Why did my cable suddenly double in speed?

W

WiL11o6

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
478
Not complaining here, but I was downloading a new game that's 3gbs and noticed it completed much much faster than it normally would. Upon checking the download speed, it's at a whopping 6.5mb/s when I normally get 3.5mb/s. Opened up speedtest sites and went from 35mbps download and 6mbps upload to 55mbps and 11mbps upload.
 
Comcast and TimeWarner are realizing if they don't start actually working to please their customer base, we'll all leave them en-mass for Google Fiber when it finally starts hitting other cities outside of Podunkville, Missouri. Anybody involved in IT knows they've been screwing us for years and piece-mealing bandwidth to us when they could easily give us 100mb up/down links without adversely affecting their infrastructure. I called this way back in 1994/95 when @Home Cable hit my neighborhood and immediately gave us 20-50mb synchronous links. Only a fool wouldn't realize that a capitalist-minded executive would see dollar signs when they realized what they could do to us with hoarding bandwidth.
 
They probably changed the speeds of their tiers. Good for Comcast for upgrading you without you having to call in and say something.

Me and a friend are both on Verizon. When the Tiers for our speeds werent adjusted until we called in. Assholes.
 
So they can charge you more.

Mine doubled (nearly) too, but I also noticed their "list price" for the speed tiers went up. My bill hasn't changed, but I fully expect Comcast to change my price (up) without notice eventually.
 
-Dragon- said:
http://www.comcast.com/speedincrease

Comcast provisions an extra 10% over their advertised speed so 50Mbps advertised is really 55Mbps to the modem
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Easier to do this than to try to explain to people all the time that bandwidth != throughput, that there's always protocol overhead involved.

That's half of what I do every day, explain to IT guys that they can't get 100 Mbps file transfer rates between their offices on the West coast and East coast with 100 Mbps links because of SMB chattiness, IP overhead, TCP windowing, packet fragmentation, the speed of light, etc.
 
Where I live Comcast raises their prices once or twice a year. They increased our download speeds as well but unless I'm downloading from Steam I really don't need the extra speed.
 
I just got my notice that my Comcast speeds are significantly increased, unfortunately I think my WRT54GL is completely maxing out on throughput and I need something more robust. Thinking a Cisco 2821 or something like it, that can handle full 100Mbps speeds, or Gig interfaces if possible.
 
Dark Shade said:
I just got my notice that my Comcast speeds are significantly increased, unfortunately I think my WRT54GL is completely maxing out on throughput and I need something more robust. Thinking a Cisco 2821 or something like it, that can handle full 100Mbps speeds, or Gig interfaces if possible.
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A 2821 caan't even handle a 100 Mbps line.
 
personally I use a routerboard RB2011UAS-RM to route my 50/15 line from comcast and it does just fine.

I also use a few routerboard RB951G-2HnD at a few remote sites to route 50/10 lines and it's more than enough. The 951G actually has the same processor and memory as the RB2011 series, just doesn't have as much monitoring.

The RB951G-2HnD sells for $80, has 1W wireless and is gigabit.

The RB2011UAS-2HnD-IN is also an option if you want a few more toys and better hardware monitoring.
 
/usr/home said:
http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/downloads/765/tools/quickreference/routerperformance.pdf

According to this it can't.

I've personally only used one on a 25/5 line so that's my limited experience with the 2821.
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The speeds listed is max throughput with minimum MTU (not really real-world). I had a 1841 push 50/50 no problem.

Please note however as you add services the max throughput will lower, NAT/Access-Lists and types of routing all play a part. I highly doubt you will see much issues at 100Mbps with just NAT enabled. Other services may impact you though :]
 
scline said:
The speeds listed is max throughput with minimum MTU (not really real-world). I had a 1841 push 50/50 no problem.

Please note however as you add services the max throughput will lower, NAT/Access-Lists and types of routing all play a part. I highly doubt you will see much issues at 100Mbps with just NAT enabled. Other services may impact you though :]
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Gonna QTFT. The performance specs listed by cisco typically assume all services enabled. Otherwise they could end up selling you something that might not be able to handle the throughput with all the features you're running.

Some other manufacturers take advantage of this (I've seen ADTRAN do it) by posting their equipment specs without all of the features enabled, which lets them brag that their equipment is faster than a cisco. It's all pretty pointless.

In any case, I work for an ISP that provides 100 Mbps symmetric enterprise-class fiber services, and we wouldn't install anything less than a 2921 for that type of speed. It's always better to be safe than sorry as the customer can always ask for us to enable additional services.

We'd only provide a 2821 up to 50 meg or so. Past that, particularly if they want to run other services, it'd be a 2851 or a 2921. Again, that's just a guesstimate, if we know that they'll need something fancy or probably more bandwidth down the road, we'll just drop a more powerful model in there for some futureproofing.
 
/usr/home said:
http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/downloads/765/tools/quickreference/routerperformance.pdf

According to this it can't.

I've personally only used one on a 25/5 line so that's my limited experience with the 2821.
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Well calculating their results you're right. 170,000 pps x 64 bytes = 108Mbps routing potential. They got the 87Mbps number based off adding Ethernets 20% overhead (which is actually nice). So in theory you should easily be able to route 100Mbps+, but if you were maxing the hardware your max actual non-overhead data rate would be 87Mbps, but you'd still be showing in software as going 100Mbps+. I'm pretty sure most peoples home gear doesn't even take that into consideration when releasing the potential.
 
Yeah, this makes sense, the router would only be doing NAT, *maybe* VPN stuff. Per specifications, would a 5505 ASA be able to handle more services while providing 100Mbps+ throughput ? I'm not looking to spend several hundred dollars on getting my speed increase (maxing out at ~35Mbps on the WRT54GL on Tomato firmware)
 
I'm paying for business class 30 MB down/7 up as I ditched TV and only stream now. Still saves me money. I live in the middle of nowhere so this is the best I can do.
 
Electrofreak said:
2.4 GHz-only wireless N? No thanks.
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People use wifi for more than basic web surfing and cell phones? No thanks.

If thats the case get a rb2011 series and whatever ap you want. Easier to change the ap every year as technology changes without messing with you router setup.

You people must think im crazy for having 36 drops in my house.
 
bds1904 said:
People use wifi for more than basic web surfing and cell phones? No thanks.

If thats the case get a rb2011 series and whatever ap you want. Easier to change the ap every year as technology changes without messing with you router setup.

You people must think im crazy for having 36 drops in my house.
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I like to carry my laptop, my smartphone, my tablet around within my home, and not have to deal with wireless interference making life difficult. Personally, I'd go with a cisco router since I work in dozens of them every day, and throw a cheap wireless N router off a switch port as a WAP.
 
Electrofreak said:
I like to carry my laptop, my smartphone, my tablet around within my home, and not have to deal with wireless interference making life difficult. Personally, I'd go with a cisco router since I work in dozens of them every day, and throw a cheap wireless N router off a switch port as a WAP.
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What is this wireless interference you speak of? 1W 2.4ghz n wifi works great in a 800sq ft apartment even when there are 30 other ap's visible. I've done if for several of my friends. Their neighbors complain about bad wifi, but none of my friends do!

Really powerful wifi fixes the dropping issue, but it isnt as fast as it could be, but for phones, tablets and everyday surfing 10mbps useable is more than enough.
 
bds1904 said:
What is this wireless interference you speak of? 1W 2.4ghz n wifi works great in a 800sq ft apartment even when there are 30 other ap's visible. I've done if for several of my friends. Their neighbors complain about bad wifi, but none of my friends do!

Really powerful wifi fixes the dropping issue, but it isnt as fast as it could be, but for phones, tablets and everyday surfing 10mbps useable is more than enough.
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How much do you know about the 2.4 GHz band? There are only 3 channels that can be used simultaneously without overlapping on the band. Channels 1, 6, and 11. So if you see 30 APs, there are roughly 10(!) overlapping networks PER channel.

Now WiFi uses CDMCA (Collision Avoidance) so it doesn't communicate when there is already communication on the channel; it waits for a pause in the traffic to send its data.

In short, a strong signal means you won't drop, but I guarantee the wireless throughput at your friends place, if you tested it, would be garbage while more than one or two of those other APs are in use.

Now also consider that WiFi has over 50% overhead, so actual max data throughput of a max-signal strength 54 Mbps connection is roughly 25 Mbps. Include 10 overlapping networks communicating in the same space and a weaker signal if you're not sitting on top of the WAP and you'd be very lucky to hit 10 Mbps.

So sure, if all you're doing is web browsing, a connection like that will creep along well enough that you might not go crazy. But, good luck streaming video reliably, and all it takes is one or two people running bittorrent or someone turning on a baby monitor, a leaky microwave, or using a bluetooth file transfer next door to make things suck.

My point is, when you have an option of using the 5 GHz range in a crowded wireless airspace, you probably should. I use my laptop, tablet and smartphone primarily for watching netflix, streaming audio, and playing games. All of those are latency and loss-sensitive so keeping my wireless network off the same band a dozen people are using is in everyone's best interest. A router that can handle 5 GHz or dual-band is what, $10-20 more?

PS - Per FCC, 1W is the maximum an 802.11 connection is allowed to use for transmission. You won't likely find a wireless router or WAP that uses less than 1W. Some people like to turn up the wattage in DD-WRT or some other firmware past 1W thinking it'll net them more range and throughput, but largely this is ineffective as the other end is still only using 1W transmission.
 
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Electrofreak said:
How much do you know about the 2.4 GHz band? There are only 3 channels that can be used simultaneously without overlapping on the band. Channels 1, 6, and 11. So if you see 30 APs, there are roughly 10(!) overlapping networks PER channel.

Now WiFi uses CDMCA (Collision Avoidance) so it doesn't communicate when there is already communication on the channel; it waits for a pause in the traffic to send its data.

In short, a strong signal means you won't drop, but I guarantee the wireless throughput at your friends place, if you tested it, would be garbage while more than one or two of those other APs are in use.

Now also consider that WiFi has over 50% overhead, so actual max data throughput of a max-signal strength 54 Mbps connection is roughly 25 Mbps. Include 10 overlapping networks communicating in the same space and a weaker signal if you're not sitting on top of the WAP and you'd be very lucky to hit 10 Mbps.

So sure, if all you're doing is web browsing, a connection like that will creep along well enough that you might not go crazy. But, good luck streaming video reliably, and all it takes is one or two people running bittorrent or someone turning on a baby monitor, a leaky microwave, or using a bluetooth file transfer next door to make things suck.

My point is, when you have an option of using the 5 GHz range in a crowded wireless airspace, you probably should. I use my laptop, tablet and smartphone primarily for watching netflix, streaming audio, and playing games. All of those are latency and loss-sensitive so keeping my wireless network off the same band a dozen people are using is in everyone's best interest. A router that can handle 5 GHz or dual-band is what, $10-20 more?

PS - Per FCC, 1W is the maximum an 802.11 connection is allowed to use for transmission. You won't likely find a wireless router or WAP that uses less than 1W. Some people like to turn up the wattage in DD-WRT or some other firmware past 1W thinking it'll net them more range and throughput, but largely this is ineffective as the other end is still only using 1W transmission.
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10-20 more for cheap routers yes. But for something of quality you're looking at much more.

Hell look at Ubiquiti's UniFi, their 2.4 starts around $70-80, Want 5Ghz? $200
 
Eshelmen said:
Lol I love my 60 megabits speed now
http://speedtest.net/result/2590901519.png
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You should take a moment to educate yourself on how bursting works, if you're at all interested in how fast your connection actually is and not just how high of a meaningless number you can produce within the tiny burst window.

shaper2.png


In a token-bucket system with bursting, you won't see your true download speed until the bucket becomes empty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_bucket
 
Dark Shade said:
Yeah, this makes sense, the router would only be doing NAT, *maybe* VPN stuff. Per specifications, would a 5505 ASA be able to handle more services while providing 100Mbps+ throughput ? I'm not looking to spend several hundred dollars on getting my speed increase (maxing out at ~35Mbps on the WRT54GL on Tomato firmware)
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Maybe, but probably not.

The ASA5505 is rated at 150Mbps total throughput. If you pull 100Mbps down you'll only have 50Mbps up left over...and that's assuming you arn't running anything more advanced than NAT.
The ASA 5510 and higher would have no problems running this.


Numerous residential routers can do better. The Asus rt-n66u can, and you can even run tomato on it.
 
It appears they converted blast to the 50Mbps class service and the old 50Mbps service to the old 105Mbps service and just dropped the 105Mbps level for now (probably going to re-introduce it @ 200+Mbps), and the old 50 and 105Mbps service levels didn't have PowerBoost (aka the token bucket bursting thing), so they probably don't have it now. 60Mbps does seem a bit high for it but not entirely unreasonable and it shouldn't go much lower on extended transfers
 
-Dragon- said:
It appears they converted blast to the 50Mbps class service and the old 50Mbps service to the old 105Mbps service and just dropped the 105Mbps level for now (probably going to re-introduce it @ 200+Mbps), and the old 50 and 105Mbps service levels didn't have PowerBoost (aka the token bucket bursting thing), so they probably don't have it now. 60Mbps does seem a bit high for it but not entirely unreasonable and it shouldn't go much lower on extended transfers
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It would be silly for the 50Mbps tier to not have bursting as even people on the ~25Mbps tier have been able to burst over 100Mbps for a while now assuming they have a docsis 3.0 modem.
 
Ruffy said:
10-20 more for cheap routers yes. But for something of quality you're looking at much more.

Hell look at Ubiquiti's UniFi, their 2.4 starts around $70-80, Want 5Ghz? $200
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I wish Ubiquiti would fix their 5Ghz code. As long as you have only a few 5Ghz clients it works fine add more then three and the performance of everyone goes into the gutter.

They screwed this up a couple of firmwares back. Hopefully they will have this fixed shortly.
 
GotNoRice said:
It would be silly for the 50Mbps tier to not have bursting as even people on the ~25Mbps tier have been able to burst over 100Mbps for a while now assuming they have a docsis 3.0 modem.
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I worked for them for 5 years up until ~2 years ago in one of the regional NOCs and did a lot of work on the D3 upgrade, so I know for a fact that 2 years ago the 50 and 100Mbps tiers did not have speed burst as the burst speed was same as the normal speed, but have no idea if they've changed it in the intervening years. Heck when I left they only had 4 DS channels available for bonding and I know for a fact my current modem is bonded to 8 so they've at least doubled the number of channels for modems since I've been gone. (and that's probably why 50/100 didn't have speed burst as someone with 100Mbps service was using almost 2/3rds of the bandwidth on all 4 downstream channels if they were transmitting at max speed, and 50Mbps tier would use just under 1/3rd obv)
Mackintire said:
I wish Ubiquiti would fix their 5Ghz code. As long as you have only a few 5Ghz clients it works fine add more then three and the performance of everyone goes into the gutter.

They screwed this up a couple of firmwares back. Hopefully they will have this fixed shortly.
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Just out of curiosity have you tested this on the 3.0 beta code?
 
Ruffy said:
10-20 more for cheap routers yes. But for something of quality you're looking at much more.

Hell look at Ubiquiti's UniFi, their 2.4 starts around $70-80, Want 5Ghz? $200
Click to expand...

Well as I pointed out earlier, my personal preference would be a Cisco I can micromanage with a relatively cheap WAP hanging off of it.

In any case, there are circumstances where 5GHz wireless is well worth the expense, and I'm talking within the consumer / SOHO market.
 
In the cable marketplace, most of the major carriers (and lots of smaller guys too) have started rolling out DOCSIS 3.x modems and upgrading their CMTSs (modem controllers). DOCSIS 3.x allows something called "channel bonding" which essentially means a cable op can 'bond' several downstream channels together to give you significantly more bandwidth over the same old coaxial cable. They can do it on the upstread too, but haven't done that nearly as much. Several operators overseas are now offering 100MBPS+ down to their customers. In the US, they'll only do so if there is a fiber competitor like Google or any of the muni fiber offerings. FTTH (fiber to the home) is also getting easier to deploy and manage, so look for more competitors in this area as well. Cable ops are slowly starting to realize that their bread and butter video business has a fast approaching expiration date. With folks like Aereo (www.aereo.com) and Netflix around, it's just a matter of time before folks get all of their video over a big fat Internet pipe and get to build their own ala carte packages.
 
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