Internet Speed Disparity

Hi all:
I just switched from Comcast to WOW and have the WOW 500 Mbps internet plan.
My iphone clocks in at about 538 Mbps, but my brand new Thinkpad laptop and my new-ish Surface tablet struggle to hit 130 Mbps.
I called WOW technical support and they had no clue as to why this is.

Any thoughts??

Many thanks

 

And how do your Thinkpad and Surface connect? I assume via wireless and if so, what type connector? 802.11n? 11g?

Are you about the same distance from the WAP (wireless access point) with the Thinkpad and Surface?

 

Thinkpad and Surface connect via the same wifi link as the iphone...N

Distance is exactly the same...sitting on my couch about 10 feet from the modem/router

 

You might check your router admin menu and see if the phone has not been assigned a higher priority.

 

ok thanks for that advice

i still get the lower speeds on Thinkpad and Surface even when I disconnect my iphone from wifi....this is way over my head!!

 

I cannot understand it either. If all your devices are 11n and you are testing from the same location, the speeds should be similar.

What are you checking with?

 

wowway.speedtestcustom.com

 

update, 2/16: I spent about 1/2 hour on the phone last night with WOW tech support. They tinkered with my modem settings, and finally gave up. They speculated the speed limitation issue on my laptop and tablet are either due to a settings issue or a hardware limitation. I plan on hitting the Surface forums to further pursue this. Thank you Digerati for your time and insights!!

 

I'm not 100% sure. With Comcast I was on their 100 or 150 Mbps plan and never really checked my speed. It seemed adequate. However, moving to 500 Mbps with WOW, I was interested in testing it out...and thus discovered the disparity between my iPhone and the laptop and tablet lower speeds. I'm really surprised at the laptop. I'm not a technical guy (obviously!), but my IT dept tells me I have the just-released newest Carbon Thinkpad, and they don't understand why it won't connect at 500 Mbps. The Surface is over a year old, so maybe that is just a hardware limitation? Thanks for your interest in trying to help. I have posted this issue on a Surface forum and will circle back if I learn anything.

 

Software speed tests are informative unless your pinging from the same sever each time, over the same amount of hops!
This can not be guaranteed on most freeware testers.

 

And not all 11n network adapters are created equal.

Note this 11n adapter is rated for speeds up to 450Mbps while this one just 150Mbps.

 

If you're using different speed testing web site between the phone and laptop (almost certainly you have to be since they're different platforms), you'll get different results.

The one result that will be consistent--wired. If there is a way to wire the laptop and do a speedtest, then that will determine if it is the network card or the laptop itself. And I would highly recommend using dslreports.com/speedtest as I've fount it to be the only speedtest site that's 100% accurate across different service providers. (And for the record we have that same 500 wow plan and have tested it using the site.)

 

Thanks everyone...WOW tech support is all over this. Apparently the 500mbps and 1 gig option they are offering in my area is a new initiative, so they are using me as a test case of sorts....technician came to my house with his laptop and found a few errors in the WOW settings, but haven't solved it yet.

 

I don't think WOW will be solving anything since your phone is getting 500+.

Try a wired connection. If that's 500, then WOW has done their job and won't do any more.

 

I think you are probably right, but the technician tried to connect via wifi with a WOW laptop (and WOW modem/router), and he was only getting 250mbps...he said that is not normal, hence all the checking of the settings and other investigation....thanks again.

 

Hmmm...we had some speed issues when we first got connected and there were a lot of errors on the modem so it was a cabling issue. Just to confirm that all was well, the wiring technician used his WOW laptop and got 250/50 and because the 50 was correct and wireless is, well wireless, he said that was good enough. We did some wired test to confirm the 500 and he was right that it was all good.

So in remembering this, what is your upload like on the laptop? If it's what you're supposed to be getting, between the down on the phone being 500+ and your upload being correct, it's just a wifi issue to the laptop.

 

i don't recall the upload speed....i guess i'll just settle by being happy with 150'ish wifi....big upgrade over my 50'ish at comcast!! thanks again everyone.

 

I don't know, but the tech that came for our service didn't have what looked like a locked down corporate endpoint that would be impervious to malware.

It could just be because it's wifi. Wifi is in the air and subject to whatever else is in the air, whether it's a cordless phone or other local APs. Local APs can be a big source of trouble. We have over 100 visible in our apartment and because of that our 300+ wired speedtests barely break 150 wirelessly. Fast nonetheless, but it would be much better if we were the only ones in this building.

 

Yeah, that's a huge improvement and you'll be seeing faster on your phone so you'll still get use of the full speeds.

I'd check the speeds every so often from different locations in relation to the AP to see if there's anything that improves it--that could be a clue as to what might be going on.

 

A lot of them do, but that's actually irrelevant. What's important is the specification for transmission over wifi, which still uses CSMA, which only allows one wifi device on a particular channel to speak at a time.

So if you have 100 APs trying to use the same bandwidth over a handful of channels, there will be times when two or more APs try to 'talk' at the same time and there is what's known as a 'collision'. Very similar to a conference call when two people try to speak at once. And there's time wasted while each one tries again, and that time can't be used to transmit data, so speeds decrease.

It's one of the reasons why wireless should be used sparingly. Because if everyone uses it, it becomes a router shouting match and no one wins.

 

Yeah, that's what I thought as well. At first I thought it was his personal laptop until he said it was a work supplied one.

I wouldn't think it's infected or the OPs, but you never know. I can't look at a system screen for 30 seconds and determine if there's malware on there, and definitely can't do it from forum posts. But I think wifi airwave issues may have more to do with the speed issues than anything else, especially if there are any other signals nearby.

 

Lol, ethernet uses CSMA to avoid collision over the wire, and any slowdown from collision or re-transmission is of minute effect anyway ....with wifi its all about radio frequency and channels within those freq's. These are determined by your NIC in order to communicate with your gateway to send and receive requests beyond it.
When it comes to internet speed bottle necks over wifi, most overlook the capabilities of their device NIC's and how any transmission is being affected by other hardware interfering with frequency (ie Your CPU etc), physical obstructions, distances from NIC to AP etc.

External NICS (USB) often see an improvement in speeds through increased capacities and improved wireless protocols. The fact that they distance themselves from internal hardware component interference also helps.

Internet speeds must also be checked bouncing off the same server in order to be accurate and representable in a comparative fashion.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

Ethernet does use it, but on switches there is only one domain between the switch and the endpoint. Not so with hubs or share mediums like wifi--collisions can play a huge role there. I know because I worked with Ethernet hubs before switches came around, and each device sharing the bandwidth while the collision light flashed away was hitting serious bandwidth limits. The same can happen with congested wifi.

 

That is actually something completely different than what I'm talking about. What you're describing is bandwidth saturation on the Internet connection. What I'm talking about bandwidth saturation in the wifi fabric itself--they're two totally different things.

 

If the tech thought the speed discrepancy was an issue, why did they leave then? Techs get in trouble for leaving jobsite incomplete.

 

Actually it is a fundamental truth behind how wifi works. See the following link:
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/thread/63134

In relation to how it affects the OP is if there are additional networks that interfering, that can explain the speed disparity.

If you want to delete knowledge, that's up to you. It won't help the OP or your site visitors, that's for sure. I don't delete user posts on my forum.

 

I'm not here to argue. Just to explain what I know. You seem to have taken personal offense to that by trolling my posts.

 

I agree with tim,You are trolling your post.