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I have an 8 mbps(bits/sec) which is equals to 1 MBps(bytes/sec).

Now when I check speed at speedtest.net by Ookla, the speed fluctuates between 7 mbps to 8 mbps and Windows Task Manager also shows Wifi speed of about 8 mbps. Now this roughly equals to 900 KBps(bytes/sec) to 1 MBps.

But when I actually use internet like browsing content, watching youtube, or downloading videos from youtube and other sites, the internet seems to be very slow.

Also, IDM shows speed only around 500 KBps(bytes/sec) which is half of what I am paying. No matter from which site I am downloading, IDM always shows speed around 500 KBps.

Also when I talk to my ISP, he says everything is fine from their side and speedtest.net is the proof. So I don't know what is the actual problem here.

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  • What's your upload speed? What kind of internet connection is it? (DSL? Cable? Satellite?)
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Jun 28, 2019 at 6:33
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    A lot of ISPs prioritise traffic to speedtest.net. Try a few different speed test providers & take an average, & as @DavidSchwartz says, also record the upload speeds.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Jun 28, 2019 at 6:36
  • It is similar to a satellite connection, but instead of dish antenna there is a small device(MicroTik SXT) mounted over a pole on my roof in the direction of nearest telecom Tower because cables are not available in my region.
    – Luv Tomar
    Commented Jun 28, 2019 at 7:00
  • Also upload speed is always 4Mbps.
    – Luv Tomar
    Commented Jun 28, 2019 at 7:00
  • When you use speedtest you do the measurement with the best possible conditions. With browsing / watching videos your computer can't focus just on downloading, need to do a lot of other things too (process the data received, send different requests...), ping can also be very big with satellite connection further decreasing experience. Utilizing half of your internet capacity with real conditions I think is already very good. In fact 1 MB/s IS SLOW, I don't think you could get much better experience with it.
    – Máté Juhász
    Commented Jun 28, 2019 at 8:04

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It is because your ISP is providing you service over a wireless link. The wireless link is half-duplex (only one side can transmit at a time) and under realistic data conditions, a lot of bandwidth is wasted switching the direction that data moves.

Each device is both a transmitter and a receiver. It has to maintain full transmit power while it's sending data. That completely swamps its receiver. For it to then receive, it has to get its transmit power all the way down to zero and allow its receiver to recover from being swamped. That takes time and during that time, no data is moving in either direction.

Generally, I'm impressed when wireless links deliver real-world speeds of more than half their advertised data speeds. Switching to higher-end wireless hardware would solve this, but I imagine your ISP will want to charge more for a link that can move more data.

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