Bandwidth distribution question

XeroCreator · May 22, 2019

So to start, my internet is literal garbage in the first place, but that doesn't quite explain what i'm about to type.

My internet is also Satellite internet from exede, my speeds are supposedly 12Mbps... at night from 12-5AM, the bandwidth goes to 'unlimited'. I say 'unlimited' because it's obviously capped at some point.

This needed a TL;DR...
PC downloads steam game at 2MBps, xbox downloads a game at the same time and gets 1MBps or so. Why can't I get 3MBps bandwidth if I only use the pc with all external devices on the router disconnected/off ?

So my question needs a little 'story' behind it to explain it in a decent way honestly.
While no-one on earth would be dumb enough to game with a 600ms ping in MP games, there are some that are possible to still play and enjoy.
I have my PC that I mostly use to play games, and I have an xbox one x as well as a nintendo switch and a few other consoles. 99% of the time these consoles are completely un-plugged (no power at all) to try and give as much bandwidth to my pc for games.

I can download between 12-5AM on steam and get around 2MBps. Which is about 16Mbps, so i'm not too worried about that being higher.
This is the strange part though.
I discovered while I am downloading at around 2MBps on steam on my pc, my xbox one x was downloading a game because I left it on, and download rate was 7-8Mbps.

While these speeds are low...it doesn't add up....
I tried turning off and unplugging everything else from my router that uses bandwidth to boost my speed, it's a 300 router so it's fine, and my pc is wired anyway.
I got the same 2MBps on my pc downloading a game. I know you can download games much faster on steam.

Now some interesting bits.
My PC is hard wired, connected to a 70 ish foot ethernet cable, and my xbox is on wireless... I am going to test using ethernet on both my pc and xbox one x and see if i can get 2Mbps on my pc and at the same time get 1-2MB on my xbox one x as well.

Is there any reason at all that I can get 2MBps on ethernet + 8Mbps on the xbox, which is a total of 3MBps or so of bandwidth, but removing all other devices other than the PC doesn't increase the bandwidth?

Or am I missing something here?

I should also note that no QoS or anything is active on my router to give anything more bandwidth, I simply disconnect everything when i am gaming on the pc to get the best connection I can.(try to anyway)

I"m curious if this is the same for other connections too, so maybe you can do some testing and reply to this

jj9987 · May 22, 2019

11 minutes ago, XeroCreator said:

Is there any reason at all that I can get 2MBps on ethernet + 8Mbps on the xbox, which is a total of 3MBps or so of bandwidth, but removing all other devices other than the PC doesn't increase the bandwidth?

I should also note that no QoS or anything is active on my router to give anything more bandwidth, I simply disconnect everything when i am gaming on the pc to get the best connection I can.(try to anyway)

If there is no QoS active, routers usually operate based on FIFO (first in, first out). If you are not getting higher bandwidth, then the limitation/bottleneck is somewhere else in the chain from your PC to the CDN/Steam server from which you are downloading from. It could be ISP, it could be that the game is not available in any of the nearby servers and you need to download it from a farther one.