Hardware Internet speed help?

tyrantpig

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Hey does anyone know how I can make my internet speed fast? I get it going to 500 kbs every 2 months but now and inbetween those months I have 0.1- 8.5 kbs ;__; any help? I've run a speed tester and it said I get 90kbs but that can't be right ._. It's usb mobile broadband.
 
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If you've run a speed tester and it says you're getting 90 Kbps, but your downloads are only going at up to 8.5 KBps, the speed tester isn't actually wrong so to speak.
ISPs can be vague about speeds if it's to their advantage, because of the misunderstanding between the meaning of KBps and Kbps (KiloBytes per second vs Kilobits per second).
The difference is 8x. I have a DSL connection in El Paso, Texas that is billed at 768Kbps downstream, but after doing speed tests regularly and at different times a day, I know that I rarely go over 650Kbps. The result when I try to download things is that I have never seen a download go faster than 80KBps which is bad enough that as a result, I have to buffer even the lowest...

exangel

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If you've run a speed tester and it says you're getting 90 Kbps, but your downloads are only going at up to 8.5 KBps, the speed tester isn't actually wrong so to speak.
ISPs can be vague about speeds if it's to their advantage, because of the misunderstanding between the meaning of KBps and Kbps (KiloBytes per second vs Kilobits per second).
The difference is 8x. I have a DSL connection in El Paso, Texas that is billed at 768Kbps downstream, but after doing speed tests regularly and at different times a day, I know that I rarely go over 650Kbps. The result when I try to download things is that I have never seen a download go faster than 80KBps which is bad enough that as a result, I have to buffer even the lowest quality Youtube videos. Dialup's speed limit is 56Kbps, that's a maximum of 7KBps, and that may be the minimum speed required by your mobile broadband ISP to consider the area "covered".

Are your good speeds and poor speeds a result of using the USB mobile broadband in two different physical places? Different parts of a city, or even different cities? Cellular data networks can't deliver the full potential bandwidth in all of their coverage areas.
For example, I have a 3G phone that can play some (mobile streaming) Youtube videos and has excellent quality when I am in East El Paso, Texas. At my home in North Tucson, Arizona, which is a denser urban area that is advertised as being well-covered, I actually get dropped calls all the time in the whole neighborhood and can't stream a thing. The 3G icon isn't even always displayed on the phone.

There's also the "other users" factor. Cellular networks have local limits and if there's too much traffic within an exchange certain connections will be limited or dropped. In major cities they just build more infrastructure if it is persistent traffic, but in poorer locales they don't make that a priority even if they've sold that type of coverage for that area.

If you get persistent poor connections everywhere in the coverage area, you should seek a replacement USB adapter.
 
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