router and speed tests show discrepancies . . how to fix? (laptop, DSL, modem)

[southgeorgia]

Every speed test i've tried shows a speed of 200kbps slower than what the modem/router interface says i'm getting.

its always been this way.

i'm having a second DSL line installed next week that will be bonded with my existing; i'm guessing the same thing will happen. i'm really going to need that extra 400kbps of bandwidth to make the second line worthwhile.

any ideas how to fix this?

i have mcafee antivirus; is that what causes it?


also, the modem/router interface says i'm connected @ 1.55Mb on a 1.5Mb package (the highest available to me). Whenever i download a file, it transfers @ 150Kbps. so is there really a problem w/ my connection?

[Asheville Native]

There is an overhead to both the IP protocol, and either the wireless or ethernet protocol in your connection.

Also are you comparing apples and oranges. ISP advertise their speed in bits per second. Windows, firefox, IE, and even some speedtests express the results in bytes per second. If you are getting 150K BYTES per second on a 1.55Meg BITS per second connection, they that is about as good as it gets. The protocol overheads (addressing, acknowledgments, network latency, etc.) account for the small loss.

1 BYTE = 8 bits

[macroy]

What AN said. There's capacity, and then there's throughput (and often interchanged - making it more confusing).

In network communications - the capacity is the bandwidth available... or how many bits (0 or 1's) that can be transmitted across that connection. Typically, it is denoted as bits per second (bps). And this includes everything that is transmitted - data, overhead, retransmissions due to loss bits etc...

However, most applications look only at the actual data its transmitting since the network/communication portion of that is handled elsewhere. And when you talk about I/O, you end up using bytes per second. Also, depending on how that calculation was written within the application, some may use 8 bits per byte while others will use 10 bits per byte (which makes it more confusing when you're trying to determine your actual throughput).

All in all, if you're getting 80-85% of throughput on your bandwidth - you're in good shape. So, in your case: 150KBps x 8= 1200Kbps.

So you're getting ~1.2Mbps throughput on a 1.5Mbps connection. I wouldn't be too worried. Especially since there are also other factors in play - line quality, contention of resources on both end etc.

[southgeorgia]

ok thanks for the responses.

they activated the other line yesterday but no modem yet.

the new line is only connecting @ 1.2Mb; i tested with my current modem. This may end up being a waste of time as the sole reason was to get the netflix 2600KB streaming quality (we primarily watch internet TV through HTPC).

I may call the engineering dept back and have them search other pairs for a better signal quality if it doesn't work out. So far they advised doubling my internal wiring pairs, which i did, but that does nothing. i tested my speeds directly @ the NID w/ laptop and they're the same. My lateral to the station at the road was installed 6 months ago, so everything is good there too.