Slow Ethernet speeds despite paying for 1000 mbps — need advice
Hey guys, hope everyone’s doing well. This is my first time posting in here, but I was scrolling and everyone seems pretty chill and people have gotten their issues resolved, so hopefully I can have the same outcome.
So basically, we have AT&T Wi-Fi at home — I believe it’s fiber since download and upload speeds match. We’re on the 1000/1000 plan. I have my own PC work/gaming setup (one PC, two monitors), and since my room is pretty far from the router, I had someone come install an Ethernet run from the router that goes outside the house, along the outer line under the roof (so it stays dry), secured with zip ties, then comes into my room and connects to a small box with Ethernet plugins that I connect my devices to.
When everything first got set up, I was getting around 940-950 down/up on Ethernet in my room, and everything was running smooth. Yesterday my internet felt off — I was downloading a game on Steam and it was going way slower than usual. I ran a speed test and got around 80 upload, 90 download.
I’m not totally sure how long this has been happening, since I only ran the speed test yesterday. I’ve been busy and hadn’t played any games in a while, so I was just doing normal tasks and never noticed. The only reason I caught it was because the game download was taking way longer than usual.
Since we’re still paying for the 1000 plan, I checked my mom’s phone and it still tested at 1000. I checked my Ethernet cable and everything looked fine — even the adapter settings on my computer showed the link speed as 1000/1000 receive/transmit. So the connection itself seems fine, I’m just not getting the speeds I’m paying for.
I contacted AT&T and they said we have too many devices on the Wi-Fi. I get that, but we’ve had roughly the same number of devices (around 40) since I first got the plan — and it’s not all computers, mostly phones, a few TVs, iPads, and laptops that get used here and there, not constantly streaming or downloading. I’m the one who uses the internet the most, which is why I had the Ethernet setup done in the first place since I work from home.
Shouldn’t being on Ethernet bypass the device cap and still give me close to my 900s, even if the 1000 plan is designed for around 20 devices max? For reference, my mom’s phone gets around 900 on a speed test, but my phone gets the same low 80-90 as my computer.
Is there anything I can do to prioritize my computer, or figure out what’s actually causing this?
Thank you