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Hi all, just passing along my experience - your mileage may vary. I think its worth submitting since I was able to double both my UP and DOWN test speeds with these small changes. These observations were made with an ASUS AC-3100 Router, from a hardwired 8p 24 gig (mem) server with a 1 gig Ethernet card. Firewall off I understand this is religious, but I set the devices to protect themselves as best I can. After all, I had no firewall rules in place anyway. So the firewall was just kind of a big piece of code in the router that had to do work on the packets - slowing the router down significantly. IMO that protection can be done elsewhere for much less expense in speed. Again, broad stroke firewall (even with no rules set) does protect against certain attacks - so turning it of is a choice I gamble on since I'm not the department of defense and nobody is trying to prove anything by screwing me over. AND, my server firewall does the same stuff regarding DoS attacks and what not. ( all these fear factors we live with ) NAT Acceleration (cut through) on NAT is a confusing thing to investigate. Devices, L3 switches, routers all have settings. I'm still reading about it. However for today, I can tell you that NAT acceleration ON allows a bunch of stuff to bypass the processor in the router and it makes a HUGE difference in Download speed. Turning it on or off did not make any difference in Upload speed. DNS Settings Talking about DNS settings arrives at a discussion of DHCP settings. That is because DHCP does you the kind favor of loading up the address of it's favorite DNS values when you do not tell it otherwise. This is the setting that allowed me to get from about 5Mbps Upload to 20Mbps Upload instantly. I was initially using the ISPs DNS server, and had my router set to allow DHCP pass through so my devices were becoming contaminated with the ISPs DNS address. This is a tricky topic but it makes a big difference. Consult your manuals carefully. Bottom line, do what is needed to get a good DNS server working for you. --john

Hi, this is just a small thing .. but since you asked.... After a test, there is comparison data at top. Things like % > than my average, % greater than whole world, etc. One of them is % > than Host. Hmmm. I would have to think about this longer to know what to recommend. For now I will just submit what I am pondering. The average numbers on Host have a lot to do with the subscription. (e.g. I pay for 5Mbps, and so 5Mbps is what I get.) Lots of people are running tests, and we don't know what speed they are paying for in their subscription. I think it may drive assumptions in peoples minds that could give the ISP a bad rap. As in, it may not be true that XYZ ISP can only go 5 Mbps Up, but it is certainly true that the majority of people here running tests have paid for that specific rate. Like I said, its a small thing, but does mean that particular comparison statement might could use an asterisk or something to clarify the fact that the Host results are sensitive to more than just the capability of their infrastructure. It is not an issue for individuals running tests since we already know the specifics of our own subscriptions.

Yes, if more subscribers are paying for a lower speed it will lower that hosts averages. But it does this for all hosts equally and unbiasedly. Hosts that offer faster basic packages will have a faster average. The ISP gives themselves a bad rap by having so many customers on these slower basic packages, if they offer a basic package of 5 Mbps and made it 100 Mbps instead (for instance) they could easily bring up their averages. The program isn't unfairly calculating, it's just giving you the numbers. It has no way of knowing if the person who just scored 5 Mbps is on the 5 Mbps plan or the 100 Mbps plan... unless it asks you. And as a programmer I can't rely on user input for variables. ... I always like to use variables that I can detect without user interaction. I definitely see what you're saying, it's a valid point. But I don't think it gives anyone a bad rap... they simply need to offer faster speeds to more users and they'll score better here. Like I said, all hosts averages are unbiasedly lowered by their slowest users. Some just have more slower users than others... and they have the slower averages they deserve as a consequence.