Does Verizon bandwidth limit download on Droid phones?
BrotherJack
Newbie

I have a Motorola Droid that I am generally very (very) happy with.   Except....   

 

Download speed is often/usually TERRIBLE.   Like, down in the 128k/s and 300ms latency range.   However, upload speed is normal-ish for a remote area like where I live (800k/s on average).   I am testing this using both the native Android app for speedtest.net, and just generally watchin slow page-loads with the built in browser.   The phone does get more sane (500k/s) bandwidth when I'm in more civilized areas (though, upload speed still surpasses download by a mile, almost 100% of the time).     This is in an area where I get an easy 2 or 3 out of 4 bars signal strength on the Droid.

 

Based on all that, I would have just assumed that since I live in a remote area, I'm sure whichever tower I'm getting service off of is getting pounded by mobile broadband data users who can't get anything else in that area, so I would just assume network saturation.... except... I borrowed a MiFi from a friend of mine for a few days (which has turned into a week, now), and lo and behold, it'll smoke an easy average of 900k/s downloads w/100ms latency all day/all night, sitting right next to my Droid that's still sucking wind back around 128k/s and 300ms.   This isn't like a 'it happened once' thing, this happens 99.9% of the time.

 

Which brings me to my quesiton -- is it possible that Verizion is caping bandwidth rates for Droid's (presumably due to their ease of un-billed-for tethering?)   Do I have a defective phone?  Or are the dedicated data devices like the MiFi just better at sucking bandwidth out of Verizon's network?

 

 

Thanks in advance,

 

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Re: Does Verizon bandwidth limit download on Droid phones?
PJNC284
Master - Level 2

Probably the area that you're in or maybe the amount of traffic from other users.  My parents have a mifi and it seems that it will pull faster speeds and a better signal than my droid.  The signal bars can be unreliable though.  Right now, I have 3 bars on 3G but the decible reading is -98 which isn't that great.  You can check yours by going into settings-about phone-Status and you should see Signal Strength about halfway down.  

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Re: Does Verizon bandwidth limit download on Droid phones?
BrotherJack
Newbie

Thanks, that's a good tip, and I'll try that when I get home.   I wonder if the USB760 would pull the same as a MiFi for keeping a better signal than the Droid??

 

 

Thanks,

 

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Re: Does Verizon bandwidth limit download on Droid phones?
BrotherJack
Newbie

Though, your response doesn't really explain why I get perfectly acceptable upload speeds and lousy downloads. ??

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Re: Does Verizon bandwidth limit download on Droid phones?
aaronc
Newbie

This is kind-of an old post to put this in, but it came up high in a google search, so...

 

Try the NDT Mobile Client for Android from the market.  You could also run the NDT client on a desktop connected via the MiFi and tethered

Here are a few interesting details I get from several different runs....

 

running 10s outbound test (client-to-server [C2S]) . . . . . 395.0kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server-to-client [S2C]) . . . . . . 71.36kb/s
No network congestion discovered

Web100 reports the Round trip time =  2651.9 ms; the Packet size = 1448 Bytes; and 
No packet loss - but packets arrived out-of-order 1.49% of the time
S2C throughput test: Packet queuing detected: 45.10%
This connection is receiver limited 18.75% of the time.
  Increasing the the client's receive buffer (79.0 KB) will improve performance
This connection is sender limited 4.31% of the time.
  Increasing the NDT server's send buffer (104.0 KB) will improve performance
This connection is network limited 76.92% of the time.

Web100 reports TCP negotiated the optional Performance Settings to: 
RFC 2018 Selective Acknowledgment: ON
RFC 896 Nagle Algorithm: ON
RFC 3168 Explicit Congestion Notification: OFF
RFC 1323 Time Stamping: ON
RFC 1323 Window Scaling: ON; Scaling Factors -  Server=1, Client=7

Client is probably behind a firewall. [Connection to the ephemeral port failed]

The theoretical network limit is 4.17 Mbps
The NDT server has a 104.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 0.61 Mbps
Your PC/Workstation has a 79.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 0.23 Mbps
The network based flow control limits the throughput to 0.23 Mbps

Client Data reports link is 'T1', Client Acks report link is 'T1'
Server Data reports link is 'OC-48', Server Acks report link is 'T1'
Information: Network Middlebox is modifying MSS variable
Server IP addresses are preserved End-to-End
Information: Network Address Translation (NAT) box is modifying the Client's IP address

 

Another day

The theoretical network limit is 0.19 Mbps
The NDT server has a 84.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 1.61 Mbps
Your PC/Workstation has a 80.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 0.77 Mbps
The network based flow control limits the throughput to 0.62 Mbps

 

Anopter day

The theoretical network limit is 0.06 Mbps
The NDT server has a 104.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 0.66 Mbps
Your PC/Workstation has a 80.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 0.25 Mbps
The network based flow control limits the throughput to 0.25 Mbps

 

The theoretical network limit is 0.19 Mbps
The NDT server has a 84.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 1.61 Mbps
Your PC/Workstation has a 80.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 0.77 Mbps
The network based flow control limits the throughput to 0.62 Mbps

 

The theoretical network limit is 0.06 Mbps
The NDT server has a 104.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 0.66 Mbps
Your PC/Workstation has a 80.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 0.25 Mbps
The network based flow control limits the throughput to 0.25 Mbps

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