Use a more reliable speed test site. The correct answer is you can’t, after some overhead a gigabit port caps out around 940mbps. Anything being reported over that is a bad measurement or a bug.
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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Some of the ISPs over provision the circuits to avoid issues with customers running speed tests and getting a lower speed than they are paying for. I’m paying for 500mb internet but actually get close to 600.
Source I worked for an ISP.
ISPs typically provision their modems to provide a little more speed than what is actually listed. Not always true. When I worked at spectrum, 200mbps connections would show over 200 when I ran tests. Selecting different servers would yield wildly different results.
Do you have the Pro 6E mesh? That system has 2.5GbE ports according to their website. Either way Fast tends to be a little generous with the results they show, did you try nperf or ookla to see if you get the same result?
1 Gbps is computationally 1.24416.
This is it
With 1 Gbps, most ISPs and router manufacturers mean 1000 Megabits per second. And this site also shows the speed in bits per second. So, the speed shouldn't really be more than 1000 Mbps or 1 Gbps because their hardware isn't capable of that, even if their ISP is providing some extra speed (which sometimes they do, especially with servers like Netflix).
This is the typical wrong speed reported by Fast.com and that's why people shouldn't use it to measure how fast their connection is, unless they are trying to verify if their connection sucks with Netflix servers and/or video streaming.
Except you know overhead is a thing
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This is why I change the settings to run for longer. 60-90 seconds usually.
Also, you have a crap upload speed.
Fast.com is really inaccurate in my experience
Fun fact: if your company throttles video bandwidth fast.com gets that. We throttle at 2mbs and fast shows exactly that.
I do belive that was the initial reason for the site, it was during the whole ISPs getting caught lying and throttling hence why it's a Netflix owned site.
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Bits, bytes, rounding, bad math, and maybe compression
It’s definitely over provision to be sure you don’t complain lol. 😂
They do it where I am here too
You are right, just kidding. Technically, it is possible to surpass 1gbps if there is compression during transmission. Steam actually does that. It’s usually compress during transmission and it’s decompressed on the user end. I understand it’s not related to this. But it is a known fact.
In this instance yes, its inaccuracies, would recommend using another speed test like Speedtest.net
Fast, while loading quicker than speedtest, can hitch occasionally and give you a higher speed than you're actually getting. It might read 800mb/s one moment, then realize it was supposed to be 1gb/s, and then compensate by giving false numbers. That number approximated your gig service, you're fine.
It could be AT&T. They overprovision the circuits. A 1Gbps on Xpon will test 1300.
If the router has 1 gbps ethernet port, the max it will provide is about 940mbps. It's the PHY limit of a 1gbps NIC.
Fast is less accurate than Speedtest
I’ve seen the same thing with Fast. I like that you can configure the number of streams, but sometimes you need to close all instances of your browser with them.
Some testing software in my experience can give you a higher speed than what you are getting and vice/versa.
For example the Xbox internal test in settings can give me a speed of +600mbps whereas a Google test on a wired connection can give me 300mbps on a 550mbps connection
Additionally, some ISP's may over provision by whatever % to cover overhead and other things.
This is Exactly what my ISP does. So I don’t know why you are being downvoted. I pay for symmetrical 1Gb. I receive, as tested through speedtest.net, 1060Mbps down and 1040Mbps up. In order to receive those speeds, I had to test from a computer with an ethernet interface faster than 1Gbps. And of course the router would also need to support the higher bandwidth link. My Mac Studio has a 10Gb interface; and my router has a 2.5Gb interface. If you have a router with WiFi 6 or 6e capability, you could also exceed 1Gb with that (providing the device you are testing with also supports it).
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Fast.com sucks, I find the command line Speedtest.net the most accurate.
Fast check against Netflix's media servers I believe but it's not completely accurate
I always recommend doing actual test file downloads.
There's plenty of sites you can use, download multiple of the larger files, even on different computers to really saturate the network.
Fast.com is not an accurate speed test. I have seen even faster speeds on a gigabit connection with fast.com. Speedtest.net is the standard.
I hate fast
That’s drinkin’ buddy.
Most ISPs will add a buffer to their provisioning.
Ie, 100 Mbps is provisioned at 125, 500, its 550, etc.
Source: work at ISP
Fast.com tends to give higher numbers. One of reason I personally don't trust them (for accuracy). When I do iPerf (local test), Xfinity with correct server location seems be more concordant with my result.
However, relatively speaking I think they can still be used, just to absolute number.
Are you using cabling or are you on Wifi? If it is cabling, it is natural that the transfer will be of better speed and stability.
I believe that by announcing 1gb, the manufacturer of a router is guaranteeing an “official” maximum speed that it is capable of traveling, it does not necessarily mean that some extra megabytes can not be transferred.
It's more reasonable to announce 1gb than to advertise 1.2 and have hoards of clients complaining that they are measuring only 1.1, for example. Anything that exceeds this 1gb "limit" will be perceived as bonus and customer satisfaction with the brand will be higher.
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This is a Netflix site, there is no guarantee of accuracy. Also, there is a direct relationship between Netflix and just about all ISPs.
I'm able to reproduce if you switch to another browser tab as soon as the test starts.
I have FiOS and mine reads faster than the speed I pay for by about 100mbps both ways. The tech said they deliberately over-provision so that you'll get at least the advertised speed on wireless. I'm not sure who your provider is so this may not apply to you.
it's the fact that he has a 1 gig router. with overhead only like 940 Mbps is possible
That can’t be right because I’ve seen higher speeds than that during downloads with a download manager on my 1GBs infrastructure https://imgur.com/a/aIaVpi8
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🤫, act cool, nothing to see here Mr internet provider company.
From my testing specifically from fast.com, every now and then when I run the test run and it glitches a bit, I will see the stated speed slow down and then spikes up, my theory is its using a rolling average, while the spike didnt register some data downloaded it later registers is and gives you a higher than normal average.
Depends on where the server is. Being 1 gig means it is capable of that speed. You have better speed than like 95% of everyone.
Cable internet is the reason why. Sometimes you may get faster, sometimes you will get slower. Just depends on how many people around you are using their bandwidth.
Math bad.
You probably have Fios. Because the video circuit also uses data for VOD, widgets and guide information it has been standard practice to increase the bandwidth. This is so you can get the speeds that you subscribe to on the data circuit. And no it doesn’t matter if you have video service or not. This is just another reason why fiber is just better than copper.
I work for Comcast, usually to the modem you will get about 119% of advertised speed so you could theoretically get 1.2 if your in one of the upgraded areas
Cabling is rated for a specific speed. Could it be possible it's exceeding the rating under the right conditions (quality cable, length, etc.)?
Fast does the same thing for me, but rarely. I usually use speedof.me or speedtest.
I tend to get 20% faster than the service I’m paying for as well. I’m not sure why but I’m not mad.
Inflation!
I really like speedof.me. it gives you a more accurate view of how your internet worked because it will graph what your download and upload looked like for the time it was testing.
On a side note...
You are usually provisioned for the 1.2 Gbps.
If you get you a modem and a router that has a 2.5 Gbps port or higher, as well as your computer having it as well, you will get speed tests close to the 1.2 Gbps as well
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