Capitalizing on the higher speeds, how?

[Neilh]

This is a little bit “what do I do” and a little bit of a whine post. Sorry...

I just upgraded my TELUS Internet. I had recently been running 150. We have had Fibre for several years. We have 3 wired TVs, and multiple wireless phones, iPads, laptops. But there are only 3 of us, so how much could we possibly be using! I had come to the end of our term some time ago and hadn’t reupped. Our 3200 cratered and TELUS came to replace it. While I was on the phone I started chatting with the agent about increasing the speed. As I wasn’t on a term any longer I thought trying 300 might be an interesting experiment. Long story short, I ended up signed into the 1gig service. Was going to cost me less so why not. I haven’t been unhappy with the service but......

So I haven’t really noticed a great difference in speed. Speedtest says I am hitting 250 to 300, not anywhere near 1 Gig. I appreciate that we are sharing the 1 Gig but I would expect more than a boost of 150. I was on a Zoom call and got the “unstable message” 3 times! Really?! 
I really think that the marketing of these services is a little suspect, if you aren’t likely to be able to get the speed, they should say so. 
is there something that I can do to better this? I understand my phone alone should be capable of more than twice that speed on Wi-Fi. 
Anyone? Thoughts?

[Nighthawk · Accepted solution]

For surfing the web, streaming, gaming and even Zoom calls you won't notice any difference between 150 and even 300 since none of those use much bandwidth at all. Definitely far less than what would be needed to saturate a 150mbps connection. That applies to a 1gbps connection too. If you were downloading a lot of larger files like games, you would definitely notice a difference there.

Zoom calls seem to be more unstable on wireless for me when compared to when I connect an ethernet cable to my laptop. More often than not it seems that Zoom is the only thing I've used that noticeably has performance issues on wireless.

For speed tests, you'll want to do it from a device connected by ethernet to the Telus router. Wireless, especially if it's an older spec can sometimes max out at 300. It can also depend on the device you're using as well. Speed test results can also vary significantly depending on the server you are testing to. Not all speed test servers will support a 1gbps connection. I've found a few that don't even reach 300mbps up or down, and a number that can't even crack 100mbps for the upload speed test.

If you have the new white Telus router those can easily offer speeds well over 300 if your devices support it. My brother is on 1gig fibre with that white Telus router/hub and gets around 600-650mbps on wireless on his iMac and 300-400mbps on devices with older wireless chipsets in them. When connected by ethernet he gets the full 940mbps up and down on the iMac.

If even when hardwired to the router you can't get over 300mbps, there is also a small possibility that your connection wasn't set to 1gbps on Telus' end. It's rare but it can happen. If that is the case, tech support can usually have it corrected from their end pretty easily.