Speed tests check out ok, but upload consistently slower than expected
Fibular
Enthusiast - Level 2

I've had a 20/20 FIOS plan for about a year and just upgraded to 35/20 and couldn't be happier with my download speeds.  They are consistently right on the money from all sources.  With the latest speed bump I can download the Eve Online client at 4.2MB/s!

However, my real world upload speeds seem to fall short.  Both up/down check out fine (in fact better than expected) with Speedtest.net, but in real world usage it seems no matter where I upload to, or what I use to transfer files with, I never get better than about 1.1MB/s (~8Mpbs) upload.  Note, the destinations usually have very consistent 30Mbps download capability and the programs I've used include FTP, ICQ, MSN, Fotki (photo sharing website), etc.  Even assuming massive protocol overhead I can't seem to account for the disparity between what Speedtest.net says and what I actually see, or why the brick wall seems to be around the same rate no matter the method.

I've tried this with multiple computers on my home network, all with the suggested registry tweaks installed, and all with the same brick wall.  The other sources have confirmed Speedtest.net uploads of 5Mpbs (625KB/s) and I can recieve from them at nearly this speed. 

I'm not a big file sharer or anything, so I shouldn't be triggering any bad behavior based throttling and it's been like this since day 1 just fine, ruling out very massive protocol overhead.  Most people I see with speed problems seem to see the issue with the speed tests, so I wonder if anyone else has noticed this.  Is Verizon possibly throttlling upload for anything other than Speedtests?

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Re: Speed tests check out ok, but upload consistently slower than expected
spacedebris
Master - Level 2

@Fibular wrote:

I've had a 20/20 FIOS plan for about a year and just upgraded to 35/20 and couldn't be happier with my download speeds.  They are consistently right on the money from all sources.  With the latest speed bump I can download the Eve Online client at 4.2MB/s!

However, my real world upload speeds seem to fall short.  Both up/down check out fine (in fact better than expected) with Speedtest.net, but in real world usage it seems no matter where I upload to, or what I use to transfer files with, I never get better than about 1.1MB/s (~8Mpbs) upload.  Note, the destinations usually have very consistent 30Mbps download capability and the programs I've used include FTP, ICQ, MSN, Fotki (photo sharing website), etc.  Even assuming massive protocol overhead I can't seem to account for the disparity between what Speedtest.net says and what I actually see, or why the brick wall seems to be around the same rate no matter the method.

I've tried this with multiple computers on my home network, all with the suggested registry tweaks installed, and all with the same brick wall.  The other sources have confirmed Speedtest.net uploads of 5Mpbs (625KB/s) and I can recieve from them at nearly this speed. 

I'm not a big file sharer or anything, so I shouldn't be triggering any bad behavior based throttling and it's been like this since day 1 just fine, ruling out very massive protocol overhead.  Most people I see with speed problems seem to see the issue with the speed tests, so I wonder if anyone else has noticed this.  Is Verizon possibly throttlling upload for anything other than Speedtests?


Actually Verizon is one of the few that do not monitor or throttle your bandwidth usage so that wont be the issue. Your likely running into an issue with the other end. Most hosting sites tend to limit the amount of bandwith associated with their reception due to most people do not have much upload capibility. Most people can now get lots of download but not much in the upload so that is the way most web sites are geared. They can let you download nearly as fast as you can take it but the average upload ability of most in the US is still less than 5Mbs so most sites still limit their upload to between 5-10Mbs. This will likely change as internet speeds get faster, but for right now, those of us with the massive uploads are seeing that we are actually faster than a lot of the businesses out there.

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Re: Speed tests check out ok, but upload consistently slower than expected
Fibular
Enthusiast - Level 2

@spacedebris wrote:

@Fibular wrote:

I've had a 20/20 FIOS plan for about a year and just upgraded to 35/20 and couldn't be happier with my download speeds.  They are consistently right on the money from all sources.  With the latest speed bump I can download the Eve Online client at 4.2MB/s!

However, my real world upload speeds seem to fall short.  Both up/down check out fine (in fact better than expected) with Speedtest.net, but in real world usage it seems no matter where I upload to, or what I use to transfer files with, I never get better than about 1.1MB/s (~8Mpbs) upload.  Note, the destinations usually have very consistent 30Mbps download capability and the programs I've used include FTP, ICQ, MSN, Fotki (photo sharing website), etc.  Even assuming massive protocol overhead I can't seem to account for the disparity between what Speedtest.net says and what I actually see, or why the brick wall seems to be around the same rate no matter the method.

I've tried this with multiple computers on my home network, all with the suggested registry tweaks installed, and all with the same brick wall.  The other sources have confirmed Speedtest.net uploads of 5Mpbs (625KB/s) and I can recieve from them at nearly this speed. 

I'm not a big file sharer or anything, so I shouldn't be triggering any bad behavior based throttling and it's been like this since day 1 just fine, ruling out very massive protocol overhead.  Most people I see with speed problems seem to see the issue with the speed tests, so I wonder if anyone else has noticed this.  Is Verizon possibly throttlling upload for anything other than Speedtests?


Actually Verizon is one of the few that do not monitor or throttle your bandwidth usage so that wont be the issue. Your likely running into an issue with the other end. Most hosting sites tend to limit the amount of bandwith associated with their reception due to most people do not have much upload capibility. Most people can now get lots of download but not much in the upload so that is the way most web sites are geared. They can let you download nearly as fast as you can take it but the average upload ability of most in the US is still less than 5Mbs so most sites still limit their upload to between 5-10Mbs. This will likely change as internet speeds get faster, but for right now, those of us with the massive uploads are seeing that we are actually faster than a lot of the businesses out there.


Thanks for the reply.

Yup, I think you are right about the photo sharing services, etc. and in fact those usually are slower than that upload wall I usually hit.  However, I hit that 1.1MB/s limit all the time when sending large files to friends and family who are on consistently fast 30Mbps cable connections (Optimum Online).  So these aren't services per say and should have bandwidth to spare to support my upload speed.

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Re: Speed tests check out ok, but upload consistently slower than expected
spacedebris
Master - Level 2

yeah, your right. if you are sending files between users (p2p) and they have a 30Mbs download, then they should be able to take it from you just as fast as you can send it. So if you connect to another verizon user and you have 35/20 and they have 35/20 you should be able to see the transfer at 20Mbs.

The only thing that should hinder it at that point is limitations on the program or protocol being used.

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Re: Speed tests check out ok, but upload consistently slower than expected
Fibular
Enthusiast - Level 2

@spacedebris wrote:

yeah, your right. if you are sending files between users (p2p) and they have a 30Mbs download, then they should be able to take it from you just as fast as you can send it. So if you connect to another verizon user and you have 35/20 and they have 35/20 you should be able to see the transfer at 20Mbs.

The only thing that should hinder it at that point is limitations on the program or protocol being used.


Yup, which is why I'm wondering what is going on.  I simply can't believe that every single program or protocol I've tried has greater than 100% overhead, especially when the other folks send to me using the same programs at very near their rated upload speed of 5Mbps (I see very close to ~625KB/s in real world transfers from them).  At 20Mpbs upload I should be able to send to them at nearly 2.5MB/s and the most I ever see is around 1.1MB/s.

I suspect a bottleneck somewhere and it would be nice if someone from Verizon could chime in.  It seems like most people go strictly by what they see from Speedtest.net, speedguide.net, etc. and I don't think that tells the real story.  I wonder what most peoples' real world experiences are.

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Re: Speed tests check out ok, but upload consistently slower than expected
emc2guru
Newbie

Your throughput may be limited because of competition from other users internally and/or externally. It's possible that your upgrade will not effect file sharing. When dealing with most p2p and other similar networks this is only relevant if you have a very fast Internet connection therefore if your throughput was limited prior to your bandwidth upgrade no changes will be apparent.

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Re: Speed tests check out ok, but upload consistently slower than expected
spacedebris
Master - Level 2

I would think that there would be a bottle neck as well. the problem is that I dont know a way to actually test the bandwidth from one location to another. speed tests will test between you and their sight but wont tell you what the internet is actually doing. Now I do know that there are 3 bottle necks in the US. One in Chicago, one in Kansas City, and one in Dallas. But those only affect trasmissions from west coast to/from east coast. That would not affect any "local" connections. May or may not be part of this issue. for example. I'm in California and I know that if I'm sending traffic to Washington DC I go through Kansas City and hit the bottleneck. No matter what I do I cannot get away from that. But by the same token I can send traffic to Denver and not hit any bottlenecks at all.

Anyone know a way to actually check the throughput on a hop by hop basis. I know we can check pings but I dont know a way to check throughput from one location to another?

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Re: Speed tests check out ok, but upload consistently slower than expected
i_like_turtles
Contributor - Level 1

^^^^

u cant really judge it like that,

if I send information from TUC AZ to PHX AZ, that information is going to go through IND IN and probably LOS CA before it goes to PHX AZ

spacedebris ... google traceroute .... very cool stuff

also i think i seen a java app on pcworld.com that would do the same thing but graphically

But then again, if you're isp is closer to the actual tubes ( everyone knows the internet is a series of tubes lol ), or if there is a direct line from CA to CO you might not experience that as much.

Message Edited by i_like_turtles on 07-08-2009 01:41 PM
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Re: Speed tests check out ok, but upload consistently slower than expected
emc2guru
Newbie

The Switch Foundations Network Diagnostic Tool is going to provide you with the most accurate connection statistics but unless you're in a controlled internal network your throughput speed will never remain even remotely static. Switch is an academic telecomputing methodology research and development organization which networks Swiss Universities.  We are active partners within the Switch network at Carnegie Mellon and keep their NDT in our networking toolbox  .  There NDT completely breaks down and diagnoses your connection down to NAT translation.  Connections run through a live network statistically reporting tcp throughput speeds, limiting, network congestion internally and/or externally along with many other variables.

The NDT can be found at http://www.switch.ch/network/tools/ndt/

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