Hey everyone, so… my job requires me to upload a bunch of files on dropbox, but I’ve noticed lately my speeds took a dip for the worst. I used to be able to upload a 500mb file in a couple of minutes, but now I’ll be lucky if it takes 20.
The weird part is that I would do a speedtest and all my speedtests are saying that my upload and download speed are fine, but when I would upload on dropbox my speeds would be much slower than the speed test states. I started to try to figure out why this was happening from resetting my router and modem and trying a whole bunch of different settings but to no avail. I have optimum as an ISP, so I decided to use the free public wifi they have set up everywhere, and even that wifi uploads faster than my home router, but the speed test says that my home net is still faster than my home wifi.
I ended up testing a VPN as a last resort and using it, my speeds actually were what the tests said they were. My uploads were fast again and I was able to do my job properly.
Now the main issue is, I have no idea what is wrong. I don’t know if my internet is being throttled or whatever the problem might be. I’m down to pay for a VPN if it means I can have normal internet speeds again, but I’m wondering why is this happening?
First, you can never really trust Speedtest results over VPN because there’s no guarantee that the traffic is making it back to your computer. And even if it does, if it’s a caching VPN that also throws off the results.
Try uploading a different file… One you’ve never uploaded before. If it’s slow the first time but fast every time after that then you know it’s because the VPN server is caching the file for you. Then you know it’s Dropbox, and not your ISP.
But if it’s fast every time with uncached files, then they are probably throttling the traffic to Dropbox. VPNs get around this pretty easily because ISPs can’t see the destination.
If that’s not the case, there’s a chance that you simply have a faster connection to the VPN server than Dropbox. But if it’s not a caching issue my bet is that you’re being throttled.
Maybe your ISP was trying to manage traffic on their end resulting in you getting throttled. I’m glad the VPN helped. Did you reach out to your ISP’s support?
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A lot of people forget this, it also depends on Dropbox’s servers, the specific server may be under congestion or have low downloads.
Could be that dropbox is throttling your upload speeds.
This explained everything so easily to understand! Thanks so much. I will have to talk to my ISP about this and am using a vpn in the meanwhile to help the speeds
Yeah I did, but they kept telling me they wanted to send a technician for a fee if there was something wrong on my end. I didn’t trust them enough to be honest with it.