[SOLVED] Getting more mbps than what I believe was included in SuddenLink plan.

[Sulerium]

So I was running some internet tests after our internet went out for a hot minute, and it just struck me that I'm getting faster mbps speeds than what I though was included in my plan with SuddenLink. To give details, it's a 200 mbps plan and after 4 tests it averaged at about 210, and I have seen it go as high as 230-250. I was wondering if this was possible because I doubt SuddenLink would just be giving away free performance (although I've always thought that $200 for a 200 mbps plan was overpriced), and I always hear about the opposite of this happening, that being someone has a 100 mbps plan but they're only getting 40 mbps because of their area to list as an example.

If this isn't a common occurrence and companies like Suddenlink cap out performance once you hit your definite limit, then I'm guessing that means I should switch out our ISP provided router for something that can actually utilize our internet?

 

[bill001g]

That is actually pretty common on something other than DSL. DSL the conditions of the phone wires going to your house determine the maximum speed but the ISP tends to quote the rate perfect wires would get.

On things like fiber or cable the actual network is running many times faster than they offer. That is because you and your neighbors share the same bandwidth. So if they are using even not even the fastest docsis 3.0 that runs about 1gbit they can run 5 users at the same time at 200mbps.
The 200 number is artificial and is a average rate. Your traffic is actually being sent at the full network speed. This artificial limitation to do a really accurate job would put a burden on their equipment so they just set it a big higher than they actually offer. That way when you get multiple user all using max bandwidth at the same time the numbers are a little smoother. Although it is much less common it is possible that you have too many neighbors using too much bandwidth and you see slower rates and even worse data delays.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

That's by no means unusual with full fibre broadband. I signed up to 100 meg service but speed test showed I was getting 140 meg almost every day.
I'm on 300 meg service now and even that shows 310 on speed test, not much higher than 300 but still better than being lower.