ISPs typically provision their modems to provide a little more speed than what is actually listed. Not always true. When I worked at spectrum, 200mbps connections would show over 200 when I ran tests. Selecting different servers would yield wildly different results.
Use a more reliable speed test site. The correct answer is you can’t, after some overhead a gigabit port caps out around 940mbps. Anything being reported over that is a bad measurement or a bug.
This is a gross oversimplification and, resultantly, an overall false statement.
Lol, yeah sure buddy.
Good one. Couldn’t have lived without this input….
Please explain.
Ignoring the use of fiber here, the IEEE 802.3ab defines Gigabit Ethernet over UTP at 1000Base-T over 100 meters. But, this standard was created around the use of CAT-5 cabling. As tech has progressed, it became easily possible to achieve faster data transfer rates with what is still considered “Gigabit Capable” ports and cables. Just because something is rated as Gigabit, does not in any way mean that is the max it is capable of. MystiCom was able to use CAT-5 for 10Gb/s transfer back in 2002. Notwithstanding that you completely omitted any other hardware capabilities/limitations such as backplanes or line cards, you simply saying “you can’t” and that gigabit ports “cap out around 940mbps” is simply incorrect. What you seem to be referring to are the data rates that ISP’s offer in their brochures where they throw up an asterisk and say that over head may reduce their gigabit plan to 940mbps max. So yes, while the above is not incredibly in-depth, you way oversimplified what gigabit entails and what impacts that performance. And telling someone that “anything reported over that is a bad measurement or a bug” is just incorrect information.
I think you need to remember we are in /HomeNetworking and not /Networking. I am very aware that spec does not dictate hardware capability. I am very aware that you can run 10gig over cat 5 (and other various configs beyond the “spec”) in certain cases. I am very aware that IPSs overprovision. What I am NOT aware of is anyone who has gone to best buy, purchased a modem and wifi-router with gigabit NICs, gone home to their gigabit ISP plan, plugged and played, and magically gotten 1.2Gbps to their client device. Simplifying for the purposes of home networking to say that given a standard Gig NIC > Cat whatever cable > Gig NIC negotiated at 1000Base-T will run ~940Mbps is perfectly valid, especially in the context of this post where the user has one data point showing 1.2Gbps, all other sites showing ~940Mbps, and his set up is what I described above. You are reading way to far into my (I’ll agree here) aggressive use of the word “cant” and trying to apply it en masse to all possible situations. In the context of home networking, the OPs issue, and anyone else experiencing similar things, this is quite clearly a bad measurement or a bug. Also, I am not referring to data rates in the brochure. Go run some Iperf tests on the setup I described above and let me know what you get. Verizon does clearly say 940, but I suspect this is because they know when they drop off their ONT with a Gig interface, they know dam well its expected to be ~940Mbps on the top end. They didn’t pull this number out of their ass.
I respectfully disagree with this. Not all ISPs are scumbags. Every service I build, I overbuild for this exact reason. For example, if I built you a 500 Mbps service today, I would “fudge” your service to 500240, in an attempt to make sure you’re getting what you pay for. I understand I’m the exception and not the rule, but the “good guys” are still out here doing what we can.
His router has a 1 gig wan interface. This has nothing to do with over-provisioning.
At 500mbps it’s not an issue, you get 500mbps. But lots of ISP’s are claiming gigabit and then only giving routers or ONT’s with gigabit ports, gigabit Ethernet can only do ~940mbps after overheads
Some of the ISPs over provision the circuits to avoid issues with customers running speed tests and getting a lower speed than they are paying for. I’m paying for 500mb internet but actually get close to 600.
Source I worked for an ISP.
It’ll have peaks that happen here and there.
use google speed test. fast.com is trash
At the end of the day, it’s an estimate of throughput using test data which is often not representative of real-world performance because real-world data is much more diverse than speed test data. It’s not meant to be a 100% technically perfect bit-by-bit analysis because that level of detail is irrelevant if you’re in the ballpark for “good enough for streaming”
If you would like a speed test that hides fewer details and gives you a better idea of what you can expect for different file sizes, etc. try cloud flare’s speed test
Speed tests cheat, they don’t make you download thousands of gigs of data to get a throughput. Which is exactly what you would need to do to accurately test your connection. They send a bit of data, see how fast it goes, do some calculations and assume.
ISP’s can also cheat as they can give ‘burst’ service which temporarily gives you a bump in speed. This can be advertised to you as a perk, but I don’t think many people care, or used to trick speed tests.
It’s like when your boss walks by you and you work a bit harder to appear busy.
use ookla
do nperf speedtest
I wish this internet speed is possible in my third world country but it doesn’t. Hopefully starlink can reach higher speeds while also accessible in my region.
Most speed tests are predictions.
The amount of times I see the word over-provisioned here is comical. Literally not related to what he is seeing. HIS ROUTER HAS A 1GIG WAN INTERFACE, it cannot and will not run at 1.2gbps lol.
It’s because he is full of shit and has a 2.5gig nic in the modem and tried 30 times to get it to read 1.2 cause it almost is 1.1ish max. On a gig card you can’t even see a constant 980mbit, forget about higher.
Fast website is full of shit and does not show speeds accurately.
This is why I change the settings to run for longer. 60-90 seconds usually.
Also, you have a crap upload speed.
Use iperf3 and connect to a server close to you to get a real measurement
I have FiOS and mine reads faster than the speed I pay for by about 100mbps both ways. The tech said they deliberately over-provision so that you’ll get at least the advertised speed on wireless. I’m not sure who your provider is so this may not apply to you.
it’s the fact that he has a 1 gig router. with overhead only like 940 Mbps is possible
That can’t be right because I’ve seen higher speeds than that during downloads with a download manager on my 1GBs infrastructure https://imgur.com/a/aIaVpi8
9k. somehow you have less overhead. or that counts the overhead into the total transfer speed. you still have less then 1 gbps
That’s windows task manager measuring the bandwidth at the network card. Not sure how or why it would incorporate switching overhead.
His router is rated for 1 gig, meaning it’ll do minimum that amount.
It’s not like they’re going to set a software rate limit to make sure he doesn’t go over that amount in ideal circumstances.
Unless he owns a Cisco router and hasn’t purchased a performance license.
“His router is rated for 1gig, meaning it’ll do minimum that amount”
Uh, No? What are you on about lol.