Theoretical vs Actual internet speeds?

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Kulith

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 13, 2009
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I have Comcast Cable and my internet plan is 12 mbps downloads and 2 mbps uploads.

I have a standard Cable modem (provided by Comcast - not sure what it is) and a Linksys WRT54G wireless router.

Using speedtest.net and speakeasy.net/speedteast and a wired laptop, after a couple tests I get anywhere from 5-8 mbps downloads, usually between 6 and 7 (once 10). And between .6 and 1.5 mbps uploads.

Whats causing the loss? What results should I be expecting and should I complain to Comcast? Or does Comcast normally exaggerate their advertised speed. I live in the city if it matters.
 
That is the way its going to be with a DOCSIS system. You are sharing a set amount of bandwidth with your neighbors.

So happy I got away from DOCSIS and weny FiOS. I peg my 20Mbps download all day and night on those speedtests.
 
I'm on a DOCSIS network with quite poor signal strength and I get pretty much exactly my rated speed at all times (or significantly higher during the 'boost' windows DOCSIS provides for the first 100MB or whatever they have configured). It's not a failing of the technology itself, but the ISP provisioning it insufficiently.

Anyway, that's well under what you're paying for. Try plugging the laptop directly into the modem and re-running the tests. If the results are similar I'd call and harass your ISP. Not much else you can do, and at least here the cable company is will to look into performance issues.
 
aghhh :(

No FIOS in my area. I'm not too happy with Comcast in general. I forgot to plug it directly into the modem, I'll try that.
 
Repeat after me:

actual download speeds may vary...
actual download speeds may vary...
actual download speeds may vary...

Speedtest.net is also all over the place depending on what servers you are trying to hit...

Want guaranteed speeds? Spend thousands per month on a dedicated leased line. Most home networking routers are junk as well IMO relative to their enterprise-class counterparts.
 
My speeds are pretty good. I don't think I've ever been outside of 10% away from my plan's advertised download speed. We don't have that many people on my plan where we're from anyway, so even if the bandwidth were shared it wouldn't matter so much.
 
Well I got 26mbps downloads and 2.6 mbps uploads by plugging directly into the modem!

Does that mean there is something wrong with my router? Or is it just being inconsistent.
 
Sounds like something's a bit wonky. That router should be good for 25-30mbit or so I'd estimate, should handle your rated speed no problem.

If you have a supported revision of the WRT54G, I'd just go ahead and throw Tomato, or dd-wrt (which supports basically all the WRT54G revisions with its micro image, which I believe has at least as much functionality as the stock firmware) on there. It's much better than the included firmware.
 
Funny story there, I had dd-wrt one it at one point but was having problems because my router model had low ram or something. Anyway, I ended bricking it while attempting to remove dd-wrt and I had to follow a procedure like this one to debrick it.

Don't really want to bother trying to flash it with Tomato... I might consider a new n router since I will be building a whs soon and gigabit would be nice.
 
Tomato is dead simple to do IF you have a router that can handle it. Not all WRT54G's can. Look on the bottom of yours, what version is it?
 
Ah, well if you don't want to try that, at least give a factory reset a try and make sure you're on the latest official firmware. It's pretty solid on its own, the third party stuff is just better.
 
I find that with my newly installed FIOS, I am usually limited by the bandwidth of whatever server I'm connected to. Not very many are actually able to send you 2.2 megabytes per second. It looks spectacular to me when that happens; I got a 105MB Nvidia driver in half a minute! I couldn't believe the megabytes were coming in faster than I could count the numbers aloud. But most places send it much slower than that.
 
my advertised speed at the moment is supposed to be 10/2 yet I find myself exceeding 10Mbps at times and I'm pretty sure Insight Communications is running on old DOCSIS.
 
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