paying 109.95/mo but seems to be capped at 30mb down / 8mb up

What sort of router and/or modem do you have?

Klotz, yes it's possible to compare the models of your equipment with your expectation of service level in a very basic way.

Train_Wreck is asking for this information to help you confirm if its a basic CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) issue. See providers don't race to contact you when your CPE is outdated and your service rots into substandard category. They expect you to contact them. This is a problem in that most customers wouldn't know about this issue nor think to contact the right department, ask the right questions. Weve been at this long enough to know that when we see a degradation of service that is mostly stable it can be a sync issue because CPE and Carrier Equipment.

Post a list of your topology (the way in which constituent parts are interrelated or arranged.)

Modem/Router (Comcast) Model

Extra router (If you've added another layer).

The amount of PCs, their state of maint.

Capping can be a condition wherein your PCs are overwhelming the network if they are poorly maintained. This is more common than you may realize. For example I've seen a EMTA (embedded multimedia terminal adapter) - An E-MTA is a cable modem and a VoIP adapter (MTA, multimedia terminal adapter) bundled into a single device.

The issue was a network degradation which by all purposes should have not been effected by the EMTA but once everything was removed from the network the issue persisted. Finally it was found to be the EMTA causing a voltage issue on the line within the customer's house.

So do a test with your computer/server directly connected to the modem without any other routing device or any other PC/Laptop/Tablet or phone involved. For good measure use two different computers separately for a control. Do a speed test. If your speeds come up to what you expect for what you're contracted for then you've got an issue that’s eluding you locally and Comcast would not even be able to see it.

Alternatively when doing this you can rule out your equipment entirely and focus on having Comcast address the issue, which would then be outside your control.

It is possible to check your modem by contacting them.

I'm leaning towards a residential speed tier issue. Not sure how its possible to be stuck at a residential speed on a business class provision unless they never replaced their equipment in 2010.

30/8 sounds more of a tier than a docsis limitation.

We have to wait to see who is right lol. (Hey look a dragonfly!)

Actually, my suspicion was that, since the OP has been a customer since 2010, and has always remain locked at ~30, that he/she MAY still have a DOCSIS 2.0 modem (the SMC8014 was popular, i believe), which would correspond well with a cap of ~30mbps, given that the max bandwidth for a single DS channel is a technical 38mbps minus channel congestion, and D2s can only use 1 channel at a time.

And you are definitely right about eliminating customer-owned equipment when testing for issues. To the original poster, make sure your tested ~30mbps is done while connected directly into the Comcast gateway, and make sure you can replicate this problem on every computer/device.

Hello klotz,

I'm not sure if you are still having speed issues, but if you are please fell free to send me a private message with your account number so we can investigate.

Thank you

I have the same question as klotz. Why am I paying $109.95 a month and only getting download speeds of 20mb?

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@curtainwall wrote:

I have the same question as klotz. Why am I paying $109.95 a month and only getting download speeds of 20mb?

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Mind telling us how you're doing that test (what computer/device, wired or wireless) as well as all your internet equipment you're using (WiFI router, Comcast modem, etc.) as well as a screenshot of your signal levels from http://192.168.100.1 or http://10.1.10.1 ?

Thank you!

Here is my hardware info: 

• SMC Networks SMCD3G
• Hardware Version 1 .01
• Firmware Version 3.1.6.56

Network connection is through 100BaseT to 100BaseFX to an Intel i7-2600K clocked at 3.4GHz and 8GB RAM, running Ubuntu Linux.  This is the best performing system connected.  

Here's a recent speedtest.net result: 12ms/30.78 down/8.12 up 

http://www.speedtest.net/result/4020701839.png

Thank you, Comcast_Jacob; I have sent you a PM.

Leigh.

If you are running 100BaseT half-duplex I would expect around 30Mbps.

100BaseFX is a fiber standard I believe.

The SMC router has gigabit ports.  Are you absolutely sure your Ubuntu system has a 100BaseT ethernet port on it?  That sseems quite odd to me that a modern 64 bit motherboard would have a 100BaseT port on it.

My experience with plugging a hardware gigabit port into another hardware gigabit port then trying to force down the speed is that you get massive speed throughput problems.  There are lots of problems with gigE ports not properly syncing with 100BaseT ports already.  And that is on a hardware level.  If you have a crusty old 100baseT-only Ethernet switch in between your Ubuntu system and the SMC router it would be completely unsurprising that you would have throughput issues.

Thanks @tmittelstaedt.  Good point about simplifying the test case.  

This morning I took a new laptop (Athlon A10) and wired it directly to the SMC router, and confirmed gigabit full duplex using mii-tool.  I ran speedtest.net test and got the same results: 14ms ping, 30.73Mb down, 8.00Mb up.  I think this eliminates anything past the SMC router as the limitng factor.

As for my network topology normally, I'm running the SMC gigabit port directly to a 100BaseFX fiber transceiver; that's the reason for the 100BaseT in the line, to transition to the fiber. The fiber then goes to a 100BaseFX NIC on the server. There is no 100BaseT switch in line at all; it's hooked directly to the gigabit port on the SMC router.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/4022099605.png

Great - that eliminates a lot of guessing.  100BaseFX should be fine fiber is full duplex.

Can you login to the SMC cable modem and go to the WAN section and copy and paste the signal levels of the channels?

Most of the time these bandwidth issues are a result of bad signal levels or impropr modem provisioning.  If the incorrect modem is defined on the Comcast side then the bootfile will program the SMC wrong and you won't get full bandwidth, or if the signal levels are wrong then you will get packet loss that will also kill throughput.

If it's bad signal levels they will need to roll a truck to fix as that is usually copper issues.  At this pioint if you have the time you should call it into Comcast, ask them to check their configuration on their side to make sure they have the right modem defined, then ask them to check signal levels on their side and on your side (they should be able to remote into your modem and do this)

Hello klotz thank you for the message. Can you please reset your modem and rerun the speed test?

Thank you

Thanks to Comcast_Jacob fixing something it's now 11ms / 57 down / 11.6 up!

http://www.speedtest.net/result/4025133486.png

Thank you!