Internet Connection slower at new apartment

[Ketsuri]

I play a lot of games online, as I am sure you all do, and I noticed that my internet connection is slower at my new apartment than at my old one. I was wondering if there was anything I could do to speed up my internet connection besides paying my ISP more money (which doesn't seem like it would work because it worked great at the old place). I have a Motorola Surfboard router (I am not sure of the exact model. I will post when I get home) and a Linksys Wireless-N Home Router WRT120N (I believe. I will also check when i get home.). One of my friends told me about a modem that pulls in multiple signals in order to get a faster connection. Does this work? Any other suggestions?

[Ratatapa]

start a test with www.speedtest.net and make sure the download result is about the same as what you paid from the ISP

[Jojimbo]

It's possible you just can't get higher speeds at your new place, not that something is wrong. Some locations get worse speeds because they are further away from the exchanges or share a line (ie houses converted into flats) with more people. (At least, I think the exchange thing is true)

ISP can't magically make the internet faster (provided that there isn't actually a problem/you aren't hitting your packages speed cap) without Line Bonding (basically hooking up another line to your house) and that can cost a ton if it's offered.

[Ketsuri]

I have a Motorola SB5105U and a Linksys Wireless-N Home Router WRT160N v3. I am paying for download speeds up to 15 Mbps. I this is the test with speedtest.net:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1687188396.png

That was the best I could get. I got around 3.40 mbps at a couple others.

[Ratatapa]

If you pay for 15mbps it's not normal

Plug your PC directly into the modem and redo the test, if you get the same download call your ISP

If you get the real speed means your router or something in your lan is taking your bandwidth

[Pyro]

It could also be the undoubtedly shitty wiring in your apartment building.

[hey]

It could also be that your ISP is a piece of shit, and that is to be expected. Honestly, at 2/3 the advertised speed, i wouldn't rule out that there isn't a problem at all.

Except for the 3.4, which obviously is a problem.

[The Stig]

Not sure if you get that over there but in UK the speed is dependant on your local "exchange" (I'm assuming that's the underground box that handles all telephony in the area).

In my parent's home the max speed is 2mbps, no matter what. When buying internet, the providers will see the max theoritical speed you can achieve and then recommend you a package. If you choose the best one, it'll say that it's not supported due to the exchange.

My friend used to have 2mbps only, but magically shot up to 8mbps at some point in time. Presumably, it got upgraded.

So if you happen to live in a shit/poor area then chances are it will be slow (as it's the case here, unless you get the whole town to complain).

[Niya]

Take a look into your ISP contract and look for any
Line with up to 15MBit/s* downstream.
Dunno if the ISPs do the same shit in the US like here in Europe, but here they love to sell lets say a "up to 16MBit" line and in the contract they say they do their best but only guarantee that they give you a line with 10MBit. It's this guaranteed minimum that's important. If you have stuff like that in the contract, bad luck for you. As long as they give you the minimum that is mentioned in the contract they keep their side of it, nothing you can do about it.

@The Stig: yup, that's also possible. For DSL lines the possible speed depends on the length of the copper wire between you and the next DSLAM (DSL access multiplexer, kind of a "bridge" between the copper line of the customer and a fibre line to the ISP). <500m of copper is the best case, the longer it gets the slower the speed the ISP will offer you. But there's also other factors that count into this, like old copper lines that aren't good enough shielded against others and produce too much cross-talk. Something like this can screw up the line speed of a whole house block when the ISPs overstress a copper line bundle and they get so much cross-talk that all lines get slower or break down.

[Ketsuri]

I don't think there is anything i can do to get the cable company to fix it. Besides their fine print says: "Actual speeds experienced will vary and uninterrupted or error-free service is not guaranteed." I can't really change to another ISP because they are the only cable company in town. I would have to switch to DSL, which from what i have heard, is slower. I would say the old neighborhood was poorer than this one. I was thinking two things. One was that this building is probably much older than the other building which could equal shitty wiring. Two was that this area is more populated than the last and that could affect the quality of the connection. I will redo the test plugged directly into the modem tonight.

[Jefe]

There's nothing the company can do? I'm sure you can at least call their support line and ask them to run a few tests to see if it's anything on their end. If there's something wrong w/ the cabling they'll tell you that. You can also use something like Wireshark to sniff pockets around your network and find the culprit, if any. It's kinda complex run it whilst your entire nextwork is idle, if there's something wrong w/ your nodes you'll see suspicious activity. This manifests itself in the form of packets going crazy, it gives you a list of protocols draining the network's resources.