Improving my Internet Speed

Recently my cable Internet service was automatically “upgraded” from 30 Mbps to 300 Mbps (along with an increase in price).

Curious if my speed would truly increase, I made sure to measure my Internet speed - using SpeedTest.net - both before and after the supposed upgrade.

Surprise, surprise - there was no increase in speed. I was getting about 20 Mbps down and 40 Mbps up both before and after:

But I’m still curious. Could the issue be my network? Might my modem - an ARRIS SURFboard SB6141 DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem that I got back in February of 2016 - be the problem? Or maybe my WiFi router - a Linksys AC1200 Wi-Fi 5 router which I’ve had since July of 2017 - be the bottleneck?

Spectrum no longer charges extra if you use their modem (they do charge extra if you use their Wi-Fi router). So I headed down to the local Spectrum Store and asked if I could check what model modem they used. Spectrum’s modems are self-branded, or at least the ones that they had in the store, but the modem did have marked that it was a DOCSIS 3.1 modem. So after providing my account info, I took it home. (The customer service rep also further upgraded me to a 1-Gig service and gave me a promotional rate).

I was disappointed after hooking up the modem because my speed still didn’t improve.

Maybe my Wi-Fi router was the issue? How could I verify the router was the bottleneck without buying a new router?

That’s easy enough. My main computer is connected to the Wi-Fi router not via Wi-Fi but via Ethernet. I plugged my main computer directly into the modem and, thankfully, saw much better speeds - nearly a full gig downloading (although upload wasn’t much better):

I ended up buying a TP-Link AX6000 Wi-Fi 6 Router and, while I’m not seeing the speeds I saw when connected directly to the modem via ethernet, I am seeing much better speeds: