My router lies

sjt269

sjt269

sjt269

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Joined
11 Dec 2004
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For some bizarre reason, my router is telling me I've got 6Mb broadband. It's a BT Home Hub (compulsory for their TV service, which we get for virtually nothing since my dad works for BT) and it definitely says I've got 6Mb download speeds. It's a fixed figure buried away in a menu somewhere, I can find it if anyone wants a screenshot, but it doesn't seem to ever have changed - so its not a dynamic speedtester or anything.


The thing is, any speedtest website tells me I've got about 1.4Mb at best (oh, and I can't remember if its Mb or MB, sorry). This is after a recent upgrade to 'up to' 8Mb broadband from the previous 2Mb, which gave real world speeds of arouns 1Mb, so I'm at least a little faster. The slightly bizarre thing is that before I connected the Home Hub and went through my Netgear router, I actually got (and exceded) 6Mb speeds. So why doesn't the Home Hub let me get more than 1/4 of the available speed? I've heard that BT limit speeds of torrent programs and similar things, but would it cap all traffic to and from my PC? When I got 6Mb in the speedtest, it was the middle of the afternoon, which I would imagine would count as peak times, so I would have thought if they'd cap the connection, it would have been capped then.



This isn't mega important or anything, it's just annoying me. I don't do a lot of downloading, but obviously if I can get better speeds, I'd like to have them. If anyone has any insights or anything, I'd love to hear them. :)



Thanks
tTz
 
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:
IP profile for your line is - 6000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 7040 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 5097 kbps






7040kbps downstream? When other speedtest sites say closer to 1400? Am I reading this wrong here? :confused:
 
So why does a test with www.speedtest.net tell me it's 1400kbps? Am I just choosing a busy server or something? It's just that I consistently get 1400kbps from sites like that...torrents (when I have the rare ocassion to download one) get around 200kbps, which I was happy with, but knowing I can get 30x as much... :eek:


:edit:


Thad download is giving me anything between 200-300kbps, and it's the only download running.
 
Last edited:
Trifid said:
BT are throttling HTTP.
Click to expand...



Is this throttling just at certain times or day, or is it all the time? I'm sure there's been plenty of threads moaning at BT for throttling, but I can't honestly understand why they'd give me a 6Mb connection, and then only let me use less than a third of it.
 
tTz said:
So why does a test with www.speedtest.net tell me it's 1400kbps? Am I just choosing a busy server or something? It's just that I consistently get 1400kbps from sites like that...torrents (when I have the rare ocassion to download one) get around 200kbps, which I was happy with, but knowing I can get 30x as much... :eek:


:edit:


Thad download is giving me anything between 200-300kbps, and it's the only download running.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't say 30x as much, more like 3. ;)
 
H2F Scott said:
Wouldn't say 30x as much, more like 3. ;)
Click to expand...


Yeah, but going by the numbers, 6000kbps should technically be possible. It wouldn't have been such an impressive statement if I'd only said three. :p


To be honest, 200kbps is fine for me, though come to think of it I used to be getting about double that with the 'old' broadband package. And why does the Home Hub give me 1400kbps on speedtests, when the Netgear gave me 6000? I might get the Netgear back out and test it again to see if it was a one-off or not. Unfortunately, I need to use the Home Hub to get the not-here-yet BT TV package, otherwise I'd have scrapped it already.
 
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