dynamo52 writes "I am a freelance network admin who mainly services small business clients. Over the last few months, I have been noticing that anytime I have run any type of bandwidth testing for clients with Comcast accounts, the results have been amazingly fast; with some connections, Speakeasy will report up to 15Mbps down and 4Mbps up. Of course, clients get nowhere near this performance in everyday usage.
Upon further investigation, it appears that Comcast delivers this bandwidth only for a few seconds after any new request and it is immediately throttled down. The only way to get any type of accurate estimates are to actually download and upload a significantly large file (100MB+). Doing so yields results more in line with expectations (usually about 1.2Mbps down and about 250Kbps up but it varies).
My main question is this: Is there any valid reason Comcast would front load transfers in this way, or is it merely an effort to prevent end users from being able to accurately assess their bandwidth? Also, does anybody know of other ISPs that use similar practices? This can be quite annoying when trying to determine whether a small client really needs to switch over to a T1 or if their current ISP will suffice."
This discussion was created for logged-in users only, but now has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
While the advantages for faking out your speed test are there, the burst is likely because web pages, and email account for most of the bandwidth for most of the users. Of course it makes sense to give them an initial burst, because likely when the burst is done, you have the whole webpage or oodles of emails.
Hi,
Good comment. Unfortunately, I am using an enterprise firewall that eats the bandwidth. Without the firewall, our Comcast connection is about 8-12mbps, and as high as 2.6mbps with the firewall and all it's security features running. Thanks. -aw
Maybe not cheating (Score:2)
2.6mb down/2.2 up (Score:1)