Strange phenomenon - Network Speed

Hello,

I discovered something really interesting, and I have a question

In the place I am currently working & living as a student, the maximum network speed is 1.2MB/s



(I also did a speed test)

I don't know how, but one thing is sure : the network administrator put this speed limit.
Every download I do is stuck at 1.2MB/s

Until I saw something very strange !

The League of Legend client for Mac was able to reach 11.0MB/s !



And it is the only App on my Mac that can bypass the network speed limit !

Do you know how this app manage to reach 11MB/s when every other apps are stuck at 1.2MB/s (Chrome, App Store, uTorrent ...) ?

Thanks in advance !

After some tests, I don't think it is related to the app, but more to the League of Legend server.
(When I choose another game server, from the same app, I am again stuck at 1.2MB/s)

Thus I don't think I can bypass the Network speed limit for other apps.

I tried two VPN, and it did not change anything ...
How sad

Most network admins will throttle the network speed down for non-essential users. Where I work we have a guest network and then the staff/work network. The guest is regulated to 5Mb/s but our top bandwidth is 150Mb/s so that leaves a lot of bandwidth for the essential services. We also have a password restriction so that limits it to those who ask for the password - and amazingly enough, most don't ask.

I imagine the reason your network is throttled is to keep employees from gaming on the job - unless that is your job. Where my son works they throttle the wireless to 2Mb/s to prevent, I am sure, gaming on the worker's phones. It kind of reduces productivity and they are paying them to work.

Also a VPN will only create a private "tunnel" to potentially by-pass filters on the company internet and/or create a secure connection. Bandwidth is totally different. Regardless of the VPN used, the speed out will be whatever the available bandwidth is. I have 1.7Mb/s at home on my network. It is not going to get any faster. I live in a rural area where only ADSL is offered and it is slow.

If you are seeing your gaming app reporting faster speeds than you usually get I would check the performance. Does the game run faster? I don't see how as the speed of your internet access is set by the local network you are connected to.

Lisa

Thank you for your answer !

I imagine the reason your network is throttled is to keep employees from gaming on the job

Click to expand...

I should have said : In the place I work, as a student. But it is also the place I live in (so I am allowed to game)

If you are seeing your gaming app reporting faster speeds than you usually get I would check the performance. Does the game run faster? I don't see how as the speed of your internet access is set by the local network you are connected to.

Click to expand...

It might be because of a bad configuration of the throttle ?
Maybe this particular ip adress (of the game server) follow a pattern that is not limited.
One interesting thing would be to sniff internet traffic to get this IP !
Do you know any good sniffer software for mac (that shows ip) ?

Okay - more information helps. One thing that will slow down a connection will be the number of people connected to the access point and even the number using the connection. A lot of providers will sell you a fast connection speed (bandwidth) but then the more connected to that particular line will slow down the speed considerably.

If you want to explore the best packet sniffer that I like is Wireshark. It is free but you will need to do a bit of googling and reading to understand how it works. You will get every packet on your connection including ip addresses and tons more. https://www.wireshark.org/

Another app that is free and you can download from the app store is WiFi explorer. It will give you the MAC addresses of all the access points plus more.

That should get you started.

Lisa