What Can Cause Slow Download Speeds But Fast Upload Speeds?

Small-scale net tubes good, big net tubes better

By: Aaron Sankin

Estimated reading fourth dimension: nine minutes

We've all been there: very politely asking the internet for a video of a cat engaging in some wacky antics. And so … the net pauses, seeming to consider the request.

What's the problem here? It might be you (sorry). Information technology might be the infrastructure you're working with. It might be your internet provider. Let's explore some causes and solutions together.

What Is a "Good" Net Speed?

Stride one is to conduct a so-called speed exam. Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel at Consumer Reports, who works on the system'due south Fight for Fair Internet initiative, which is collecting consumers' internet bills and speed exam results as part of its advancement work, suggests using a pair of tests, one from Ookla and another from MLab. Each uses slightly different methods, so Schwantes recommends trying both to make sure they're consequent.

The tests show 2 important results: download speed (how quickly you're receiving data from the cyberspace) and upload speed (how apace you're sending data out to the internet), measured in megabits per 2d. A flake of information is a single unit of information, expressed in the binary code that computers can understand equally either a one or a naught. A megabit is 1 million bits of information. If a speed test says your download speed is 100 megabits per second, your connection is pumping 100,000,000 ones and zeros into your device each second, and short kitty antics videos should stream fine.

What qualifies as a "good" internet speed depends on what you lot're using it for, yet. If you have multiple users and need stable connections (think kids doing online schooling while you lot piece of work in the adjacent room), education advancement grouping Common Sense Media recommends speeds of 200 mbps download and 10 mbps upload. Those recommended speeds can be high relative to available levels beyond much of the United States. For February of this year, Ookla pegged median speeds in the U.S. for wired broadband connections at 146 mbps download and 20 mbps upload; speeds on mobile internet—63 mbps download and ix upload—were far slower. Amina Fazlullah, the organization's director of equity policy, insists that stable video conferencing connections are crucial for things similar virtual school.

"What does information technology mean when a 7-year-erstwhile has an interruption?" Fazlullah said, noting that 25 mbps download and 3 mbps upload will technically work merely likely with frequent service disruptions. "How long can yous wait for them to become back up to speed? Will they be able to get back on track after those interruptions?"

Netflix, on the other hand, recommends a mere 15 mbps download speed for streaming content in 4K/Ultra Hard disk.

What speed is bachelor to you at home depends on the infrastructure bachelor: the tubes through which your desired digital data flows. That infrastructure may seem intangible, just it exists both inside the walls of your home and in a corporeal series of tubes transmitting data beyond the globe.

Understanding those factors, and how they work together, is crucial to agreement how the mod cyberspace works—and how to get that cat video faster.

Is the Slowdown Coming from Inside the Firm?

When Schwantes gets a ho-hum speed test result, his first suspicion is unremarkably along the lines of "Something is upwardly with my router."

If you're reading this on a device connected to Wi-Fi, the showtime connexion you have to the larger internet are your modem and wireless router or your modem/wireless router combo beaming out Wi-Fi to the immediate area.

The get-go two things to endeavour if your internet is slow are restart the router and get your device closer to the router. Like a calculator, routers store data in their memory, and sometimes an error gets saved mistakenly. Restarting is a mode to milk shake out the cobwebs. And Wi-Fi signals degrade the farther they travel.

If distance is slowing your speed, consider your options: Your Wi-Fi router may offer the choice between a 2.4 GHz connectedness and a v GHz connection; v GHz offers faster speeds over shorter distances, and 2.4 GHz provides slower speeds over longer distances. The 2.4 GHz frequency tin also become congested with traffic from other wireless networks in the area, so sometimes switching to 5 GHz will provide a less obstructed path for your true cat video.

If your device has an ethernet port, you can besides plug directly into the router and avoid the Wi-Fi event birthday.

Effectually the start of the pandemic, Schwantes noticed his internet slowing downwards. In this case, the trouble was him. He was using a decade-old wireless router. Later on replacing it, he said, his speeds improved dramatically.

What'due south Happening on the Other Side of the Wall?

What's Happening on the Other Side of the Wall?

The biggest speed variances come from the different ways data flows through the tubes directly outside your home. Data tin can travel on unlike types of tubes—cobweb optic, coaxial cable, and copper wire, and fifty-fifty on wireless cellular networks—each providing very unlike speeds for uploading and downloading.

Cobweb optic cables consist of a core of ultra-thin glass surrounded by a cogitating coating that transmits information every bit pulses of low-cal at the speed of, well, lite traveling through glass. The fastest cyberspace connections bachelor today are termed "fiber to the home" because the fiber optic cables begin where you live and run all the way to where they join the larger maze of cobweb optic tubes making up the cyberspace. (There are likewise systems called "fiber to the node" or "fiber to the adjourn," where fiber runs to a connection hub somewhere in your neighborhood, then the signal moves to slower wires the rest of the way.)

If the internet is a road, fiber is similar an thruway with five lanes in each direction and a 75 mph speed limit. Not anybody in the The states fifty-fifty has admission to fiber net. According to a study released in Jan by the Fiber Broadband Clan, less than half of U.South. homes take that selection.

At the other end of the spectrum, copper wire is similar a 1-lane route where yous tin't become above 25.

Not only can Cobweb Expressway become you home faster than Copper Lane, just information technology tin can too handle far more traffic without congestion, which is of import because your data runs through the same tubes as those of your neighbors who use the same ISP. The longer you tin can stay on cobweb before having to turn off to something that'southward not fiber, the faster your connexion.

What is copper wire? DSL, which stands for Digital Subscriber Line, operates on the same copper wires that phone companies use for traditional phone service—then-chosen landlines—admitting on a higher frequency range that doesn't necessitate tying up a phone line the way dial-up service does. (Kids, ask your parents.) Telephone lines were built to transmit vocalisation, which doesn't require a whole lot of information, so they tend to be s‑l‑o‑w.

DSL speeds are dependent on the distance from where they hook into the fiber connections leading to the net's courage. They need to exist boosted ofttimes to push button data over longer distances.

In the heart is cable net, which is generally slower than fiber but can provide relatively high speeds.

Cable net is piped through coaxial cables carrying signals on a copper conductor surrounded by layers of plastic and metal coating to shield it from interference (an comeback over DSL). Since the coaxial cables were originally developed to transmit cable TV, which is fairly data-intensive video and audio data, they can move a lot of data. Since cable TV is traditionally a one-style circulate medium, cable connections generally have faster downloads than uploads.

A relatively new aspirant to the residential broadband market is fixed wireless. As the name implies, this type of connection doesn't involve a tube running directly into your home. Getting a stock-still wireless connection typically involves installing a receiver pulling in cellular service that is so converted to Wi-Fi. Fixed wireless home service isn't universally available across the land, merely some services advertise speeds that can give cable connections a run for their coin.

For remote locations, where it's non feasible for ISPs to install whatsoever kind of wired connexion between the internet'due south fiber backbone and your home, satellite internet, which allows data to be transmitted upward to a satellite and then beamed down to an antenna at your residence, is an selection. Satellite cyberspace is by and large non as fast as fiber or cablevision internet. Ookla plant the median speed for SpaceX'southward Starlink, the fastest satellite internet available in the U.Southward., was effectually 100 mbps download and thirteen mbps upload.

Can I Just Switch to a Different Provider and Get Faster Internet?

You can certainly requite information technology a shot! However, a dearth of contest in the broadband marketplace across the United states may brand that catchy.

"The U.South. market for internet service is dominated by just four companies: AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon," reads the 2020 edition of the Open Technology Institute's Cost of Connectivity report near the state of the U.South. broadband market compared to that in other adult countries.

"In most cities, there were but, like, two providers, and there are big swaths of addresses that only had one provider," said Claire Park, i of the report's authors.

A 2020 study from the Constitute for Local Self-Reliance found that 83.3 one thousand thousand Americans are only able to purchase broadband cyberspace from a single provider.

Merely that absolutely doesn't mean you shouldn't attempt to shop around to observe a different net provider that can give you faster and/or cheaper service.

Yous can bank check your options by inbound your address into the FCC's National Broadband Map, although what's listed as available for every accost isn't always authentic.

Perchance, but maybe, you can go an upgrade that will get you that cat video a whole lot faster.

This article was originally published on The Markup and was republished nether the Artistic Eatables Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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Last Updated on April 16, 2022.