If yous've plant that your download speed is smashing, but your upload speed is abysmal, I've got a possible solution for y'all. I struggled with this issue for a while and decided to write down my findings in a weblog mail in case I, or anyone else, runs into this in the futurity.

In fact, this is the 2nd such weblog post I'm writing: a couple years ago, I hit the the changed issue and documented the solution in a blog post chosen Got irksome download merely fast upload speeds over wireless? Hither's a set. That postal service has had several hundred grand views and helped many people (check out the comments—I fifty-fifty got a union proposal), so I'k hoping this mail service volition 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 bit intermittent, but everything from google maps to gmail suddenly got very sluggish. I have one of their college tier Internet plans from Comcast, so this was pretty disappointing.

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

Slow upload speed

At 57 Mb/s, the download speed was dandy; however, the upload speed was a mere 0.17 Mb/southward, which is pretty much unusable. In fact, I had to re-run the test several times, as occasionally, the upload portion of the test would become stuck and never complete.

The solution

I tried rebooting the router, the cable modem, tweaking a bunch of settings, but nothing helped. I also checked with Comcast to ensure there were no problems our outages in my surface area, and of form, 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, constitute my router, and saw that a newer version, 2.0.06, was bachelor. Hither'due south a snippet from the release notes:

            Product:          Linksys E1200, Wireless-N Router Classification:   Firmware Release History ____________________________________________________________________   Firmware 2.0.06 (build half-dozen) - Pocket-sized cosmetic browser-based GUI update. - Various minor bug fixes.   Firmware 2.0.05 (build ii) - Enhanced WAN-to-LAN performance when Internet connectedness blazon is set to PPPoE.   Firmware 2.0.04 (build 1) - Resolved issue with decrease in download speed when WMM is enabled. - Resolved consequence with subtract in upload speed when QoS is enabled. - Increase throughput performance when parental command is not enabled. - Resolved result with incorrectly handle RTSP under certain circumstances. - Resolved PPPoE connectedness issue with a few ISPs.   Firmware ii.0.03 (build 10) - Added dual-stack lite (DS-low-cal) support. - Let native IPv6 and 6rd support to be enabled simultaneously. - Implemented Wi-Fi Protected Setup lock-down mechanism to prevent brute force attack. - Resolved consequence with not being able to access the browser-based GUI via HTTPS when newer versions of Internet Explorer or Firefox is used. - Added Danish back up in the browser-based GUI.

The notes for version ii.0.04 are particularly interesting, as they set bugs with WMM (which was the crusade of bug in my previous blog post), QoS, and more.

I figured it was worth a shot, downloaded the two.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, but here'due south roughly what you lot need to do:

  1. Go to [http://192.168.ane.1](http://192.168.one.i/) and login to your router. If you've never done this, look for instructions that came with your router or exercise a google search to observe the default username and password.
  2. Click on "administration".
  3. Click on "firmware upgrade".
  4. You lot should see a page like this:
    Upgrade firmware page
  5. Click "Cull File" and select the firmware file yous downloaded.
  6. Click "Start Upgrade". Do Not unplug your router or click anything else in the meantime; allow 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, only now the upload speed is fast too, at eleven Mb/south, or nearly 70x faster than what it was before. Woohoo!

I promise you found the post helpful. If your router has a different firmware upgrade process, go out a comment with the steps you followed so others can find information technology. Happy web browsing!