High speed/ping test but slow internet
MegDamien
Enthusiast - Level 2

So for the past few months or so, I've noticed an extreme decrease in the speed of my internet--so bad to the point where I had to take the Wifi off my phone and my apps all began working again once I got onto 4G. I currently have the 25/5 dl/ul package, which I used to get quite often, but nowadays it seems that I'm lucky to get dialup modem performance.

So I went to a few places just to test my speed:

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3204262360

And I tested my ping too:

http://www.pingtest.net/result/91283013.png

So when I went searching the internet for anythign related to this topic, people were saying to restart/unplug the router and restart my computer, which I've done a few times. I've remoted into the router and checked the devices that are all currently connected to the router and they're all fine--even turned them off to see if one of them was sucking some serious bandwidth out of the router but to no avail.

I saw a few pages about changing the DNS server so I did that, changing it to 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. Nothing happened.

I have McAfee Firewall and I'm usually pretty good about checking for suspicious incoming connections but I don't see a lot of activity. I don't have anything running in the background that would be sucking bandwidth like bittorrent or something similar.

I don't know what else to try at this point. I've got excellent signal strength on my PC and every test I run says I should be downloading things quickly, but youtube videos never go to HD quality and always take forever to load.

Please help. Any questions/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

0 Likes
Re: High speed/ping test but slow internet
eljefe2
Master - Level 1

A few thoughts for starters....

One thing I like to do is keep DU Meter running.  That way I'm always aware of how much bandwidth up or down anything on my PC's are using.   http://www.hageltech.com/dumeter/about

You mention strong signal....is your computer connected via wifi or Ethernet?  If wifi...it's always a good troubleshooting step to turn off wifi and connect via Ethernet cable to see if the slow speed problems are wifi related.  

If you are currently using wifi and when you connect via Ethernet it doesn't seem to help, you might try turning off wifi in your router to elimnate the possiblity that someone else nearby is connected to your SSID and using your bandwidth.

You might also temporarliy disable McAfee to see if that makes any difference on web site where you're seeing slow performance.  It's possible that a McAfee update did something that is causing a negative impact on your performance.

0 Likes
Re: High speed/ping test but slow internet
chv108
Newbie

I like the idea of the DU Meter and will start running that.  

In the meanwhile, my understanding of speed tests has always been that they are able to screen for the effects of local processing delays such as local LAN configuration or software firewalls.  When I first got FIOS in 2011 I tested with dslreports.com and my resulsts exactly matched the basic 25Mbs down/5Mbs up FIOS services.  For the past few months we've noticed slow downloads with a variety of providers (Intuit, Netflix, etc.) so I just tested my speeds using both Verizion's and a 3rd party's tests.  Amazingly, the Verizon test shows I am getting the correct speeds, but the 3rd party test shows only 4,086Kbps download speed -- or 20% of what Verizon is charging me.  I checked Verizon's support site for guidance, and all they offer is to reboot or replace the router, so I've raised the question with them by e-mail but have no idea how helpful they will be.

Is there any recourse when a major provider like Verizon is not delivering their promised service level to a residence?

Thanks,

John IT Guy

0 Likes
Re: High speed/ping test but slow internet
eljefe2
Master - Level 1

I suggest you run a test at www.speedtest.net to see what kind of results you get outside of Verizon's network.

However, any speedtest is only a look at connection speeds over a very short period of time.  When it comes to streaming videos, or other longer data streams, there's much more involved.

There have been numerous threads on the forum discussing why Netflix streaming may be less than optimal.  This post in a long discussion about that subject may be informative:  http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-Internet/Netflix-is-slow-lately-on-FIOS/m-p/664951#M44031 

0 Likes