So, I relented and purchased Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light from Steam. I'm no huge fan of Steam, but they were offering Tomb Raider Legend for free if you purchased the Guardian game. This isn't specific to Steam at all, but since I have a 2,200+ MB game and a 7,300 MB game to download, it made me think to ask.

Does anyone know why my download starts off at 450 - 500 kb/s and goes gangbusters for a couple of minutes and then suddenly degrades to 60 kb/s or below? If I let the download go overnight, it will stay right there at around 50 - 60 kb/s. If I pause the download for 5 minutes or so, it will start out at 450+ and do the same thing. Is this my ISP (local company/tower/wireless broadband) or is this the download site? Like I said, this is not specific to Steam.

Just curious! Sure would make life easier if my download speed would stay at least somewhere close to where it starts!

Draclvr, I have comcast high speed internet.

When I download from Steam, it runs at 1.5

mb. stays consistant speed. When I had dial-up ,I had to wait 20 mins just to get the Steam page up.

Dunn

You might want to contact your ISP.
It sounds like they might be throttling you.

That's what I was wondering... Especially since it happens on all large downloads. Thanks, Jenny.

I remember only too painfully the old days of dial-up, Dunn!

Dial up and BBS's, the good old days It does sound like you're being throttled.

Sent an email tonight.. we'll see what they say.

ISP's are tricky these days. Naysayers say complaining to your ISP may not do much. I've done some research to help myself understand recently that I might as well pass on to you.

The issue of Net Neutrality has become a political hot potato. Some feel it’s an insidious scheme on the part of the powers that be to control the Internet, whereas others say it’s a good thing, a way to keep your ISP from deciding which traffic you’ll receive, and at what level of performance.

ISPs are increasingly deploying a variety of "middleboxes" to monitor and to manipulate the performance of user applications. Most ISPs do not reveal the details of their network deployments to their customers.

What some people call "throttling" (when an ISP purposely lowers the speed of a user's internet connection), ISP's call a policy of " congestion management" or "traffic shaping". As in, if its network suffers undue congestion, it will slow bulk data transfers for network storage systems, FTP downloads, software updates and peer-to-peer transfers and torrents. Meanwhile, what they deems more time-sensitive data, such as web pages, gaming, streaming videos and instant messaging, will get priority. Moreover, often they also throttle only on certain ports.

Since Steam content is delivered (I think) using a proprietary file transfer protocol AKA FTP "shaping" could be limiting the speed of transfer for these items. Also, some "shaping" includes temporarily increasing your download speed (boosting) for the first 18 to 22 megabytes of a file when extra bandwidth is available.

You can test if your ISP is shaping your traffic with a tool that will allow users to track the network openness of ISPs like Cox and Comcast with a tool called the Glasnost test http://broadband.mpi-sws.org/transparency/ which tests whether certain applications or traffic are being blocked or throttled on your connection. I ran all the tests (about 8 minutes a piece) and learned some surprising things!

Some people think it is unfair that ISP's are treating their protocols like second class citizens. Legit sites such as Open Office and some Linux distros that use BitTorrent to distribute files legally and Vuze and iMesh that provide Legal P2P are being given a “non-time-sensitive” designation.

One should stay on top of your ISP's pricing and plan points. My ISP recently changed/upgraded plan types but kept pricing points, affecting my download speed before I noticed and read the very fine print in my bill.

My ISP offers
Ultimate up to 55 Mbps for $89.99
Premier up to 25 Mbps for $64.99
Preferred up to 15 Mbps for $46.99
Essential up to 3 Mbps for $32.99

The FCC has concluded that advertising the "up to" speed is so inaccurate (and so confusing to consumers) that something better should be tried, recommending that a standard truth-in-labeling form should be drafted by the FCC.

Lastly, less-than-ideal speeds aren't necessarily the "fault" of the ISP, sometimes.
Crufty computers (You can only access the Internet as fast as your PC will allow you to)
Older slower routers/modems (many older units are not capable of transmitting to/from the internet faster than 10 Mbps, even though the local ports transmit in 100 Mbps. Check the manufacturer's web site for firmware downloads.)
and misconfigured WiFi all play a role.

Hope that helps some...

I'm lucky to live in denmark
And to live the right place (we get 10% off here where I live)

I have 50 Mbit. down /2 Mbit Up for $64/month (includes IP telephone)

It helps enormously, lily.bart. I have inhaled a lot of reading on the net neutrality issue too.

With my local ISP, I "get what I get!" I live in the country without access to cable or DSL. This local company has built several towers in the area each of which serves approximately a 7 mile radius. It's my only option (other than satellite which is outrageously expensive for less speed than I'm getting). They don't even offer different levels for their wireless broadband. I pay $40/month for it.

I built this computer a year and a half ago and it has components with all the bells and whistles that were "good stuff" at the time. I'm on a brand new Linksys dual-band Wireless-N router.

We'll see what they have to say today! Thanks for the input.

Aha! So that's why the location reads near St. Louis, as opposed to the city proper, LOL! Sending you good luck in dealing with your ISP. I know how important getting those games in a timely manner can be!!!

Well, a guy from my ISP called me last night. (Yes, that's what local companies do! I love it!) He told me that they have it such that after about 60 MB, the download will reach a "burst" which knocks it back down to around 60 MB. If you stop and start the download again, you will get the ~500 KB/s until it gets to the burst point again. When he downloads games from Steam, he has to deal with the same thing. He said they are slowly, but surely, trying to increase it such that there are no burst points. I've talked to Jesse several times before; he's been with this company for at least 7 years and seems to know what's going on. We commiserated a bit about Steam then.

So, guess this is just something I have to live with for large downloads. I did finally get the 7,300+ MB download of Tomb Raider Legend finished last night!

Thanks for the input, everyone.

At least you got a sympathetic tech person who knew what you were talking about.

On the up side, living out in the country does have its advantages.

Oh, yeah.... Many advantages.

You can go into the settings on Steam and choose a different download server. Doing this will help alot. To do this open steam and click on the word steam in the upper left corner and choose settings and then choose downloads and cloud and choose a different server.