This is about a download speed issue I had and resolved.
I have 600 Mbps with Comcast. For the longest time I've been unable to download at more than 200 Mbps from Steam, Epic Games Store, etc., and assumed it was either the stores (CDN) limiting bandwidth or a remote chance of Comcast doing something. I didn't entirely suspect Comcast because I can download from usenet at over 700 Mbps. I never really looked into it until today because I recognized some strange behavior when downloading from usenet.
Steam was downloading at its usual 200 Mbps and I started a usenet download expecting to see usenet eat up the remaining available bandwidth (~400 Mbps). Nope. Usenet download slow and I'm not using more than 200 Mbps. Pause Steam download, suddenly I'm using over 700 Mbps from usenet. Hmm. Launch Epic Games Store + Steam, run simultaneous downloads, still 200 Mbps. Pausing and starting these game downloads is basically a toggle switch for 200/700 Mbps usenet downloads. LOL Something about those game downloads is making the router cap its WAN connection at 200 Mbps.
I poked around at the router settings with no success, I ended up flashing it to Tomato and then enabling the cut-through forwarding (CTF) option. This opened up the router and it no longer chokes to 200 Mbps when downloading games. I'm not terribly knowledgeable on networking stuff, but this makes me wonder if I just needed to configure some kind of port forwarding in the default Netgear config. Regardless, I don't understand the issue and it makes me mad! :)
Found one other person that had the same issue: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/R7000-Slow-download-speeds-after-latest-firmware-upgrade/m-p/1775643/highlight/true#M133813
Just posting this because I know people like to get mad about bandwidth caps or manipulation and such, this appeared like something was manipulating speeds for specific services, that something appears to be this dumb Netgear router.
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