Poll: What’s your internet download speed?

[rodi]

I'm on spectrum/time warner. They are very clever in their marketing and tout "up to 50mbps downstream".

That's about what we get when the kids aren't home. When they're both online gaming if I run a speedtest it drops to about 20mbps.

We get about 20Mb up.

In theory they are going to run fiber to the home sometime in the semi-near future. I'm not holding my breathe... We still have cable trunks strung from telephone poles. The utility company was also supposed to underground utilities "soon". Last estimate on the utility underground had the project completed 3 years ago... They seem to have decided to skip our neighborhood.

Google fiber recently deployed webpass in San Diego - but it's only for buildings with 10 or more units. (We're technically a multifamily with our granny flat - but that makes us 2 units). Since they deployed this - I'm not optimistic they'll roll out google fiber to single family neighborhoods.

[RE2Boys]

For the past 5 years I had 15Mbps with Verizon DSL. When I requested an upgrade to my phone service, they noticed the 15 and said that the fastest speed they now offer is 3Mbps and downgraded the service. I was livid. So in December I chose the current "lesser of two evil empires" and switched phone and internet to Spectrum cable. Initially the service was 60Mbps but has been recently upgraded to advertised 100Mbps. Chose 60-100 though the last test came out 101.

[pb4uski]

50 mbps Performance Internet from Comcast/Xfinity. $69.95/month less service discount of $39.96 for a net of $29.99/month.

When we signed up in October it was 25 mbps but was recently upgraded to 50 mbps... sometimes when I test it it is more like 65 mbps. There is one test in the history that was 79 mbps.

[Senator]

At home, it's 50+ Mbps. Here in the RV park, it's ~4 Mbps.

[sengsational]

Google Fiber. I could have selected "gigabit" or "100/100". I figured even the latter was overkill for us, so picked that, even though gigabit was not too much more. I pay $50/mo. I'm not getting the promised speed:

[RunningBum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodi I'm on spectrum/time warner. They are very clever in their marketing and tout "up to 50mbps downstream". That's about what we get when the kids aren't home. When they're both online gaming if I run a speedtest it drops to about 20mbps.

Speed tests are intended to be run with very little traffic, because you share the bandwidth with everything else. You probably still are getting around 50mps when the boys are gaming. They are taking 30, you are getting the remaining 20. If you watch the meter while doing the test, it is probably choppy as sometimes they are using more.

My service advertised "up to 10" and I'm happy enough to get over 9.

[Texas Proud]

I pay for 25, but voted in the 30ish range...

But, my speed is usually above 60 and right now over 70....

[Major Tom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporateburnout Congratulations. You won the prize for the slowest Internet speed

I think I just snatched the prize from easysurfer. My connection tested at 1.27Mbps download and 2.76Mbps upload. Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu stream flawlessly here, though the picture quality isn't the best. That's OK, because it's all about the narrative anyway

[easysurfer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Major Tom I think I just snatched the prize from easysurfer. My connection tested at 1.27Mbps download and 2.76Mbps upload. Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu stream flawlessly here, though the picture quality isn't the best. That's OK, because it's all about the narrative anyway

With those numbers, you got me beat by about twice as slow .

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Major Tom I think I just snatched the prize from easysurfer. My connection tested at 1.27Mbps download and 2.76Mbps upload. Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu stream flawlessly here, though the picture quality isn't the best. That's OK, because it's all about the narrative anyway

Right, we had netflix when we were on DSL at 1.2 download, and it worked.
However to get HD quality you need 5 download or higher speed.
We did notice an improvement in Netflix quality and zero buffering once we changed to a fast speed.

[prototype]

Verizon FIOS Plan with 75/75 Mbs Internet. Have an old MI424WR Rev E Router that dribbles out a couple a photons a second (Verizon does not bill for the router, just the STB we have). I was seeing these "cheap, obsolete" routers on ebay at almost give away prices.

Can never quite get to even 20/20 at best on wireless with older PCs or brand newpc's, tablets, cell phones, even using only one device at a time.... (I imagine the encryption slows things down a bit). Roku 3 wireless works fine..have no idea how much speed that needs.

I connected my old laptop to router with ethernet cable I got low 80's both ways so Verizion is delivering as promised.

I've been bugging my partner (the account is in her name) to call verizon and redo things (they raised the package price $25 a few months ago when the two year contract expired).

I'm looking into getting a better wireless router unit that I can bridge over to from the POS router.

Also currently in major "nag mode" with my partner (the account is in her name) to call verizon and negotiate a better deal or dump Verizon and go with the alternative (Xfinity in my location). Or she can cancel (saying move out) and I call and start new service. We are renting, so I'm never sure how long we will be here (6 more months or 2 more years).

[MOSAT]

Currently averaging 400 - 600 Mbps as tested with various speed sites.

[btdt22]

Shame on me! I selected 250-500 mbps on your poll based on my providers input, but the speed test results showed I am actually getting around 150 mbps. I'm not sure I could tell the difference between 150 versus 250 mbps but never the less I lied on your poll.......shame on me.

[braumeister]

At least 230 down and 30 up, via Spectrum cable (aka Time Warner) for $80/month. I get at least 120/20 over wifi on my phone anywhere within the house. After struggling with rotten DSL for many years, this is wonderful.

[Pilot2013]

Just checked and mine was 57mbps. I looked online and Charter finally has faster speed available my area. I signed up and they are coming Monday to change to a 300mbps download plan.

We are on DIRECTNow and have occasional buffering. Hopefully this will alleviate that.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack I’m sure the ranges I’ve chosen fit some better than others, and some services are below and above the top and bottom, I tried.

Yes, lumping everything 10Mbps and below together is strange. I get ~ 5-6Mbps download speeds (fixed wireless), and as other's have reported, that's fine for streaming one, and often two videos at once, and a vOIP call - no/little buffering. Huge difference between that and dial-up, or many DSL connections - all of which are under 10 Mbps, but may be closer to 1.5 Mbps or less. And there are lots of different technologies use below 10 Mbps.

The difference to the end user trying to stream video with 1 Mbps versus 10 Mbps would be very, very significant. The difference between the ranges of 61-100 mbps and 101-250 mbps (unless you actually meant 'milli-bits per second? ) are probably not even noticeable in most cases.

Has anyone ever thought to do a 'pre-poll' post, to get feedback on the selections before they post the poll? Since the poster is looking for info, seems they are often in the dark about what selections are meaningful as well (not being critical here, that would just be part of the learning process). And once the poll is up and people start answering, it's too late to change it. And then we get a lot of grumbling (like me ) about the selections (though I do mean it to be constructive grumbling).

Quote:

Originally Posted by easysurfer A whopping 3.58 mbps. I have a very basic internet connection from Comcast. OTA otherwise .

Quote:

Originally Posted by easysurfer Surprised, but I actually can watch movies. without buffering, streaming with my Amazon FireTV device .

Quote:

Originally Posted by Major Tom I think I just snatched the prize from easysurfer. My connection tested at 1.27Mbps download and 2.76Mbps upload. Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu stream flawlessly here, though the picture quality isn't the best. That's OK, because it's all about the narrative anyway

Quote:

Originally Posted by easysurfer With those numbers, you got me beat by about twice as slow .

Yes, you might be kicked down to a lower res stream at those speeds, but still decent quality in most cases. You may notice some pixelation in scenes with a lot of action, that's where the compression has to kick in aggressively. That's why the differences at below 10 Mbps are important.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodi I'm on spectrum/time warner. They are very clever in their marketing and tout "up to 50mbps downstream". ...

I've probably posted this in the 'pet peeves' thread, but the only thing the wording of the statement "up to 50mbps downstream" really means is that they are telling you to never expect it to be faster than 50Mbps (and it's Mega-bits folks! Capital M. Millions, not thousandths, lower-case m = milli, 10^-3, thousandths!). And 1 Mbps fits the universe of "up to 50Mmbps downstream". So if you ever get 51 Mbps, call and complain!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack Part of the reason I'm asking, XFinity just "upgraded" our speed like all customers*, and so far performance has been noticeably worse. When I speed test** I am indeed getting the new nominal speed, but sites take longer to load, and there is definitely more buffering and low-res when we stream now. ... **I'm am a little leery of online speed tests, I assume the ISP recognizes speed tests and performs accordingly just for the test?

As others have said, test you ping times and dropped packets (goggle for instructions for your OS). Speed isn't the only factor, in many cases it's a very, very minor one compared to ping and packet loss. Once again, this is a 'weakest link in the chain' scenario.

I don't think the ISPs are playing games with the speed tests (but I guess they could - that was kind of part of the net neutrality issue, no? - but let's not go there.) But you can verify it by downloading a largish file from somewhere. You may be limited by their delivery bandwidth, but there are lots of sites that can provide a fast download. Just time it and the file size if you don't trust any built in measurements. That's where the rubber meets the road. A big file download may not be as affected by slow ping times as a web site though. Again, "it depends".

-ERD50

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pilot2013 Just checked and mine was 57mbps. I looked online and Charter finally has faster speed available my area. I signed up and they are coming Monday to change to a 300mbps download plan. We are on DIRECTNow and have occasional buffering. Hopefully this will alleviate that.

Unlikely, unless by coincidence.

What is the data rate of the streams you are trying to watch?... Wait a minute, from the source:

https://help.directvnow.com/hc/en-us...imal-streaming

Quote:

Below are the Internet download speed recommendations per stream for watching DIRECTV NOW: 150 Kbps - 2.5 Mbps - Minimum broadband connection speed for Mobile devices 2.5 - 7.5 Mbps - Recommended for HD quality We recommend a minimum of 12 Mbps for broadband connections to the home.

But then again... if you are getting 57 milli-bits per second...

No, 57 Mbps is several times above what DirectTV says you need. The buffering is probably due to something else (wi-fi connection?).

-ERD50

[mpeirce]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 I don't think the ISPs are playing games with the speed tests

One thing I've noticed is that I actually get higher speeds briefly. The speed test blips up, then settles down to the actual speed. I don't think this is buffering (could be something else I can't think of). But this behavior makes sense in that for most uses a quick burst of speed is what you want - to load a web page or similar activity for example. For long requests (movies, big files) they throttle back to the "real" speed. This is what I'd do if I wanted to provide good service and still not have to overbuilt all the infrastructure.

Note: for upstream, there is a buffering problem (lookup "buffer bloat"). And that shows a similar initial higher speed, then it evens out to the actual.

[mpeirce]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 No, 57 Mbps is several times above what DirectTV says you need. The buffering is probably due to something else (wi-fi connection?).

My DF has DirectTV Now and was having problems with it. He has fast internet - well over 50Mbps. It would work for a while, then freeze up.

I was at his house recently and various things pointed to his WiFi not providing consistent bandwidth to his Apple TV. He has an older WiFi router and there were a few walls between it and his Apple TV.

I noticed that he had an unused cable sitting next to his TV. His cable modem was in his office, so I moved it into his family room using the live cable there and was then able to connect his Apple TV to his cable modem using ethernet. Now his DirectTV Now is rock solid.

So it pays to make sure each link in the internet chain is working well for reliable streaming.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mpeirce One thing I've noticed is that I actually get higher speeds briefly. The speed test blips up, then settles down to the actual speed. I don't think this is buffering (could be something else I can't think of). But this behavior makes sense in that for most uses a quick burst of speed is what you want - to load a web page or similar activity for example. For long requests (movies, big files) they throttle back to the "real" speed. This is what I'd do if I wanted to provide good service and still not have to overbuilt all the infrastructure. ...

This was a very noticeable and consistent behavior on my fixed wireless ISP connection for years. I'd download a file, get 4-6 Mbps for maybe 3 seconds (watching my computer's network activity monitor), then it would drop down to 1-2 Mbps.

Like you say, that's fine for most of what we do - load a web page, a few seconds of the higher speed gets you there. But it was a bit of a pain downloading large files for computer installs/updates.

Over the years, I had a few problems with ping times and lost packets, and they were able to track it down to problems on their end. Each time, I think they also loosened up their throttling rules for me, just as a little more leeway against future problems, or as a 'comp' for past problems. And a few years back, the throttling seems to be completely gone. Most of their business is corporate accounts now, and I think residential is a small enough % that opening me up just was no problem for them. I'm still paying the same $29.99/month as I did when I first got it ~ 2004.

-ERD50