When you upgrade to gigabit service, a Citizens Fiber technician will verify with our equipment that the speeds you are getting should be very close to 1000Mbps. There are several factors that may influence your speed test and not allow you to receive results that are at full gigabit speed. These include:
In order to receive gigabit speed, you'll need to have a computer with a gigabit ethernet port. Checking whether you have a gigabit ethernet port differs depending on what type of computer you have. If you are having trouble determining whether you have a gigabit ethernet port, you can contact our technical support at 724-423-5777 and they can help walk you through the process.
In order to receive gigabit speed, you'll need to have a router that is gigabit capable. Citizens Fiber provides a gigabit capable router free of charge for all of our gigabit internet subscribers. If you choose to use your own router, you'll need to ensure that it is gigabit capable.
Due to loss at the hardware level, you'll be able to get close to 1000Mbps, but never actually hit the full number. This can be due to the build quality of the hardware. Some devices that are sold as being gigabit capable may not actually produce results that are actually in line with true gigabit speed. The gigabit router we provide free of charge to our gigabit internet customers should give you results that are very close to the gigabit range. If you would like us to verify your equipment, you can bring it into the office during normal business hours and we can verify what speed you should be capable of.
Devices connected via a wireless connection will vary in the speed they will be able to obtain. There are wireless standards that are theoretically capable of acheiving 1000Mbps speed, but it is not likely you will see this speed in practice even with the most current routers. With wireless signals, the distance from the router, the amount of interference in between you and the router, and the implemenation of the wireless standard by your router will all impact the speeds you can achieve. As technology advances and the router manufacturers design routers that work better with the wireless 'ac' standard you should see speeds approaching 1000Mbps in the future. Currently though, you are unlikely to see speeds greater than 150Mbps on your wireless connections. One of the advanatages of the 1000Mbps connection is the ability to have multiple wireless and wired devices all connected and able to utilize the full amount of bandwidth they are capable of handling.
If you would like to discuss the results of your speed test and see what may be able to be done to incrase your speed if you are not receiving the amount you should be, please contact our technical support staff at 724-423-5777.