Static IP and speed

[ericeslinger]

I don't put much stock in regular speed tests. For me, a speed test is "what's my steam download rate?" For a long time, it would cap out at about 650 kB/sec, which is respectable (since that's kilobytes, so it's around 5 megabits) given how far I am from the access point.

This afternoon, I discovered that I could set up my service to use a static IP, rather than dynamic. I figured this would be handy if I need to access my computer from away - going to set up VNC or something.

Changing to a static IP increased my steam download rate to around 950 kB/sec. This is sustained. It has been about an hour or so, running solid. Yesterday, it was running solid at the lower rate (I have a brand-new computer and am installing a lot of queued games, which is how I noticed this stuff).

So: I don't know if it's a side-effect or what, but I figure it was worth raising this interesting point: going from the dynamic IP service to the static IP service but keeping everything else the same increased my download speed by 50%. Woof. Pretty neat.

[thulsa_doom]

Switching from dynamic to static IP shouldn't make any appreciable difference in throughput. One thing I've seen repeatedly is that when a network is reconfigured, it ends up re-synchronizing with the DSLAM, resulting in a new baseline speed, usually because the modem gets rebooted during the process.

[polpo]

It's possible that changing your IP meant you were directed to a different Steam server that happened to have less load or was on a less congested route. Valve has many servers spread throughout the country, and they try to direct you to the closest one but sometimes that geotargeting is not accurate.

The best speedtest to use is the one hosted on Sonic's servers: http://speedtest.sonic.net/ookla/