speedtest on a machine is 125mbits...
 
m1abram said:
Well if you ignore the speedtest, it almost looks like someone is do link-bonding to provide the connection which is why a single PC only gets 100 but multiple aggregate get more.
Click to expand...

What about his torrent speeds though? I would guess he should be able to max out a torrent quite easily. (ESPECIALLY those highly desirable Linux distros!! :D)
 
QwertyJuan said:
What about his torrent speeds though? I would guess he should be able to max out a torrent quite easily. (ESPECIALLY those highly desirable Linux distros!! :D)
Click to expand...

no I really am downloading linux distros, you can get nutty speeds off those things
 
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