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I am supposed to have 200 Mbps internet service. I am only getting around 90 Mbps download speed. I have traced the bottleneck to my router. It is a Cisco Linksys 1500. It supports 802.11N and is supposed to be capable of up to 300 Mbps.
Are there some settings I should be using or should I consider the useful life to be over and purchase a new router? Accepting router suggestions <$100.
Thanks
The router is turned off every night…
Certainly not a good idea for xDSL, perhaps not so bad for cable.
How about some stats? I primarily use the TBB tests (logged in line test results go back to ‘only’ 2013 now, though data for the line/login should go back even further). Tests/Results include single-thread connection speeds as well as the more common multi-threaded connections; single-threaded connection speeds (or lack of, eg. too slow to stream higher bandwidth video, or download remote server/game data) can be vital for certain common, or more unusual/specific scenarios to be successful. https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest
Here’s a ‘good’ result from an ‘impacted’ (poor basic ‘last mile’ hardware infrastructure on VDSL2) ‘up to’ 30 Mbps line: https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1592001542212524755
Non-‘impacted’ would be ~30-36 Mbps down, ~5 up. Average ‘bad’ results are somewhere between https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1592012277537841255 and zero/dead/dry string – on an almost daily basis.
Larry B-
One reason for your lack of speed could be an inordinate number of users in your neighborhood using a LOT of bandwidth at the same time. That’s one of the drawbacks of using cable TV for high speed internet instead of a fiber optic provider. It’s cheaper, but you’re sharing the bandwidth with your neighbors. I experienced that problem years ago (ca. 2001) with a now-defunct provider. It persisted until they installed new equipment that give us more bandwidth, and then we were all set. This could be the case for your area…lack of enough equipment for the number of customers in an area.
Something you should do is to secure your wireless network, even if you don’t use it while the router’s powered on because of using wired Ethernet connections instead. Add a basic password that’s at least 12-16 characters in length with upper case, lower case, numbers and special symbols to make it really secure. Better yet, if you’re not using the wireless capabilities for your own computers completely disable the wireless capability of the router. This can be done within the basic Wireless settings page within the router’s firmware.
Also, you can filter wireless access to the network to only certain computers. All you need to know is their MAC address. There’s a page within the router’s settings for that type of security.
Granted, although these two measures won’t keep anyone who’s really dedicated to breaking in out of your network, they’ll keep the vast majority of folks out who you want to keep out.
The reason for your lack of speed could be wireless “moochers” who use the wireless signal from your router because it has no password, thus it’s an “open” network. The two steps above will get rid of those freeloaders.
Once many years ago (2011) my next door neighbors came to my door asking if I had any internet access. I said that I sure did and that it was working just fine. They asked me to look over their equipment to see if it was working well because they didn’t trust the local cable provider’s phone-based tech support. With their permission, I looked at their setup and found they had 9 folks mooching off their wireless signal in addition to their own two computers, to which my neighbors said they never even knew anyone else could use their wireless signal besides them. After discovering all this, they promptly asked me to get rid of the moochers, which I promptly did after our neighbor provided a wireless network password. I also added MAC address filtering (after obtaining the needed info from their computers with their permission). After rebooting their router and letting their computers reconnect to it, their speed was back to what it should have been, no moochers allowed. Strangely enough, a few days later, several other homes in the immediate neighborhood had cable company vans out in front of them, presumably to get internet service hooked up!
In summary, your slow speed issues could be due to lack of enough bandwidth in your neighborhood for the number of customers or it could be due to folks mooching your wireless signal because it’s unsecured by a password and MAC address filtering.
At this point, I’m not too sure you’d gain anything by plunking down a C note for a new router. To best help you, the folks knowledgeable folks here will need to know what settings you have in your current router. They may post questions about them to help you navigate through your router’s screens to the right places to see what the setting are and, if needed, change them to something that will get you the speed you seek.
Plug the ethernet cable from your machine into your modem instead of router. Test speed. You may have to reboot modem. What do you get? If you are getting close to 200 you have narrowed it down to the router.
Edit to add: Last week I had a client with an issue with their router (Netgear 3800). Had to purchase one quick so took what I could find. Picked up a Netgear Nighthawk AC2300 Dual-Band Wi-Fi 5 Router (R7000P I think). for about $150 It worked well and their speed jumped from 150mbps to 450mbps and it increased their wireless range pretty decently. All in all they are satisfied.
Here are 3 more:
Moderator edit, formatting
Don’t use DD-WRT unless you are good at networking and understand routers and routing. It took me ages to configure mine the way I want and I think I’m good at these things. 🙂
cheers, Paul
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