http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21111348 en Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:25:25 EDT Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:25:25 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21151357 CecilTurtle : First, you should make sure it's Earthlink's fault because this drop seems so sudden. Do you have a wireless connection, and is it secured? By that, I mean is someone piggy-backing on your connection and stealing your bandwidth? Also, could your PC be virus infected? When you aren't surfing, can you check if your PC is uploading or downloading anything? I say that because sometimes I close TVAnts, a P2P program, and I still see people connected to me who are uploading/downloading. Another thing you can check is your router. My router's firewall halved my download speed when the hardware firewall was enabled. As soon as I turned off the router's firewall, I went from 4Mbps to 8Mbps. Try disconnecting the modem too.

I also noticed a significant drop in download speeds depending on the time, and I called Earthlink about it. They just referred me to Time Warner Cable, so I think switching is not going to make any difference. I also have the same RCA modem from EL that I had with TWC. My speeds are often halved in the day, but return to 8Mbps only after 9pm or so. Sometimes I'm even lucky to get more than 1.5Mbps, and it is really annoying.

Have you considered Verizon DSL or FiOS? There are a few Verizon central offices around you, so you should get near the top speed without drops in speeds that all cable broadband experience as more users become active.

BTW, I've had both EL and Roadrunner and there's no difference except with support (none for EL) and TWC extras like free virus scan/firewall software. EL has Usenet/newsgroups which I don't use often, but is very handy when I do see something I like. RR discontinued all Usenet whereas Verizon just killed the alt.binaries.*]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21151357 Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:09:30 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21112225 sashwa : Moved in from Broadband Modem (Hardware)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21112225 Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:20:58 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21111348 anon : when i first got earthlink in murray hill manhattan i was getting 8mbps speeds. the past month or so it dropped to 3.6mbps. if i switch from earth link to roadrunner, would that make a difference? thanks, very frustrated my download speeds have dropped more than half, i can even reach 400 kbps download speeds anymore. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21111348 Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:11:15 EDT