I'm living in university accommodation and the internet connection has an enormous difference between download and upload speeds. Over Ethernet, a speed test shows roughly 110 kbps download but around 570 Mbps upload. I tested over Wi‑Fi as well and saw the same problem. The issue seems to happen all day, although occasionally the download speed briefly jumps to around 500 Mbps before dropping again. What could cause such an extreme imbalance?
3 Answers
It could be congestion affecting the shared connection in the halls. Lots of residents streaming or downloading can overwhelm the connection in one direction while upload capacity remains available. However, since this is happening 24/7 and the speed only occasionally recovers, it sounds more like a fault or configuration issue than ordinary peak-time usage.
That kind of difference isn’t normal, especially since it happens over both Ethernet and Wi‑Fi. Because the internet is provided by the university, report it to the university IT or network team. They should check for a problem with the building’s connection, routing, or equipment.
The connection may be suffering from packet loss or a damaged path upstream. Download traffic relies on acknowledgements being sent back, so severe corruption or routing problems can make downloads nearly unusable even when upload tests look fine. Since changing from Ethernet to Wi‑Fi made no difference, the fault is probably beyond your own device or cable.
It does seem to happen constantly, with only rare one-minute periods where download returns to roughly 500 Mbps, so I’ll contact the university’s IT team.