Hi,
I'm just going to type this out as it comes to mind, so if there's a few spilleng/grahmer airors, then oh well.
For the past few weeks, I have been monitoring my speeds via speedtest on my laptop, which is connected to my network via wireless 5G, as well as the network tab on my Xbox One, which is connected to my network via wired 2.4G. The router that I use is a Linksys 'dd'-WRT610N dual-band 2.4G/5G router. I starting monitoring my speeds because I began noticing that my connection started becoming extremely slow during peak hours and playing with my online gaming community was becoming incredibly laggy in every game and was nearly unplayable.
Prior to upgrading my modem, I had the Arris TM502G, which Comcast has marked as "end of life" meaning out-dated. While paying for 50/20, out of peak hours, I was getting on average 30-34Mbps download and 10-13 Upload, with a Ping of 19-21ms, while my Xbox one was getting an average of 20-30Mbps DL, 10-13Mbps UL, and 84ms. Every day during peak hours (~6pm-11pm, and even as late as 12am), my DL speed would drop drastically to literally below 5Mbps on my laptop and below 1Mbps on my Xbox One, yes, literally below 1Mpbs, which is below the required 2-5Mbps for smooth online gaming. My Ping was also decreasing to around 40ms while my Upload speed didn't really change. My Xbox One UL however was, which was similar to the DL speed, below 1Mbps, so I was getting less than 1Mbps/1Mbps on my Xbox one during peak hours while paying for 50/20. My ping was also heavily affected during peak hours, testing erratically between 384ms to over 700ms.
I searched online to see if anyone else was having similar issues, and I found several threads on over a dozen sites where people had been experiencing the same exact issues as I was having. And their issues persisted even after they had upgraded their router and had a technician come out to look at the hardware. I eventually found this webpage hidden in the depths of Comcast's website, http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/network-management-information/, which states that Comcast does in fact use a Network Congestion Management Technique that automatically limits customers' bandwidth who have been targeted as "high-use" customers ("This technique will identify which customer accounts are using the greatest amounts of bandwidth, and their Internet traffic will be temporarily managed until the congestion period passes."). Searching even further, I found this little jewel of a webpage which isn't on Comcast's website, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6057, which explains in the full how this "technique" exactly works and identifies and targets certain customers as "high-users of bandwidth".
Basically, Comcast does in fact target either your download and/or upload speed and limit it to how they see fit so that "lower-use customers" do not experience a drop in their bandwidth ("1. Software installed in the Comcast network continuously examines aggregate traffic usage data for individual segments of Comcast's HSI network. If overall upstream or downstream usage on a particular segment of Comcast's HSI network reaches a pre-determined level, the software moves on to step two"..."2. At step two, the software examines bandwidth usage data for subscribers in the affected network segment to determine which subscribers are using a disproportionate share of the bandwidth. If the software determines that a particular subscriber or subscribers have been the source of high volumes of network traffic during a recent period of minutes, traffic originating from that subscriber or those subscribers temporarily will be assigned a lower priority status."..."During the time that a subscriber's traffic is assigned the lower priority status, their packets will not be delayed or dropped so long as the network segment is not actually congested. If, however, the network segment becomes congested, their packets could be intermittently delayed or dropped.").
I had called Comcast's phone support and used the online live chat both at least a dozen times each, and every time, the representative would adamantly deny that Comcast limits it's customers speeds/bandwidth in any way, and insisted that the issue was solely due to my modem being marked as "end of line", and assured me that the drops in speed/bandwidth during peak hours would no longer happen if I upgraded my modem to a newer DOCSIS 3.0 modem.
So a few days ago, I did just that. I went to my local Comcast Service Center and exchange the Arris TM502G for an Arris TM822G. I can say that my overall download speeds on both my laptop and Xbox one has increased. Out of peak hours, I now get on average 40-43Mbps DL, while the Ping and UL are still the same. I was surprised to see that my Xbox One is now getting an average DL speed of 60-90Mbps while the UL and Ping are also still the same. Note that during the time that I was monitoring my speeds prior to upgrading my modem, my step-dad (account holder) changed our subscription to get more TV channels at a lower price, though he said that he didn't specifically change our internet speed subscription, one of the phone agents said, prior to upgrading my modem, that we were now allotted 105Mbps DL. Before continuing to what I now get during peak hours, I want to point out that I now get twice as fast speeds on my Xbox One via the wired 2.4G than on my wireless 5G, whereas it was vice versa with the old modem, and oddly for some reason, connecting my laptop via the wired 2.4G now limits my DL speed to below 10Mbps, even out of peak hours, it didn't do that before upgrading my modem. Anyway, back to what I now get during peak hours. Basically, what the reps/agents had promised me was complete bullshit, my speeds are still being limited, however, not nearly as bad as before. Now only my laptop DL is being affected while my Ping and UL are no longer affected. On my laptop, I get 10-15Mbps DL, and my Xbox One gets 10-20Mbps DL. I've noticed that I also sometimes get lag spikes on my Xbox One, meaning that my speeds/ping drastically drop even further for a brief second, but they are now just momentary lag spikes instead of the consistent unplayable lagfest.
To sum everything up, Comcast can and does in fact limit your speeds/bandwidth if you use more bandwidth than your neighbors. The limits only happen during peak hours, because the technique that automatically does this only activates these limits if it detects that there is a congestion on the hub that you and all of your neighbors are connected to, which normally occurs and fluctuates the most during this peak hour of usage time-frame of the day. It's not that the congestion is directly causing the lower speeds, it's because when there is congestion detected, Comcast's technique automatically lowers the speeds/bandwidth of "higher-use customers" so that "lower-use customers" won't feel the affect of the congestion 'as badly'.
One major flaw/deliberate result that I discovered within this technique is that all of Comcast's modems have a built-in bandwidth threshold. So, if you have an older modem with a lower built-in bandwidth threshold than someone with a newer modem with a higher built-in bandwidth threshold, you could both use the same exact amount of bandwidth but because your modem's built-in bandwidth threshold is lower, you are targeted as being closer to your bandwidth capacity and therefore targeted as the "higher-use customer", and you will have your speed(s)/bandwidth limited while your neighbor, with the same exact bandwidth usage, will not. So, if you refuse to upgrade your modem, Comcast may in fact be automatically limiting your speed(s)/bandwidth as a result of you just having an older modem.
After having upgraded my modem to one with a higher built-in bandwidth threshold, the only reason that I can think of for me to still be targeted as a "higher-use customer" than my neighbors and as a result still have my DL speed/bandwidth limited during peak hours, despite that "A user's traffic is released from a BE state when the user's bandwidth consumption drops below 50 percent of his or her provisioned upstream or downstream bandwidth for a period of approximately 15 minutes", is because of my family members literally having no idea how to turn off the wi-fi on their phones/tablet when not using them, despite me explaining it to them over a dozen times (two smart phones and one tablet with 24/7 constant background data downloading and automatic updates). Right before this all started happening, I also downloaded the digital versions of Halo: MCC and Titanfall on my Xbox One along with all the updates, which jumped my monthly DL bandwidth usage up to over 170GB, which while is not anywhere near the cap of 300GB, I'm sure it's more than what anyone else in my neighborhood has used for this month, which thankfully ends today. So I'm hoping that my DL speed/bandwidth limit will stop after this month when the usage resets, as the limited speeds I've been getting during peak hours are about spot on with the 88% max ISP throttling limit, and if not, I'm going to start contacting Comcast again and see what they can do. Seeing how this technique may be automatic and out of their control (Comcast signed a 'Strategic Sponsorship Agreement' with the "Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)), I may just have to hold off on downloading entire games for a while, as well as try to teach my family how to turn off their phone's wi-fi again.
"Comcast's production network transition to this new protocol-agnostic congestion management system began in October 2008 and was completed on December 31, 2008."
I just wanted to post this here as I've seen a lot of people with similar Comcast "throttling" issues and have had no idea what was going on and didn't know how to fix/stop it. I hope this post helps explain it to someone!
Cheers!
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