who's your isp, and on what basis did they do this?

If he's on a local cable ISP they're probably trying to keep up with Verizon's roll out of FIOS. I know that Time Warner cable did bump up speeds soon after FIOS started rolling out near me. TWC sent me a letter to reboot my cable modem to get faster download speeds.

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Yup! Local cable ISP--Adelphia. Yes, Verizon is rolling out FIOS. My in-laws has FIOS and it is the same speed. I just used a closer server for the Speakeasy speedtest and got slightly better result just now....

Last Result:
Download Speed: 13106 kbps (1638.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 2216 kbps (277 KB/sec transfer rate)

Also, PNG, off the topic, I can see a huge, frequent, heavy lightning out east....are you guys getting massive lightning storm? Hopefully it won't spark another fire...

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That's awesome. If you have not done so, you should tweak your TCP settings and you will likely get that extra delta of speed you are missing. Use the below link to do a tweak test. It will tell you how to optimize your settings. Then download DrTcp to adjust them. Likely your Receive Window is low. Boosting to a minimum of 75290 will likely get you the extra speed.

Enjoy!

http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks

Results from Charter Low Speed Internet (rated at 3Mbps) - San Gabriel Valley:

Download Speed: 2618 kbps (327.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 234 kbps (29.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Thanks for the site. I just checked my speed via the speakeasy site with the following results:

Down: 7774kbps
Up: 496kbps

Then I ran the tweak test with the following results:

Actual data bytes sent: 174281
Actual data packets: 121
Max packet sent (MTU): 1500
Max packet recd (MTU): 1500
Retransmitted data packets: 0
sacks you sent: 0
pushed data pkts: 24
data transmit time: 2.552 secs
our max idletime: 943.9 ms
transfer rate: 60409 bytes/sec
transfer rate: 483 kbits/sec
This is not a speed test!
transfer efficiency: 100%

It appears as though I'm good 2 go

Just looking at those speeds make me feel nauseous. I went to the link and my results were:
Download - 188kbps (23.5Kb)
Upload - 64kbps (8Kb)

This is on a supposed 1mb line that costs $150 p/m

We are waiting anxiously for real speed in my country.

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2008 X5 3.0d
Activity: Bluetooth: Towbar: R/B: Alpine White

Wow, $150 per month for not much better than dial up. We'll, at least you have hot chicks with cool accents

I typically get ~ 15kb/s down and 8kb/s up from Cablevision... it all depends upon what time of day you do the test. People who use a cable tv company as as ISP all share the same wire back to the ISP POP, so what your neighbor is downloading can/will affect your speed.

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You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.