what gives with internet download speeds even for fast services?

For those using DSL and are on hardwire to their homes, it depends on how far you are from the central office of your provider. Those on DSL fiber it doesn't matter. My nephew works for a phone company and could run fiber to my sisters but doesn't want to bother. The other reason fiber is much better is you don't get corroded wires that mess up you internet some times. Nice this about having a nephew that does that kind of work is your get priority service

 

Gigabit Cable speed here for download and this is normal! Upload is Max 50Mbps.

 

The thing is there's so many variables. I recently did some looking around about this and I wouldn't put it past my ISP to do that, but then again, google keeps changing the rules and how they actually serve a given video. Also it can depend on how close the said video is as they place them on any of their many worldwide servers. One might be fine the next one not. It can be how many people are accessing said video, how busy your ISP is like others have mentioned, when the kids get home from school. I've certainly seen this to be true. I've also noticed a lack of consistency. For example, you used to be able to let videos "load" (that grey line would go to the end) so you didn't get the dreaded buffering while playing. People have said this no longer works (beyond about 3minutes) and I've found that to be true MOSTLY, but strangely on occasions it still works.

Back to the ISP, well recently I inadvertently went over my cap and I know for a fact things slowed down dramatically even though I got charged in full for the extra GBs. Last time I looked there was a clause that is equivalent to them "throttling" you if you consistently are a high user or something. Typical open ended stuff that doesn't say anything definite so they can throttle you when they want.

 

Mmm I'm thinking of doing the same. Yes I think all those silly useless fb photos must clog up the works causing massive bottlenecks for sure. Of course the PTB and any hanger-ons will drool over every pixel they can to co-relate it to something else.
Edited to add: just think of how much bandwidth would be saved if we got rid of ridiculous malware infested ads that some of us never have and never will click on anywayz.

 

Don't forget it's Megabits per second not Megabytes per second. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units

 

One thing that helps me is to check the wifi channel in my router to make sure I am getting the best performance. I use an app on my phone to test which one is best.

 

Like the fiber plan boredog was commenting about and my own ISP is been outfitting certain areas with just that, except for mine yet

A lot of bandwidth goes straight down the drain because of all those mobile devices slamming some local towers (not many to begin with here) in the nervy grips of
of them and just like you say who knows how much crapwares they load up with and it's off to the races with even more bandwidth draining junk. Ugh

 

Yes, this is a question I've been asking myself about that 1Gb service. As you've discovered, the speed is highly variable from site to site. With the exception of Steam games and some torrents, at 100Mb+ I notice very little difference from when it was was 30Mb. At least the speed tests can tell you if it's an issue with the ISP rather than the site. BTW, I recommend DSLReports' speed test, which uses different servers and also tests for bufferbloat: http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest

And just wait until net neutrality gets the axe. You'll have yet another variable to consider.

 

wireless speed is worse. with the wireless via speedtest it shows me less then 10 meg/sec download while wired testspeed is around 100meg/sec. Thats a bummer. So many freaking things designed to make the internet slow that I do not get it.

Everything is against us I guess. Browsers, sites, wireless, etc. designed to make it slow. What good is having 100 or 1000 megs/sec speed when you get 1/10th of that for downloading and etc..

I wonder why is wireless so slow even for pc being near modem Atleast it should give 1/2 to 3/4 of the normal wired speed or even 1/3 but not 1/10th?

 

Same here. What used to zoom has now slowed to a crawl in a manner of speaking. I almost got so frustrated a few times as to say the heck with local internet services and I'll just use Library wireless on occasion.

It's really thrown a monkey wrench into the whole web thing too, from the channeling of net passages no doubt through filters (from whoever) to websites that transitioned over to this so called new pages format (supposedly for security purposes) but it's worse than ever now.

You have to add every Ad Block AddOn that you can find that works only to render web pages either empty or a total mess. I just as soon read them in text like Windows 95 than all the crud they cram into websites these days. Interruptions galore and in-your-face junk either taunting or trying to sell you something.

You're right, everything is against us. Gumming up the works while wasting tons of bandwidth on landfill crud.

It's like a breath of fresh air visiting sites that were popular on Windows 95-98 that are still online that are so orderly with simple to read patterns and best of all if there are ads they are stationary.

 

I reckon we're seeing many more bottle necks becasue more people are online now, but much worse, the inordinate desire and flurry toward seeing who can be first to shove ads down our necks. Thankfully my XP box is pretty snappy. If I see any ads at all it's rare. I agree, when you want to just read something why the heck do we want to see all this other useless excess baggage. As I keep saying, ads just DONT work on me... so ....

 

I know. It's just so crazy anymore. I mean plenty of sites fashion up their setups to gear traffic to theirs by a single click from all the someone's someplace and then take credit for the increase of visits through those little detour methods or what have you to justify their (whatever).

Am still looking for a decent extra beefed up lappy so I can once again enjoy XP myself. Had mine snappy as well and secure as a bug in a rug.

Jumped straight over to 8/8.1 and am probably one of the few with no complaints about it since I doctored it up with all my XP goodies that would work, etc.

The 64 bit file format sort of constrained things for me with patchguard and other matters where some of those HIPS would no longer work but have taken that in stride and adjusted to newer programs which are compatible of course to take their place.

Done a lot of Flash development locally to automate things and thank goodness those are still as useful on Windows 10 for me.

Without Flash I think i would give up computers.

 

Are there any test sites analogous to downloading EICAR. But to see true download speed from a site that's not bottle necked.

 

I don't see that here. my wireless usually tests about the same as wired. I have (supposedly) 60 mbps down 5 up, usually tests 55 to 75, but yes overall I do see slowdowns too, but not necessarily with wireless. BTW, I had copper cable buried 3 feet down in a pvc pipe and after 13 years is was crapped. cable guy said it has a life of about 10 years. he was able to run the new cable thru my pvc with just a little help from me. waiting for fiber. a long wait here. Ontario looking good! Max I could "upgrade" to is 100 mbps, but gee ISP wants $40 more a month, doubt it's worth it. Another site to try is speedof.me

 

There could be dozens of reasons. You need to perform a very complex, methodical set of tests to determine your network quality. This includes multiple providers, multiple modems and routers, multiple network setups (wired, wireless, mtu, firewall rules), your hardware, operating system, software you use, times of day when you test, sites you use to test, size of test packages, protocols, etc.

Bottom line, if your network sucks below allocated rates, it's usually your ISP giving your the gyp.

Mrk

 

Yup. Has less to do with your hardware than with ISP's hardware upstream - how much throughput it can deliver. And that's usually less than advertised.