4 ms·

What I've concluded from measuring things on my home network is that my cheapo old router is actually only giving maybe a third of the download speed my ISP is

What I've concluded from measuring things on my home network is that my cheapo old router is actually only giving maybe a third of the download speed my ISP is providing me. I'd guess that is the case for a non-trivial subset of the population. And I mean I get ~15Mbps to my laptop when my connection gives me 50Mpbs, nowhere near something like gigabit which I'd guess is just an excuse for ISPs to fleece money out of people in all but a small minority of cases where people buy it. But also I have zero incentive to upgrade my router because the internet is "fast enough" for everything I need, even with only using a small fraction of the available bandwidth. Edit: Also to the headline of the article, my ISP doubled the base internet rate from 25Mpbs to 50Mpbs this year. So I guess the report lines up with my reality quite well.

hnuser123456 6y ago
Wow, I can't imagine being in your shoes at all. I would immediately go to the store and get a cheap semi-modern router for $50 to get my full ISP speeds, especially when missing 2/3 of it. Even a 10 year old 802.11n AP ought to be able to get you 50mbps at reasonable range.
- war1025 6y ago
  I probably should get a new router. It's sort of become low priority. The main signal issue is that our router is in the garage next to where our internet comes in. For a few weeks in the spring I was looking at setting up a wired network since all the phone jacks in our house are actually Cat5e cable that could be upgraded to ethernet jacks pretty easily. But then I also lost ambition for that idea. I did spend $20 a couple months ago to get a latest-generation wifi chip for my laptop, which I'd recommend to anyone since it's a trivial thing to upgrade and I never even realized the wifi chips were swapable. That improved my network speed by a factor of two I think.
  - war1025 6y ago
    For the record in case anyone goes back this far in the comments, this exchange did finally push me over the edge and I ordered a new router.
- rectang 6y ago
  For most non-techies, buying a router means hours of fiddling with an inscrutable setup ending in failure, then either giving up, or if you can afford it paying the Geek Squad to set things up for you. The advice I give most people is to use whatever the ISP provides, so that when things go south the ISP is on the hook for support.
  - Groxx 6y ago
    +1 here. Routers are absurdly more complicated, hard to fix, and full of brand new terminology to deal with than basically any other piece of normal house tech. Most should absolutely stick with their ISP's, as crappy as most of those devices are.
- c0nsumer 6y ago
  It may also be the cable modem. It's not uncommon at all for folks who own their own modems to have something that's so old spec that when they upgrade their service they don't get the speeds they are paying for. I had this happen... Bumped to 500/50 with Wide Open West and immediately went "...oh" then grabbed a new modem.
yostrovs 6y ago
I'm also completely satisfied by my mediocre internet speed. Video streaming, conferencing works. I don't torrent anymore. I just don't know what I need more bandwidth for. Curious to hear from those that do use the data bandwidth provided at 50mbps.
- jaaron 6y ago
  My measured speed at home is typically over 600 Mbs. Most (not all) of the house and devices are networked over ethernet. I'm super happy that we have all the bandswidth because on most days: - We have 2 adults working full time from home. We're in the entertainment/technology industry. We're streaming video calls and transferring massive files/repos _constantly_. One uses a remote desktop solution to get to their media workstation in the office regularly, requiring a low latency connection. - We have 2 children going to school from home (schools haven't reopened here), spending the day on either Zoom or on Netflix/video games. And then there's all the smartphones and other smart devices around the house regularly eating up bandwidth. I don't always need all that bandwidth, but when I do, it's crucially important.
- GauntletWizard 6y ago
  I often get better than 50Mbps, depending on the location in the house it can be 200. It's not about "What can you do", but "what don't you have to wait for". If I'm downloading a 100MB file, I don't look away or browse somewhere else - The 10 second it takes to download isn't enough to interrupt my concentration, while if you're on a "mere" 50 megabit connection you're waiting 40 seconds and your mind has wandered and you've walked away. Snappy is important. The more that's snappy, the better you're going to feel.
  - war1025 6y ago
    I guess I just very rarely download anything and if I do it's rare that it's over a few MB.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  I have 100mbps, and I sometimes wish it were faster. Mostly for downloading video games, honestly. Non-indie games these days are often in the tens of gigabytes, so, even on 100mbps they can take a while to download. And patches can be big, too. And then if it's both me and my son downloading a game to play together... I suppose work video calls with a dozen+ people in them probably take up a decent chunk of bandwidth as well, but I haven't checked closely.

hnuser123456 6y ago

Wow, I can't imagine being in your shoes at all. I would immediately go to the store and get a cheap semi-modern router for $50 to get my full ISP speeds, especially when missing 2/3 of it. Even a 10 year old 802.11n AP ought to be able to get you 50mbps at reasonable range.

war1025 6y ago
I probably should get a new router. It's sort of become low priority. The main signal issue is that our router is in the garage next to where our internet comes in. For a few weeks in the spring I was looking at setting up a wired network since all the phone jacks in our house are actually Cat5e cable that could be upgraded to ethernet jacks pretty easily. But then I also lost ambition for that idea. I did spend $20 a couple months ago to get a latest-generation wifi chip for my laptop, which I'd recommend to anyone since it's a trivial thing to upgrade and I never even realized the wifi chips were swapable. That improved my network speed by a factor of two I think.
- war1025 6y ago
  For the record in case anyone goes back this far in the comments, this exchange did finally push me over the edge and I ordered a new router.
rectang 6y ago
For most non-techies, buying a router means hours of fiddling with an inscrutable setup ending in failure, then either giving up, or if you can afford it paying the Geek Squad to set things up for you. The advice I give most people is to use whatever the ISP provides, so that when things go south the ISP is on the hook for support.
- Groxx 6y ago
  +1 here. Routers are absurdly more complicated, hard to fix, and full of brand new terminology to deal with than basically any other piece of normal house tech. Most should absolutely stick with their ISP's, as crappy as most of those devices are.
c0nsumer 6y ago
It may also be the cable modem. It's not uncommon at all for folks who own their own modems to have something that's so old spec that when they upgrade their service they don't get the speeds they are paying for. I had this happen... Bumped to 500/50 with Wide Open West and immediately went "...oh" then grabbed a new modem.

yostrovs 6y ago

I'm also completely satisfied by my mediocre internet speed. Video streaming, conferencing works. I don't torrent anymore. I just don't know what I need more bandwidth for. Curious to hear from those that do use the data bandwidth provided at 50mbps.

jaaron 6y ago
My measured speed at home is typically over 600 Mbs. Most (not all) of the house and devices are networked over ethernet. I'm super happy that we have all the bandswidth because on most days: - We have 2 adults working full time from home. We're in the entertainment/technology industry. We're streaming video calls and transferring massive files/repos _constantly_. One uses a remote desktop solution to get to their media workstation in the office regularly, requiring a low latency connection. - We have 2 children going to school from home (schools haven't reopened here), spending the day on either Zoom or on Netflix/video games. And then there's all the smartphones and other smart devices around the house regularly eating up bandwidth. I don't always need all that bandwidth, but when I do, it's crucially important.
GauntletWizard 6y ago
I often get better than 50Mbps, depending on the location in the house it can be 200. It's not about "What can you do", but "what don't you have to wait for". If I'm downloading a 100MB file, I don't look away or browse somewhere else - The 10 second it takes to download isn't enough to interrupt my concentration, while if you're on a "mere" 50 megabit connection you're waiting 40 seconds and your mind has wandered and you've walked away. Snappy is important. The more that's snappy, the better you're going to feel.
- war1025 6y ago
  I guess I just very rarely download anything and if I do it's rare that it's over a few MB.
TulliusCicero 6y ago
I have 100mbps, and I sometimes wish it were faster. Mostly for downloading video games, honestly. Non-indie games these days are often in the tens of gigabytes, so, even on 100mbps they can take a while to download. And patches can be big, too. And then if it's both me and my son downloading a game to play together... I suppose work video calls with a dozen+ people in them probably take up a decent chunk of bandwidth as well, but I haven't checked closely.