If yous've found that your download speed is nifty, simply your upload speed is abysmal, I've got a possible solution for yous. I struggled with this upshot for a while and decided to write down my findings in a weblog post in case I, or anyone else, runs into this in the hereafter.

In fact, this is the second such blog postal service I'm writing: a couple years ago, I hit the the inverse issue and documented the solution in a web log post called Got tiresome download merely fast upload speeds over wireless? Here's a fix. That post has had several hundred thousand views and helped many people (cheque out the comments—I even got a marriage proposal), so I'm hoping this post will be useful as well!

Here's your tldr: upgrade your router's firmware.

Symptoms

I noticed that on all my devices - a Macbook Pro, iPhone, Windows desktop - webpages were sometimes taking a long time to load; it was a scrap intermittent, but everything from google maps to gmail suddenly got very sluggish. I have one of their higher tier Internet plans from Comcast, so this was pretty disappointing.

I ran a bandwidth test on http://www.speedtest.cyberspace/ and the results were roughly the same across all of my devices:

Slow upload speed

At 57 Mb/due south, the download speed was slap-up; even so, the upload speed was a mere 0.17 Mb/s, which is pretty much unusable. In fact, I had to re-run the test several times, every bit occasionally, the upload portion of the examination would get stuck and never complete.

The solution

I tried rebooting the router, the cable modem, tweaking a bunch of settings, but nothing helped. I too checked with Comcast to ensure there were no problems our outages in my surface area, and of class, everything was fine.

Finally, I stumbled upon the solution: a firmware upgrade. My router, a Cisco/Linksys E1200, was using firmware version 2.0.02. I went over to Linksys' support page, found my router, and saw that a newer version, 2.0.06, was bachelor. Here'south a snippet from the release notes:

            Production:          Linksys E1200, Wireless-N Router Classification:   Firmware Release History ____________________________________________________________________   Firmware 2.0.06 (build half dozen) - Minor corrective browser-based GUI update. - Various minor problems fixes.   Firmware two.0.05 (build two) - Enhanced WAN-to-LAN performance when Net connectedness type is set up to PPPoE.   Firmware two.0.04 (build ane) - Resolved issue with subtract in download speed when WMM is enabled. - Resolved result with decrease in upload speed when QoS is enabled. - Increase throughput performance when parental command is not enabled. - Resolved issue with incorrectly handle RTSP under certain circumstances. - Resolved PPPoE connexion issue with a few ISPs.   Firmware 2.0.03 (build 10) - Added dual-stack lite (DS-lite) back up. - Permit native IPv6 and 6rd support to be enabled simultaneously. - Implemented Wi-Fi Protected Setup lock-downwards mechanism to forbid brute strength set on. - Resolved issue with not existence able to access the browser-based GUI via HTTPS when newer versions of Internet Explorer or Firefox is used. - Added Danish support in the browser-based GUI.

The notes for version 2.0.04 are especially interesting, as they set up bugs with WMM (which was the cause of problems in my previous blog post), QoS, and more than.

I figured information technology was worth a shot, downloaded the ii.0.06 firmware, and installed it through my router's admin UI. The instructions for upgrading the firmware will not be the same for all routers, merely here'southward roughly what you need to practise:

  1. Become to [http://192.168.ane.1](http://192.168.ane.one/) and login to your router. If y'all've never done this, look for instructions that came with your router or practise a google search to find the default username and password.
  2. Click on "administration".
  3. Click on "firmware upgrade".
  4. Y'all should see a page like this:
    Upgrade firmware page
  5. Click "Choose File" and select the firmware file you downloaded.
  6. Click "Starting time Upgrade". Practice Non unplug your router or click anything else in the meantime; let the upgrade complete!
  7. Wait a minute or so for your router to reboot.

The results

After the router restarted, I re-ran my speed test, and the results were much nicer:

Fast upload speed

The download speed is still a zippy 57 Mb/south, but now the upload speed is fast likewise, at 11 Mb/s, or virtually 70x faster than what it was before. Woohoo!

I hope you found the mail service helpful. If your router has a unlike firmware upgrade process, leave a comment with the steps you followed so others can find it. Happy web browsing!