I have a shaw nitro cable account (max 25k down). Shaw speedtests always show me around 20k...speak easy and speedtest.net show me very different results. My tests to Chicago and New York (I am in BC) are decent (over 8k usually), but my speedtests to Seattle and Vancouver (the closest locations) are around 2-3k. That is until I check on Automatically Detect Settings in my lan settings. Then my tests to Seattle and Van go soaring up to above 13k. Two techs plus everyone I have spoken to at Shaw tell me that they have no idea why, and that this setting (ADS) should be left unchecked . I was also told by sterling to uncheck this box so that they could ping my computer when I was having some software issues, because my IP was hidden or something. I do notice that my IP changes more often when the box is checked (I have a dynamic IP with Shaw but it only changes every 48 hours or something like that). So does anyone know why this is happening, and will leaving ADS checked on adversely affect my trading (ie slow my speed down or anything like that) ?
One last thing...my techs suggestion is to install a new browser, as he thinks Internet Explorer may be the issue (he said either firefox or google chrome). I have only ever used IE so I am not keen to do that.
Your numbers of 25k and the like make no sense. Shaw Nitro internet is capable of 25 Mbps download speeds. Try running a speed test with Giganews http://www.giganews.com/test_connect.html and report the actual results.
Sorry I will try to explain it better ...yes, nitro is supposed to get up to 25 Mbps down...I get over 20 Mbps down with the shaw speed test usually. With speakeasy I am getting around 2500 kbps down to seattle and 11500 kbps to Chicago with Automatically detect settings turned off. When I turn ADS on, if I close down my browser window and then reopen it, I suddenly show a different IP address from my usual one (and it is always the same IP address that suddenly appears, even though the one I have with ADS turned off changes every few days)...then my speeds to seattle instantly go up to over 15000 kbps. My speed to Chicago goes up too but not so dramatically. I have to do this once in awhile to maintain those speeds though, as my IP will eventually change back to my regular one and the speedtest slows down again. I am not at home right now, but as soon as I am I will try out that test and post my results...thank you!