Broadband Speed Checking

Hi,
I recently had my broadband upgraded. It should now be 500mb. When the engineer tested it with his phone(wifi) it showed 533mg, when i tested through my pc (Eternet) it only shows around 340mb. what else can i check / change to get the 500+mb? Where is the restriction likely to be? I've been into the properties of the network card and it is set to automatically use the right speed. I don't have all the details to had, but it is a RealTek GBE generic card by the looks of it. Do I need a dedicated card?

cheers
Rich

 

Read your contract. It likely says "up to" 500Mbps (megabits per second).

You said through your PC, with what?

Try visiting https://fact.com/# and https://www.speedtest.net/ and see what they say. If you know what site he tested with (probably the ISP's own), try testing with the same site.

No. Unless your card is really old (well over 10 years old), it is most likely your card supports 1Gbps (1000, 100, 10 Mbps) speeds. But that is for your "local" network - everything on your side of the "gateway" device (typically the modem). The fact you are getting over 100Mbps suggests your network card and local cables are good. However, Ethernet cables are extremely critical, but relatively fragile network devices. They can easily be damaged by one too many yanks or trip-overs. So you might want to swap out cables (and router Ethernet ports for good measure) just to make sure it is not that. If you have a separate router and modem, I would try a different interconnecting Ethernet cable there too.

That said, if you have a "wireless router" connected to a separate modem, his wifi phone went through that same interconnecting Ethernet cable too and so would not be a factor here.

Assuming good cables, it does not matter that he used wifi and you used Ethernet.

What you are likely seeing is your Internet speed as provided at that moment by your ISP. Depending on the bandwidth demands at that moment in your neighborhood (and/or with other connected devices on your own local network), those speeds can and tend to vary greatly. So assuming your contract says, "up to" with no stated minimum, there is not likely anything you can do.

FTR, 340Mbps is an excellent speed. Many people have to settle for less than 50Mbps, some way less. I was happy with my 100Mbps but my ISP just increased mine "up to" 150Mbps (though I am actually getting 180Mbps ).