Internet speed-what's yours? What problems? Help out please

Problems, problems, problems*

Someone here started me on speedof.me as a better speed test place. And some interesting things happen-namely huge speed brief speed drops, upload or download. Is this normal? And sometimes, the tests just hang and do not complete at all.
[OK, can someone primer me how to link from imgur.com? They seem to have changed something, I can't see where to grab the link that will actually display here. Or I'm not uploading correctly...???
speedof_me MacBook Air 09252020 807am ]

*just like the song, though hopefully not as bad as
"slash wrist, scarlet fever, crawled under your bathroom door
Pumping arteries ooze their problems through the gap that the razor tore
You've got venom in your stomach, you've got poison in your head"

 

Mine



It's kind of slow right now.

M~

 

If you have a DSL connection you need to be under 2 miles from the equipment hut that services your home. I am 2 1/2 miles away and have all kind of problems with slow speeds and dropouts. That would be the first thing I investigated when trying to solve speed issues.

 

Here's yours.



M~

 

D/L is a little slow as the kids are both in virtual school at the moment.

 

I prefer fast.com . I have FIOS 1GB service. I was having spotty trouble throughout the house. I recently bought WiFi 6 Orbi setup from Costco. I configured it to use Google DNS servers.

All my internet troubles disappeared with the Orbi and I never think about it anymore.

 

I get around 500 M down thru ethernet and wireless varies but is definitely under 100M. It's fine for my purposes. (Google Fiber- and cheap, not bundled with any other service).
When I lived in metro NY, I was streaming movies through Vudu which was one of the early higher definition streaming platforms. At the time, I got internet from the cable company. I had problems with buffering and disconnecting. The tech at Vudu looked down the pipe from his end and said you've got more than adequate speed, bandwidth, whatever, but occasionally, there would be these dropouts- and those were enough to cause the signal to go into a tailspin and cause the player to buffer and jam. I switched to a fiber optic into home type provider (Verizon Fios) and those problems largely went away.
Plus, my understanding of those speed tests is that it pings using a small packet of data which doesn't represent real world demands for consistency of signal. Please correct any misuse of terminology. I'm not a geek, but more of a crash test dummy for computer related issues.

 

Have you taken this up with Customer Service at your ISP?

 

I think it's normal for that site, at least. I got the same thing, yet I've never had significant problems with downloads, watching movies, or streaming audio.

There are dozens of those speed-testing services, and each one gives a different answer.

 

Most people problems at home are more a function of wireless home network coverage (i.e. your wifi) than ISP speeds.

Most consumer electronics don't need or use nearly the ISP capacity coming into their house.

In one of my rooms I get 3 to 4 Mbps download using the same speed tests as above but it is wired and I don't have any problems with Netflix or Amazon video streaming. Any download time difference in downloading music or torrenting is probably offset by a bathroom break. Or two.

At a condo I have I can sometimes see 7 or 8 different wireless networks broadcasting into my apartment. I am more concerned about that than the ISP.

 

I think that's why a member here suggested speedof.me. I'd be curious if y'all can run speedof.me please, and see if you get the same kind of drops.

I don't have obvious big problems like I used to, but maybe the high speed is now masking that. I gotta upload more pictures-the tests vary, and not-so-infrequently totally hang and don't complete. Also on my iPhone over WiFi. Haven't tried wired Ethernet, I think I'll order a cable for comparison.

 

Thanks-how did you do that? I used to right-click in imgur and could grab and actual location link, that doesn't work now.

 

Hmpf, I probably know more than they do, unless elevated. I don't have obvious problems like I used to* before 5 technician visits eventually found miswiring at the neighborhood box, and 6th found a bad splice under my house causing a problem to the whole neighborhood.
(a) I'm trying to find more data to see if I even HAVE a problem
(b) I'm just a curious guy
Maybe I should troll YouTubby for advanced WiFi explanatory videos.

*like this:

 

Holy smokes - a 940 mbps upload.... what are you doing that requires that speed for upload??

 

That is like a mesh setup? How far apart can you put them? I'd like to cover my front yard, and behind my garage better.

 

Mines a land cable line.
Sometimes I'll get hic-ups if a bunch of neighbors are gagging the hub.

 

The upload IS crazy fast-are you on fiber? Or what is the setup? Secret Illuminati crystal quantum subspace ansible relay?

 

Head unit - a lot of things can impact a speed test --- the ISP promises the speed to the point of delivery, for instance in my case that would be to the cable modem.

What's going on behind the cable modem (ie your house set up) can impact what speed is seen at any node / computer, etc ---- for instance again, in my case, I have a router attached to the cable modem, which is delivering to a 10 port switch, which serves as a homerun for four different data ports in other rooms, plus two access points in my main area and shop and also two desktops and other gear on that switch in the main room (a virtual data center LOL).

So at any given time, if my son is doing heavy duty gaming, the other is on a zoom call, my wife is downloading things, etc a speed test at my laptop via the access point in my front room might (and will) be degraded. But I have gigabit HW throughout, good routers / access points, and hardwire the ethernet first where ever possible, wifi only if it is necessary. For instance I don't run my routers meshed, the access points are hardwired on different channels. But still unless everything else is quiet, I will get degraded speed at my laptop.

Point being, have you eliminated that it might be something in your setup, and plugged directly into the source (like the cable modem) to see if you're still getting degraded speeds, hanging, etc? Realize sometimes it also can be an issue with the ISP wiring outside, like a cable got nicked, etc.

 

Mine looks similar. Spectrum Cable, direct ethernet connection to router.

 

This is on Fios, fiber, cat6 hardwire to the router. Fast.com gives me about the same but speedof.me is all over the place on each run.

 

i have good speeds when connected directly via Ethernet cable but wifi can be all over the place, even using 5G. i had to get a wifi extender which helped in some parts of the house but its still such a huge difference between being connected directly vs wifi. for example, connected directly i get 300-350 mbps but wifi might be 30-50 or 20-50 or 50-70.

 

Here in Rural Lincolnshire in the UK ran the test yesterday

Download 9.84 MBPS

Upload 0.52 MBPS

yes mega slow compared to what i'm seeing on here but thats actually quite good ...my Broadband tops out at Download 12 MBPS and Upload at 1.0 MBPS .... and the UK Gov says that the broadband in rural england isn't holding back business or education but those speeds are the best i can get as there is NO fibre to the village i live in ...i can drive 10 miles to McDonalds (in a large town) and get faster on their wifi ... what a joke ....the test is always run cable attached as the wifi is often too slow to work as the upload times out i think

So can anyone get slower ????

 

Using speedof.me, mine has a lot of troughs just like yours.

 

I can vouch for the Orbis better coverage. My house has wire mesh in the walls for the plaster and I needed the Main Base Station and 2 Satellites to cover my 1,400 sq. ft. (130 sq. M) single story ranch with regular WiFi. The outside walls had a layer of foil face insulation after being resided, which kept the signal confined to the house unless you were right at the outside wall. I had to add a 3rd Satellite in my kitchen to send the signal out to my grills which used WiFi remote read thermometers/pit controllers. Last December I switched to mesh WiFi with an Orbi and it made a huge difference. All I needed was the main Router and 1 Satellite. I get stronger signal strength both inside and outside the house with just two devices.