Edit: at risk of preemptively saying “solved” - disabling the QoS on the router bumped the desktop browser speedtest from the ~600 up to >950Mbps.
My internet plan with my ISP is for 1000 Mbps. This is far more than I need almost always, but it is what they say I am paying for. However, I can’t get any speed tests to read more than ~650 Mbps, which is around about what my old package was.
My router itself has a speedtest functionality and that is what I’m getting off of that. As I’m writing this post, I did a speedtest on my wired-in desktop and got ~590Mbps on speedtest.net.
One thought I had was that maybe the ethernet cables themselves are the limit. All of them say ‘cat5e’ (actually, just checked and the modem-to-router is cat6), though, which should be 1000Mbps, yea? I swapped out the cable from the modem to the router once and got the same speed with the new ethernet cable.
Maybe the router is just too weak? Well, I used iperf3 between two desktops that are both hardwired in and I got ~940 “Mbits/sec”. Unless I’m messing up the unit conversion (which I certainly am annoyed by the difference between “megabytes per second” and “megabits per second”), that is the 1000Mbps that I’d expect to max out the ethernet cables. So, since those two machines are going through the router, it doesn’t seem that the router is the bottleneck for my speed to the great outdoors.
The modem? The modem’s specsheet says it can do 2.5Gbps (well, actually I assume there is a funny typo - it says “10/100/1000/2500 Gbps RJ-45 port”, but I don’t think it is doing 2.5 terrabytes/bits per second). The little led on the modem is lit up the color for “an ethernet device is connected at 2500 Mbps”.
So, should I start hassling my ISP about my missing 350 Mbps? Is there some other obvious thing I should test before I hassle them? I certainly don’t want them to say “have you turned it off and on again”? (once I wrote that, I did go and unplug the modem and router, stand around for 30 seconds, and then plug in the modem and then the router. after I did that, I got one speedtest from the router at 820Mbps, and then the next two tests are back to ~550).
Edit: I do not have fiber, I have a coax cable coming into the house. The person trying to sell me fiber said “your current internet is shared with the neighbors”.
Let’s back up just a moment - is there an issue you’re trying to diagnose, like bad lag, packet drops, excess ping, etc.?
If not, then don’t worry about the speeds too much unless you feel like you’re being overcharged.
That is the correct question, and mostly no, I don’t have any specific problem.
The biggest motivator for me looking at it is probably just hobby/interest/how-does-this-work.
That said, my partner and I both work from home ~50% and are often pulling files/data that are a couple GB from the work network, and having those go faster would be nice. Probably the limiting factor in those, though, is the upload from the work network and so faster download for us likely wouldn’t matter, but I’d like to be able to say “I looked into it, honey.”
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there will be some bandwidth aggregation, so the speed is perfectly fine from the contract point of view.
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second, 1 gbps on network layer is not 1 gbps on application layer. in other words, only part of the data that you download are actual useful data - there is some overhead.
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at such speed, there is no such thing as “internet speed”. there is speed to specific source at the specific time. your provider can only guarantee so much. your source being able to push data to you at the speed your last mile might be able to receive them is not among the guaranteeable.
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complaining that your internet only does 650 mbps really is first world problem.
What’s your situation into the wall? Depending on country/ISP/regulations they might give you up to 1000 Mbps under the assumption that it’s a single line going to a single user, however quite often that line is shared with potentially a lot of different customers.
Some countries allows you to buy packages where you have a standalone line going to your wall, however at an additional cost
I’ve got a coax cable (not fiber) coming into the house, in the USA. My understanding is that there is some amount of shared network with the neighbors.
test it early morning when your neighbor peeps are sleeping (or bulk traffic torrenting - QoS usually knocks them back down pretty quickly). at the least you are looking for rock solid ping times. if pings are wild your link or the community bandwidth is possibility saturated.
Sounds like you might just be max’ing out the capacity of the coax cable as well (depending on length/signal integrity). E.g. ITGoat (not sure how trustworthy this webpage is, just an example) lists 1 Gbps as the maximum for coax while you would typically expecting less than that, again depending on your situation (cable length, material, etc)
99.9% of the time, you’ll never get the FULL speed possible from an ISP, you’re just paying for the expected capability. The last mile of delivery to where your house is connected is generally the limiting factor, then the network type at the handoff.
Example:
- if you ordered fiber, that’s a direct handoff to you, so you’ll be getting a guaranteed circuit speed of whatever you pay for (but not always the FULL speed for other limiting factors).
- if you ordered coax cable, you’re generally going to be on a shared circuit with your neighbor, and the more connections at the handoff means less bandwidth for you. If 5 homes all use tons of traffic constantly, your metered speed will always be less than what you’re max potential speed is.
So the best way to test yours is just any old bandwidth testing platform, like speedtest.net or whatever, that has a testing endpoint close to your home.
Now, your bandwidth test may say 650mbps, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be getting that at all from every place on the Internet. It depends on how close whatever you’re talking to is, and what THEIR max speed is. Any network noise or obstacles in the way to you obviously slow things down, just like your travel between two places by driving.
Edit: on your router, that means the ENTIRE switch on all ports can do 2.5Gbps, not each port. Coax can’t even go faster than 1Gbps on Docsis 3.0, and 3.1 is 2.5Gbps max in lab conditions.
In Canada from what I’ve seen it’s most often than not +5-10% over the speed you’re paying for. For example with a 400mbps plan you will get about 450 when plugged in
is something already pushing 300Mbps worth of traffic across the router? speed tests that are good at power cycle, but quickly deteriorate after, can sometimes indicate that you have unaccounted for traffic crossing a bandwidth limited i/f (your ISPs service).
check your router stats for the missing traffic.
edit: also, almost all ISPs have a “burst bucket” for quick but intensive bursts of traffic. you get super speed for a few seconds while your bucket fills up. once full/overcommitted, your ISP starts rate limiting your service again. that may be why you get nice initial speeds, but they drop off quickly. does your ISP give burst speeds and sustained speeds in its terms of service contract on your kids?
that makes sense, and I’m looking now. However, the only thing that has anything other than zero in the ‘Real-time rate’ on the router is the computer i’m typing this on, which is at ~30KB/s up and down
if you really want a deep dive (cuz your post suggests that), fire up wireshark on a speed test PC and capture the traffic while you test. look for out-of-order, missing and corrupted packets. you will also get awesome stats on the traffic - wireshark is your best friend. be warned, this is the entrance to the rabbit hole.
edit: because at some point you are going to want to slide wireshark between the cable modem and your router - for general troubleshooting (and funsies!) then things get interesting as you figure out how to do that properly.
LibreSpeed is harder for your ISP to add to QoS filters.
going to librespeed.org got me 482 down
