I just upgraded from DSL to Uverse on AT&T. I had 3mbps download and now I'm supposed to have 6mbps down and 1mbps up. It's been normal for the first 2 weeks, but today I noticed a slow download when Adobe Flash player was upgrading. The file was reading slowly. I did an internet speed test and was getting anywhere from 0.9 to 1.1mbps down and about 0.8 to 0.9 upload. I played around with some settings, but didn't fix it.
I called AT&T support, and they tried to troubleshoot but were not much help. They sent a tech to my house and he found this:
1. His own iphone was connecting to my wifi at 7+ mbps consistently.
2. My desktop on a hard wire ethernet cable (slow pc) connects at about 5mbps
3. another laptop than the affected one (almost identical model) also connects at 7+ mbps
4. the "bad" laptop still connects over wifi at 1mbps, but trying it on wired ethernet got me 6+, which is within normal range.
So, it seems that *something* got messed up in the bad laptop that is deliberately limiting the wifi connection to 1mbps, but not the wired connection. I feel like it could be a virus, or some network settings got altered or some software update install messed up my pc.
I have read somewhere about packet settings or such, but I don't know much about this.
To look at the screen, it really seems like something is "telling" the computer to slow the connection.
Any good ideas?