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Why does Microsoft throttle download speeds on Xbox One?

TTUVAPOR

Banned
Last night my Xbox One wasn't loading my friends app or my games/apps menu. Then it was having issues connecting to online portions of my games.

I did a detailed network stats test and it was showing a download speed of 5Mbps. I did this several times, and it kept giving results of under 5Mbps.

My ISP speed is suppose to be 25Mbps. I did a comcast speed test and sure enough, it was coming up 23Mbps, and after several tests, it was ranging between 22Mbps - 26Mbps.

I did a hard reset of my Xbox One and ran the tests again, same results, less than 5Mbps.

Now when I was downloading CODAW and Halo MCC a few weeks ago, the download speeds were insanely slow, less than 1Mbps. WTF? Why is it doing this when my download speed is 25Mbps?

I asked several friends who also have fast internet connections to do tests on their machines and they said the same thing was happening to them when they were downloading games, it was less than 2Mbps.

Why does MSFT throttle the download speed?? What's the point of the digital purchasing if the download will take longer than going to the retail store and phyiscally buying the game?
 

Leotarius

Member
I don't think they throttle. It might be something with your router. I changed the my router's "Channel" to 11, I think they default to 6, And my speeds went up.
 

macewank

Member
They probably do not throttle. Network infrastructure is a whole heck of a lot more complicated than "I have 25mbps downstream so I should get that speed"
 

Sanpei

Member
Download speeds are fine...Even better than my PS4...
My XO always get higher speeds with WiFi than my PS4
 
Actually I've got the opposite problem. When Xbox One is downloading something, downloading content from any other device in the house becomes almost impossibile, because the console eats up all the download bandwidth. I'd really like an option to limit it, like the one present in some p2p softwares.
 

danowat

Banned
There does seem to be some disparity between the data is it actually pulling down compared to the speed shown in the network stats.

I've not really noticed it being slow per say though.
 

Mihalis0013

Neo Member
It was probably due to the Xbox Live issues. My down is 100 officially (123 average speed test), and according to Xbox One it shows my down speed around 89 or so.

When I downloaded games they come in at a rate consistent with those numbers. I buy everything digital and it's been pretty consistent for me.

PS4 on the other hand... No idea wtf is going on there. I calculated when I downloaded Watch Dogs that I was pulling around 20-25 down, which is fast but garbage compared to what I get on Steam and XBL. I forget what the PS4 shows my down at but I feel like it's somewhere around 25.

Both consoles and PC wired btw
 

Skele7on

Banned
network speeds over a constant use over time.

So a speed test goes:

"hey I want to check speed"

Hammers for a couple mins

Stops after giving you a result.


When you're downloading anything firstly the host could be limiting download speed because they have say 100,000 people trying to download the same files at once
so it gives everyone a fair speed, but also your ISP hates you downloading off an xbox as it can sometimes flag that traffic as p2p so it then throttles the speed.
 

Qassim

Member
Your speed can be affected by many, many things. Running a speed test (hosted by your ISP or otherwise) doesn't provide you with a number you are guaranteed from any service you use.

Your ISP only controls so much of the path from you to the end point (e.g. Microsoft's infrastructure). There will be many networks you travel across between your ISP and Microsoft's infrastructure and the problem could be anywhere in between.

Are your friends in the same rough geographical location as you? I get my maximum line speed (that I know my line is capable of) from Xbox Live.
 

Apex_Predator

Neo Member
I've experienced similar issues with my XB1. The weird thing is that when I do the network test on XB1, my insanely high speeds are shown. When I do it with PS4, the speeds are only about half. However, when I download stuff from the respective stores, the PS4 always downloads it faster.
 

mcrommert

Banned
So Azure had a major, major downtime last night for the whole night

So live was directly affected...they weren't throttling you the network was caput
 

Discusguy

Member
It would be great help if you guys provided the type of router and what isp provider. Is that not possible for a reason I'm not aware of.
 

TyrantII

Member
I've always had issues with Comcast and gaming. Tracing the peer routing of BF4 servers I found they're routing game traffic over level3, same guys that used to CDN Netflix and have been having a huge tiff with Comcast.

My bet is Comcast is traffic shaping and purposely not upgrading their handoff points to squeeze other corps to use them as a CDN directly.
 

TTUVAPOR

Banned
So Azure had a major, major downtime last night for the whole night

So live was directly affected...they weren't throttling you the network was caput

That explains last night, but what about when MCC and CODAW launched, I pre-ordered them long before their release day and it was downloading less than 2Mbps.
 
That explains last night, but what about when MCC and CODAW launched, I pre-ordered them long before their release day and it was downloading less than 2Mbps.

You mean at the same time millions of other people would have been downloading them. If it wasn't in standby it would probably be downloading slower so other OS functions were not affected.

Why does MSFT throttle the download speed?? What's the point of the digital purchasing if the download will take longer than going to the retail store and phyiscally buying the game?

This is why all games can be preloaded now. If you buy digitally this is one of the things you have to think about.

Also I apologize if I missed it but did you state if you were wired or wireless. As that also sounds like your wifi settings are limiting you.

I haven't had an issue with mine on wired or wireless, the only time was as above when everyone was trying to preload MCC so the servers limited bandwidth across users.

Why doesn't MS even show the DL speed on the console, would make it so much easier to spot a problem.

Would be nice to have that but you can always check on your router.
 

TTUVAPOR

Banned
You mean at the same time millions of other people would have been downloading them. If it wasn't in standby it would probably be downloading slower so other OS functions were not affected.



This is why all games can be preloaded now. If you buy digitally this is one of the things you have to think about.

Also I apologize if I missed it but did you state if you were wired or wireless. As that also sounds like your wifi settings are limiting you.

I haven't had an issue with mine on wired or wireless, the only time was as above when everyone was trying to preload MCC so the servers limited bandwidth across users.



Would be nice to have that but you can always check on your router.

Hard wired from the wall to the modem to the router. All my devices are connected wirelessly to the router.
 

Noobcraft

Member
I get full download speeds through my Xbox One at home (30mbps) and I even did on campus at college (50mbps depending on the time of day).
Downloads on my PS4 vary from perfectly fine to 256kb dsl slow.

I would guess it's your ISP throttling you for using a lot of data. I used like 200 GB of data on my Xbox One last month without even trying but I have no DL cap.
 

jesu

Member
I'm interested in this too.
I get about 3/5s on my X1 of what speedtest tells me I can get(12Mbps)
My latency on the xbox is at 179ms, but pingtest says 19ms(I'm assuming these should be the same)
I'm using the best channel on my Sky router.
And as far as I know Sky don't throttle.
I'm using a wired connection.
 

Noobcraft

Member
I'm interested in this too.
I get about 3/5s on my X1 of what speedtest tells me I can get(12Mbps)
My latency on the xbox is at 179ms, but pingtest says 19ms(I'm assuming these should be the same)
I'm using the best channel on my Sky router.
And as far as I know Sky don't throttle.
I'm using a wired connection.
Your latency is super high if it says 179ms. I live in the US and I ping the Europe East Titanfall server at like 112ms.
 

farisr

Member
It's all dependent on which server you get connected to, like PSN.

I'm lucky enough to have a good connected to both the XBL and PSN servers, and usually get around a 50-80Mbps download speed.

Both are wired. Wireless on PS4 is stupid slow.
 

jesu

Member
Your latency is super high if it says 179ms. I live in the US and I ping the Europe East Titanfall server at like 112ms.

I know, but my ping on speedtest is usually between 20 and 40ms.
My ping in Titanfall right now says 45 for the European servers.
Detailed Network Statistics is saying 165ms :/

edit, In that test my speed on the xbox was ok, 11.2Mbps
 

Andrain18

Banned
Too many cloud processes, your ISP throttles you ha. Seriously though my Xbox One is the only device i have that gets my theoretical Download speeds of 30MBPS
 
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