Are these internet fluctuations normal?

[Winston]

Hi, I have Century Link as my ISP and I use a Wi-Fi device for internet in my home. The only plan for internet in my area is 10 mbps (Century Link monopoly). My internet has been fast at random times and slow at others. I've used speedtest when it is somewhat speedy. I get these results:

When my internet is fast: 10 mbps download speed, 0.81 mbps upload speed, 43 ping
When my internet is mediocre: 5.65 mbps download speed, 0.71 mbps upload speed, 52 ping
When my internet is slow: 1.25 mbps download speed, 0.63 mbps upload speed, 63 ping

These speeds vary throughout my day. One hour I have the fast speeds and then the next hour I have very slow speeds.

Are these fluctuations normal? What is causing my slow internet? Is 10 mbps generally fast compared to other internet users nationwide? Thanks so much!

[James S]

The fluctuations might be a bad modem or bad phone wiring. They have switched to cat5e for phone wiring these days instead of the old cat3 wiring. So if your house is old you most likely have old wiring causing this issue. Cross-Talking is line noise which will also cause this.

As for the speed 10mbps is on the slow side these days. Its almost like downloading the old 3.5 inch 1.38mb floppy disks per a second. Which is fine for basic e-mail and light video streaming.

I recommend at least 15mbps or more for better experience if you watch videoes online or download a-lot.

I currently have 50mbps download which is about 6 megabytes a second and 5mbps upload which is about 625kb or little over half of a megabyte a second. But its super expensive.

Whats bad is that a-lot of ISP's have data caps.

The old service I had only allowed 250GB a month and I blew through that quite easy at 15mbps down connection. If I go over that limit they charge extra $10 for every 50GB once you go over the limit.

They got the 30 mbps which is 350GB download limit

Then the 50 mbps which is 999GB

and finally 105 mbps which is also capped at 999GB.

I can't wait for google internet to come to my town so I can have 1Gbps up and down with tv for $120~ a month.

[viewer]

It may be bandwidth problem. I think you have used your all the available bandwidth. Sometime you download anything that extend your bandwidth limit then suddenly you see that your connection will be failed.