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No difference after upgrade to Quantum 50/25

For $10 more per month I expected a noticeable bump in speed. Just like my former plan (which is no longer offered - 25/25) I still can't watch most YouTube videos. I went through all of the troubleshooting offered in the Support section, and the connection speed didn't change. Verizon's "Speed Tester" can say whatever it wants, but when I am able to have two computers side-by-side (one on Quantum and one on AT&T 4G) set to watch the same YouTube video, it tells me that Verizon's tester is erroneous at best and criminally misleading at worst. I think I will be switching to Comcast.

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tns2

@MartinRubeo wrote:
For $10 more per month I expected a noticeable bump in speed. Just like my former plan (which is no longer offered - 25/25) I still can't watch most YouTube videos. I went through all of the troubleshooting offered in the Support section, and the connection speed didn't change. Verizon's "Speed Tester" can say whatever it wants, but when I am able to have two computers side-by-side (one on Quantum and one on AT&T 4G) set to watch the same YouTube video, it tells me that Verizon's tester is erroneous at best and criminally misleading at worst. I think I will be switching to Comcast.

Youtube should be viewable at well below 25/25, so is really not a great test. Youtube problems are almost never because of your connection speed but problems somewhere else in the network between you and youtube's servers.

eljefe2

Let me add that if you don't trust Verizon's own speed test, you can always use www.speedtest.net, an indepenent that has no association with Verizon.

In my own experience though, speedtest.net and the Verizon test have yielded almost identical results.

For whatever it's worth....or not.

smith6612

Never use YouTube as a benchmark for a connection. It behaves differently on all ISPs, at all times of the day and takes on traffic for a good portion of the day. Results will be absolutely mixed with YouTube.

Here's a prime example. Last night, I was watching Google I/O, streamed on YouTube in 1080p flawlessly on my DSL connection with Verizon. I stop the stream and go to a popular video. It loads up terribly slow. I flip back to the stream once again hosted by YouTube streaming from the same servers delivering videos to me normally, and it's playing flawlessly again. Has anyone considered that this could be a cache fetch / Disk IO on YouTube's end, or are servers (the things I deal with on a daily basis at work) these magical things that don't slow down?

MartinRubeo

Thanks for the advice regarding YouTube. I tried other sites as well and the same issues presented themselves. Even after troubleshooting, the FIOS and online speed testers weren't returning anywhere the 50-mark - never got above 25 actually

MartinRubeo

Thanks - absolutely, the server could be the culprit - but then it was the server for YouTube, ESPN, CNN, Huffington Post, Facebook, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and Ebay - all sites that I tried simultaneously on my tablet using 4G and on my laptop using FIOS

eljefe2

There is defnitely something wrong if you're getting consistently better results with a 4G connection vs FiOS.

Is your laptop connected via wifi or Ethernet? If it's wifi (which I'm guessing is the case), can you connect it to your router via Ethernet cable, at least as a temporary test?

If so, try that, run a couple of speed tests and try those sites you were having the trouble with to see if there's an improvement.

tns2

OP, after following the suggestion for trying wired connection, and assuming you get good resutls, then try tuning up your wireless connections. Lots of suggestions on these boards for how to improve wireless speed. Note that as long as you use wireless-g 20-25 is the best you are likely to get.

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