[SOLVED] ISP speeds - are we getting what we pay for?

Last week, I changed speed plans with my ISP. I had Road Runner Lite (1.5 mbps), and for only $12 more monthly, I was offered 7 mbps. Well, it's fast, a lot faster than what I had. But when I done a test at Speed Test.net, my results were less than that, although I was given an "A" for the final result. However, during the actual test, I didn't quite reach 6 on the scale, where I'm paying for 7. Is advertised ISP speeds similar to advertised hard drive capacities, where the number is less than what you actually get? I've done these tests during different times of the day, and can't even break 6mbps. And would having a wireless router cause it to drop? I've had no packet drop, whatever that is.

Cat - You're on a Cable connection! Download speeds will always vary with cable connections because they're on a WAN (wide area network).

This means that the more users on the WAN, the slower your DL speeds will be. There is no way around it. It's like the more faucets that are on in the house the lower the water pressure.

Try it again on in the wee hours of the morning, say 2:00AM or early on a Sunday morning and you'll see a difference. Compare say a Friday night at 8:00PM test versus a Sunday morning at 7:00AM test and you will definitely see a marked difference.

If you were using a DSL line via the phone the company the connection speed would never change because its a dedicated line direct to their servers. The download would be the same regardless of the time of day or day of week.

The vast majority of the time you'll be within 90% of your rated DL speed, sometimes less.

"If you were using a DSL line via the phone the company the connection speed would never change because its a dedicated line direct to their servers. The download would be the same regardless of the time of day or day of week.

The vast majority of the time you'll be within 90% of your rated DL speed, sometimes less. "

Not correct on my side of the globe!

I am not alone, among the similar customers known to me. I pay for 4 (download), I have never exceeded 3. It varies enormously, also according to the time of day/week,between 1.5 and 3.

The small print says that the isp promises "up to" the paid for amount.

That's what I'm talking about, davehc. That "up to" deal. I mean really, that's the picture that Nibiru just painted, the time of day, the number of users, etc. And he's right in that description. So what the ISP's could do about this is, put the petal to the metal with their output speeds to begin with. And keep it there. Take for example, you're driving 70mph in cruise. You approach a hill, your speed sensor compensates for this by giving more throttle. In some sort of way, the ISP's could do the same. By continually monitoring the usage during all periods of the day. That's right, I'm on cable. My phone, TV's & computers share the same main line that my neighbors do. It is a little slower during the evenings and particularly on weekend afternoons (like on race day, or some other big sporting event). But like you, davehc, my service has slowed to below what I was previously paying for. This past Sunday night, I was trying to install a second drive, and it actually took an hour and a half for a 265MB update, at 1:00AM. It was slowing to where it said bytes per second, not KB/sec. Must have been a lot of faucets on at that time on a Sunday night.

We have one cup of water and two people are thirsty. So lets take this cup of water and fill two cups of water. Oh no its not enough water, we can only fill the cups halfway. Lets tell the manager so he can monitor things and fill two cups with one cup of water.

When I had DSL for several years, my speed NEVER changed at all. It was through ATT in Texas and my DL speed stayed consistent regardless of the time of day.

Sorry it's that way on the other side of the world.

Cat - do your homework and read up on this if your curious. Check out Wikipedia or Webpedia.

Packets are "bundles" of data sent in bursts through the pipline. As I and c_c used the water analogy, it's like tablespoons of water going through the faucet. Sometimes a tablespoon misses the glass.

Having a wireless router usually would not cause it to drop, since most wireless routers transmit and receive data faster than most all high-speed connections.

You can check this out by hooking the computer to the wireless router with an ethernet cable using the LAN ethernet connection on the back of the router and to your computer LAN ethernet. Then compare the two results.

Sometimes your modem will get finicky or "constipated" as I used to call it. Call RoadRunner Tech support and have them double-check the settings on their end.

They can "ping" the modem on your end and see if it's working correctly. Also, sometimes it helps to unplug the power to the modem for about a minute and then power it back up and that will sometimes correct slowness issues.

When I had RoadRunner, a few times it would default back to the old settings on their end due to them having hiccups on their end. They would do a corrective measure on their end and all was good. One thing I found was that RoadRunner has about 3-4 hiccups a month. At least that's the way it was here in Austin, TX.

Catilley, In addition to what Niburu say you also need to try different servers on speedtest.net and not always the ones closest to you. (For comparison.)

I have Roadrunner also. Around here they must have done an infrastructure improvement recently because I'm getting almost double the speed on average that I was getting at the end of last year. Not paying a dime more either.

I liken it to hard drive space. I have yet to see a 1 terabyte drive that has a thousand gigabytes.

Hell, my truck was supposed to get 20 miles to the gallon when I bought it. If you get discouraged about your speed, just think back to your dial-up days. that should cheer you up.

Sometimes the bottleneck is on the other end (as far as your updates go). A few weeks ago I downloaded a 700mb Linux distro in about 3 minutes. I just take the good with the bad.

One of the greatest paradoxes in the industry! For the hard drive manufacturer, it IS 1 terabyte of storage in decimal form. This can cause some confusion because some operating systems may report the formatted capacity of a hard drive using binary prefix units which increment by powers of 1024.

A general rule of thumb to quickly convert the manufacturer's hard disk capacity to the standard windows formatted capacity is 0.93 capacity of the hard drive from the manufacturer for hard drives less than a terabyte and 0.91 capacity of hard drive from the manufacturer for hard drives equal to or greater than 1 terabyte.

"Catilley, In addition to what Niburu say you also need to try different servers on speedtest.net and not always the ones closest to you. (For comparison.)"

How exactly would you do that (curious) Whatever new server you choose, it will still be routed through the server which provides your internet service. The comparison would only, possibly, show the advantages of using different routings, if you can do that.
Using any Diffrent server offered by speetdest, gives me precisely the same result.

I get different speeds all the time.

For example.
I actually don't know what it means as far as my actual speeds go. I do know I'm happy with my cable service.