Upload speeds down to a crawl

[Augusto Orosco]

I know there are a lot of folks here who are very good at computers, so here it goes:

I have a FIOS connection at 50Mbs/50Mbs download/upload speed. When I run Verizon "official" tests for speed, I get anywhere between 40-55 for download (which is great), but my upload speeds can be anywhere between 0.5 and 4Mbs. When I run other tests (myspeed, speedtest, etc.), I also get similar download speeds, but even worse upload speeds (consistently under 1mb). This sounds about right, because it takes forever to upload a few documents into dropbox, or a video to You tube.

I spent over an hour with a FIOS tech over the phone, and did all the recommended tests: Restarted router, turned off all wireless devices at home, connected laptop directly via a LAN cable, run their speed optimizer, etc. Nothing worked, so a Tech guy showed up this morning. I am at work, so my wife had to deal with him. He ran his tests on his laptop, and lo and behold, he was getting 40mb upload! My wife then asked him to run the same test on our laptop and same thing, 40MBs upload. So, of course, now I look like a moron... but when she told me, I asked her to run an independent test (testmy.net) and she got 0.5MB upload speed. Unfortunately, the tech had left by then (although I have heard that they can't do anything based on third party tests; if the FIOS test says things are ok, that's it for them).

So, I can't really find a pattern here. I am sure the official FIOS tests will always show better speeds than third party tests, but 40MB vs 0.5Mb is a huge discrepancy. On top of that his tests on my computer this morning showed the right upload speeds, which is not what I had been getting before using the same FIOS tests. Therefore, even with their official tests, I routinely get crawling upload speeds. I also know it is not because of my Windows laptop, because I have tried the same tests on my IPad, my smart phone and a second laptop (a Mac) and they are all in the same ballpark. I am also positive the upload speed is truly slow, because it takes forever to upload files to the various cloud services.

It's not that I expect to have 50mb upload all the time; I would be more than happy with 10MB most of the time. But 0.5MB is just ridiculous.

I have no clue what to do next

[Pat Barry]

I have Centurylink and just last night was scratching my head about drop-outs (stalling connections). I have reset my router. Anyway, I ram the speedtest by several sites (they all use the same OOKLA?? engine it seems). I was getting 13-15mBs download and around 0.6MBs (600 Kbs) upload. I wondered the same question about why upload is so slow. Keep in mind the connection I was using was wireless back to the router and not hardwired like they recommend. Not sure if hardwired would have made a big difference. Was your testing done via wireless or hardwire?

[Augusto Orosco]

I have Centurylink and just last night was scratching my head about drop-outs (stalling connections). I have reset my router. Anyway, I ram the speedtest by several sites (they all use the same OOKLA?? engine it seems). I was getting 13-15mBs download and around 0.6MBs (600 Kbs) upload. I wondered the same question about why upload is so slow. Keep in mind the connection I was using was wireless back to the router and not hardwired like they recommend. Not sure if hardwired would have made a big difference. Was your testing done via wireless or hardwire?

I have run it both ways, wireless and then hardwire (using a LAN cable directly to the router). In my case I didn't make any difference.

[Jim Koepke]

I have Centurylink and just last night was scratching my head about drop-outs (stalling connections).

My Centurylink connection was acting flakey for a day or two and then dropped out all together for a good part of the day. When their service number was called the recording said they new there was a problem with the internet connection in my area and they were working on it.

Now the conspiracy theorist inside me sees a bigger game afoot.

Maybe all the snow in the east squished the fiber optics so they couldn't carry as much traffic... yeah, that's the story and they are sticking to it!

jtk

[Myk Rian]

Could be sunspots. There was a major eruption recently.

[Steve Baumgartner]

I also have FIOS - though 75/75 service. I often see slower upload than download speed, but nothing remotely like what you describe! I'm a bit puzzled by part of what you wrote: you get 0.5-4Mbs from Verizon's upload test, but the tech got 40, even using your own computer? That is, frankly, weird! The only thing I can think of is that there is something/someone clogging up your region's network at certain times of day (e.g. a really intense gamer) and the tech got lucky by testing outside the interference window. Have you tested at a variety of times of day to see whether there is a pattern there?

[Augusto Orosco]

I also have FIOS - though 75/75 service. I often see slower upload than download speed, but nothing remotely like what you describe! I'm a bit puzzled by part of what you wrote: you get 0.5-4Mbs from Verizon's upload test, but the tech got 40, even using your own computer? That is, frankly, weird! The only thing I can think of is that there is something/someone clogging up your region's network at certain times of day (e.g. a really intense gamer) and the tech got lucky by testing outside the interference window. Have you tested at a variety of times of day to see whether there is a pattern there?

That's precisely what I thought, since I have been testing everything at night, when I am home from work. But this morning, I asked my wife to test the speed barely 30 minutes after the tech had left (around 9:15am) and she got those low speeds again (I should have asked her to also re-run the official verizon in addition to the third party test, though!). I will look at things again tonight; what happened this morning is something I didn't witness, everything else I have tried/seen myself. But as you said, this is quite weird.

[Dan Hintz]

Those speeds may be valid... up to the local office. Once they hit any router outside the local area, speed may plummet. My guess is there's a router giving up the ghost...

[Augusto Orosco]

Those speeds may be valid... up to the local office. Once they hit any router outside the local area, speed may plummet. My guess is there's a router giving up the ghost...

That might explain the official Verizon test being higher than the other tests (I have routed to various states, from Maryland to Washington), but not why this morning the tech got 40Mb upload speed with the verizon test, whereas I have been under 4mbs at nights using the same test! In my tests, upload speeds from third party websites are about 8 times slower on the upload than FIOS's (5KB vs 4Mb), not 80 times slower (5KB vs 40MB)!

[Ole Anderson]

Glad I have cable. Tests at 60 dn/12 up virtually every time I test it. But I have had so much trouble with the wireless function of their all in one router/phone/wireless, I hard wired my computer.

[Augusto Orosco]

I think Steve was on the right path. Yesterday night I retested again with a variety of services, including the official FIOS tester. All of them gave me download speeds close to 50MB, but download speeds under 2MB.

This morning I tested again. I ran the FIOS test three times, 5 minutes apart. I got 35MB, 14MB and 6MB for the upload speeds (download speed was always consistent at around 50MB). I also ran a variety of third party tests, and got upload speeds varying from 3MB to 10MB.

So, there seems to be two things going on: 1) Peak usage at nights around my neighborhood places a huge load on the uploads and 2) Speed tests are not very accurate, given the large variance I am observing even after controlling for the time of day.

#1 still sounds fishy to me... I would imagine peak time having a much larger impact on download speeds if people are busy streaming video, for instance. But my download speeds are impressively consistent on the high end. So, am I to believe that people are busier making Video Calls and/or uploading files?

In any case, I can understand experiencing slower uploads during peak times, but getting less then 2MB (by FIOS optimistic measuring) when I should be closer to 50Mb is a little too much.

I placed a call on the tech who came yesterday and he said he needs to make a few calls and will get back to me later in the afternoon.

[roger wiegand]

This doesn't help you, but I get a very consistent 60 MP both up and down on FIOS. Sometimes it can make a difference if you point to a different DNS, I switched over to Google some time ago.

[Curt Harms]

I've had some installs show pretty slow uploads but those were due to wifi drivers. The HTML5 tests such as testmy.net or speedof.me seem pretty good as long as you're using a browser that 'speaks' HTML5 fluently. Speedtest.net can show widely varied speeds depending on time of day and server connected to. The Verizon speed test seems pretty reliable. I tend to prefer speakeasy.net but that's just me.

FiOS has reportedly had some isolated speed issues though not < 1 mb./sec I don't think. Here is a forum not run by Verizon that sometimes has info useful to we mere mortals
http: //www .dslreports.com/forum/vzfiber (remove the spaces)

[Jim Becker]

Something else that affects this is the path between you and the "test" site you're using...if it crosses certain peering points with other networks, there are well known issues with performance. I'm on 75/75 FiOS and have upload speed issues with some sites, but not all. Fortunately, the pathways that my "work-work" follows are clean.