Cable Modem, Not as fast as I would have hopped...
 

Just switched from a DSL to a Cable modem because my phone company can't seem to keep my DSL up and running.

I got the 5mb speed and so far I've noticed a great improvement in speed. However, when I've downloaded something, it usually starts at 1 mb per second and stays there for a second for a second and then it immediately drops down (albeit slowly) to about 370 kbps. I've run my connection through a wireless router, but that shouldn't effect it that much.

I understand that different sites are going to have different download speeds depending on the speeds of the site's server, but I guess I just expected it to be faster, not 5mb but at least 1 or 2.

Am I doing something wrong? Is this just to be expected or should I call the cable company?

dont expect to get the 5mbit dl because that wont happen... not for a few years when i had cable it worked great for gaming but dling it was always 320 or less

It's to be expected, though I live in Australia so I don't know what a normal download speed is in the USA. The reason the download is fast at the start and then slows down is because the browser starts downloading the file while you're still choosing where to save it.

i'm running about 15 mb a second right now, and i have NEVER ever seen it top 2 mb. The thing is alot of servers cannot offer a 1mb upload. The only time i even get close is when i download stuff from M$.

hope this helps :-)

I have 6MB service from Wide Open West and Im currently downloading at 5.5-6.2MB/s according to DU meter. I am downloading torrents and stuff from EasyNews.com. Maybe I'm just lucky that I get what I pay for?

If your service is thru Comcast, then ya, you are prolly SOL. Not because they are a bad company, but because they are so freaking popular and EVERYONE has them. More people around you that has the same Cable Internet service, the slower your speeds will be.

Thank god I live around a bunch of people that use Comcast :). I think I am one of 5 people using W.O.W. within a block of my house.

I use comcast and only a few people near me have it, but it's nowhere near advertised speeds - but it's still good. Funny, the fastest DL speed I ever had was a very, very popular torrent. It was probably 2MB/s tops :D :D

Sorry though :(

hmm, i pay for 3 meg down, and i get 3 meg down, nearly all the time. just to be clear, your not uploading at the same time are you? cable needs to use some of the upstream to manage the downstream. if you are using bit torrent or something similar, you need to cap teh upload speed to around 75% of your upload.

also check the speeds on the modem.

to get to my modem, enter 192.168.100.1 in a web browser, i dont know what yours would be, but try this. i have a "signal tab" which has the value "Max Bit Rate" under it, one for upload, one for download. my cable company was ripping me off for a few months, i asked them to up my speeds and they started to charge me more for it, but they did not up the speeds (bastards). give this a try and see if you can get to your modems info page.

I ran a bandwith test on bandwith.com and the results were 4.5 Mbps download speed. So I guess it's just the sites I'm visiting that are slow.

It may not be just the sites. It's also going to be everything in between you and the server. You will probably cross 2-4 different networks getting to your destination.

From where I am, I hit 4 different networks to get to flounder.tfproject.org.

Remember, too, you share connection with your neighbors if they also subscribe to cable services. Most of my neighbors are satellite owners. I don't remember what the figures off hand but my dl/ul speeds are quite fast.

I have Cox Cable, the 4Mps service, ive only gotten up to 1 meg from a site tops, and torrents max out at 500k/s-600k/s, it sucks but it's what I've come to expect.

don't forget to pop over to dslreports.com and run their tweak test. It might give you some pointers to speed you up.

Also, your speed might be limited by your ethernet connection, or (urk) USB, depending on how your setup is. Many modems only have 10Mb/s output (about one megabyte per second)

And on a completely unrelated note, I just bought a mac mini and now have a wireless network in my house. I rock.

Also make sure you are not confusing 5mb/sec with 5MB/sec as they are vastly different. Your 5mb/sec cable modem will max out around 560K/sec when downloading, this is not a problem as that is what it should be doing. People often get confused on rated speeds. 5megaBITS ~ 560 Kilobytes per second. 5 megaBYTES ~ 5600 Kilobytes per second. Your cable modem is rated in megaBITS. IE shows download speed in Kilobytes so ~500K/sec would be a top end speed. You will see 1MB/sec when it first starts because your pc and the server are trying to establish what speed they can safely communicate at. Downloads will always start higher than they end up downloading at.

Hope this helps

*Edit* One other thing i forgot to mention is that 10mb ethernet can easily handle a 5mb cable connection. Theoretically it could handle up to probably 8-9mb cable connection but i wouldnt push it past about 7 and expect it to maintain that.

Mike

Yeah, check out www.dslreports.com they have speed tools and reviews of the various providers from all over.. Also tweaks to make it "faster"..

I have Comcast and I get close to their advertised speed..

Damn it bendsley, now you've got me running tracerts (4 networks in 9 hops to get to catfish.tfproject.org, not counting my local network).

And this would be a second for dslreports.com. The most useful site for broadband connections by far.

Thanks for pointing that out. I knew broadband speeds were measured in bits but I guess I didn't realize that your browser shows downloads in bytes.

The little-b/big-B confusion isn't helped by misuse in software and online publications. It's to the point one can only be certain through experience with each source.

Yep. Many magazines (even popular ones like Wired, Computer Gaming World, etc.) say megabits constantly when they're actually referring to megabytes. This doesn't help the understanding at all. I've had many teachers say that newer computers have 512 megabits of RAM, etc. It's truly frightening how big of a confusion can happen when people interchange bit and byte.

The other guys are correct -- cable and DSL connections are measured in megabits 99% of the time while browsers report the actual download speed in bytes.

-Lasereth

Also, if you are using Win XP SP2 then that could be a bit of the problem, as Microsoft in their infinite wisdom lessened the ports open in their IE browswers, however, you can get around this (you take a bigger risk of spyware/viruses, etc).

I used Comcast when I stayed with a friend last year and I will tell you that they seem to be slower than Cox. I started out with Cox a few years ago, and have them again, now, and I get damn close to the speeds when I'm just uploading or just downloading, but if my computer is doing other things or I'm surfin' the web, then I get only decent speeds.

I've used Comast for about 4 years now. Well, at first it was ATTBI but then Comcast. It was blazingly fast but unpredictable at times, especially during a clan match for the title on Tuesday STA matches. I'd be in the game shooting fools then.....drop. Since going to DSL I'm no where near the speed I was with Comcasts' 4mb service but the connection has been VERY reliable. Yes, every now and then I'll get a connection problem while playing BF2 but it has always almost immediately gotten me back in the game even before I loose control of a plane or chopper I'm flying.

In other news related, SC2005 goes off in November of this year and we'll see if another company set a new world record for data transfer, surpassing the SC2004 record of 101 gigabits per second. To put that into perspective, that's the equivalant of transmitting the entire Library of Congress in 15 minutes!!

Here is a screen shot from dumeter on my home pc. Suppost to be a 3mb connection...
Seems I am getting over 7 megabits this morning, normaly closer to 5
http://www.wk.net/steveng/dumeter.jpg
btw the number on the side is the max rate, and the rate for the line drawn at toward the top

it comcast standard cable connection

downloads are from micrsoft a 7 and a 12 mb file