Fast Internet, Slow Speeds

Brand new PC, everything. Speeds have been fast as hell but a few weeks ago the US did something to the internet, with torrent sites etc. Ever since then I cant stream jack from anywhere hardly it seems unless its Netflix or Hulu. Has the US done something I am not aware of to the internet or what, my speeds are super slow and its only for streaming or torrents. Downloads from legit etc are so fast its insane, yet from stream sites and such I just get a black load screen now and it will not stream.

I'd suggest going to http://www.att.com/speedtest 1st. If you're getting bad download speed there, its not the streaming. If its good, then further troubleshooting would have to be done.

Funny you should mention, I saw this pop up the this morning.
http://gizmodo.com/5983300/why-us-internet-access-is-slow-and-expensivew

Have you run a speed test with speedtest.net and what did you come up with may i ask.

Speeds are fine according to test, about the same as day 1. Still same problem though I cant stream anything hardly.

There's more to internet than just download speed. You might try pingtest.net too, can give a little more info. Also several tests can help you paint a better picture of what is wrong.

Random rant. Why is Comcast the only internet provider in my area? How is $70/month acceptable for internet that drops service at least twice a month, and if you run speed clock on it you are never getting the speeds you are paying for ("Up to"). The only other options in this area are glorified dial up internet providers. If you have ever had this kind of service it is so slow that your 14 year old might throw her laptop across the room because she can not watch the latest girl pop song video. /Sigh.

Why?

Because no company can get government funds to "fix" a problem unless a problem, real or imagined, exists.

As a for instance, take the "problem" of bringing fast internet to rural America. I find this one hilarious because I live in Grant county WA (which produces more potatoes than any other county in the USA) and have fiber to my wall.

check your computer for malware/spyware, background applications that might be consuming bandwidth, or leave your router-modem off over night~

As has been said, your internet connection has speeds up to that which was stated in your contract. Now, your ISP may also throttle certain ports, especially ones that are related to piracy. You might be able to get around this by changing your torrent settings to a non-default port. It could also be on the other end of these sites, not on your side. A connection is only as fast as its slowest point.

If it makes you feel better my apt complex signed a contract with a "cable broker". I now am forced to use direct tv funneled into a basement. The basement is full of boxes for each channel which then beam to our apartment. The "ultimate internet package" that I pay extra for is slower than comcast basic and costs more (same with the TV although i never watch TV outside of metalocalypse and adventure time). I pay ~120/mo for it when I was paying comcast ~90/month for better service.

Did i mention the internet goes out for ~20 seconds, 6-8 times a day? Not long enough to keep me off the internet but JUST long enough to dc from FFXI (and miss a vw chest), or force me to surrender in SC2 - EVEN ON SINGLE PLAYER NOW THANKS TO THE LATEST PATCHES.

Clear 4g connection might be a option or 3g. Its fast enough to play FFXI & watch youtube or SC2+Youtube but you can forget about streaming.

Because internet providers in the US have non-competition areas set up so they can save money and gouge you. This is why verizon doesn't service my area and it pisses me the hell off that I can't get fios...

I wish I could go back to comcast (not saying they are good) but I moved and now the only option I have is Time Warner, their equipment is complete garbage and their customer support is almost as bad as SE. After 3 modems from them I just bought my own so I could stay connected to the internet for more than 15-20 minutes at a time, and the cable box locks up 1-2 times a week and needs a complete reset.

This may or may not work for you, but as far as youtube goes this has fixed my buffering issue when streaming:

http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/19gpzd/how_to_stop_isps_sucking_at_youtube/c8o1fzq

Try encrypting your torrents. There are guides for setting this up for various torrent applications online, I use Vuze myself and it was fairly easy to do.

Encrypting will sometimes limit the number of connections you will have available since not everyone has it enabled, but it will prevent your torrents from being detected and thusly "throttled" by your ISP.

I use Time Warner Cable and noticed a significant decrees in my torrent speed about a month ago, talking about going from 1.5-2Mbps down to 1.7kbps *** dial up ***. Switched over to the encrypted option and I am usually pulling my old speeds unless I am downloading something obscure that only has a handful of seeders.

Change the ports your torrent client uses.

PC is very clean and well running. But had no clue turning router-modem off at night would help. I shall try this. My internet is very fast which is what I do like. I can have myself the wife and 3 teenagers all on the net (laptops xbox tablet etc) and never have issues with it. Just hate paying $70 a month for it lol. for some reason I feel it is a bit overpriced. But since the whole house depends on it so much I feel like I have no choice.

From the CMD line on any PC in your house, do a:

ping google.com

Record what the "time=Xms" (X being what the actually number there is)

Post your results of that. Again it doesn't matter what PC this is run from, just make sure it uses the same gateway to get out.

To add to that, try: ping google.com -t

and letting it go for about 5 mins, then hold ctrl and press C and it will cancel the continuous ping and then post the summary. That summary would be helpful for a larger sample size of pings which would be more accurate.

Should look something like this:

Ping statistics for 173.194.46.3:
Packets: Sent = 236, Received = 236, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 32ms, Average = 13ms

it helps if done once a month or so, clear up the cache, components get to rest and cool down, and disconnects from the isp's server. when you reconnect, everything is new and fresh.

I have a question~

When I use YouTube, or any other video streaming website, I never can go above 480p quality or else I'll have to buffer multiple times in a video. I do use MagicActions for YouTube to pause the video and allow preloading, but it seems a bit unnecessary when I can download it at 2 Mbps using IDM, at the highest quality.

Some things that I do understand are that IDM uses multiple connections to download it in parts, then it rebuilds it. Programs like "SPEEDbit Video Accelerator" can do the same thing to a lesser extent, probably because your computer has to load the video as well as download it.

So really what I'm trying to ask is, why does this happen? What is the point of having a 20 Mbps internet speed if everything seems so limited? Is it the YouTube server limiting my access? Is that why using programs that connect you 8-10+ to the same video allow you to load it faster, or download it faster with IDM?

I'm just a bit confused.

You've got it on the nose Kal. What it really boils down to is that Youtube gets a ridiculous amount of demands per second, and though their equipment can keep up, it can't keep up with all connections to the degree that your connection demands (Consider your own download speed and how it drops the more you have downloading). They probably create caps so that they don't become overburdened. By drawing from multiple locations, you essentially bypass the cap.