Is Comcast or Xfinity slower than usual? Comcast is probably throttling your connection. Here is how to bypass it.
If your ISP is Comcast, then slow speed during streaming and browsing would seem like a norm to you. Despite announcing that the company no longer throttles your connection, Comcast deliberately throttles your internet bandwidth on Netflix, YouTube, or other bandwidth-heavy apps.
There are several reasons why Comcast might be throttling your connection. Sometimes it’s because you’re using excessive bandwidth, while at other times, it’s paid prioritization or network congestion. No matter the reason, slow internet speed is irritating and annoying nonetheless. So, what to do to bypass Comcast Throttling?
Are There Legal Reasons for Comcast Throttling?
Comcast might throttle your connection for several legal reasons, such as:
- Net Neutrality
- Traffic optimization
- Controlling network congestion, especially during peak hours.
- To enforce data limits
- Preventing DDoS attacks.
Comcast throttling is mainly a result of Net Neutrality aftereffects. The repeal of Net Neutrality has given more power to ISPs, who can throttle users’ connections anytime. Also, the netizens are subjected to pay an additional price for using more data. Users have to pay an extra amount to enjoy uninterrupted streaming on Netflix, YoutTube, or Amazon Prime. If they don’t, they’ll experience continuous connection lags and buffering, which ruins their streaming experience.
Other than this, Comcast might also throttle your connection because you might be using excessive bandwidth. This usually happens when you are streaming or torrenting for a long time. Your ISP uses bots and filters to analyze your browsing activities. If they get to know about heavy torrenting or streaming, they start throttling your connection.
Quick Tip
ISP throttling worldwide issue, whether you like it or not, it’s there. Sometimes it is the name of peak hours, bandwidth loads, extensive torrenting or streaming, or because of the net-neutrality bill. There are many ways to get around this issue, but the most effective and quick way to use the fastest VPN service.
- CyberGhost (9.9 ratings) is the most recommended.
- NordVPN (9.9 rating) has fastest severs
- Surfshark: offers better support for streaming and downloading.
Using the fastest VPN, you can easily change your IP and get around the ISP throttling filter.
How to Test If Comcast Throttling You
If you observe that your internet speeds, while you’re streaming or torrenting, are drastically dropping or lower than what your data plan promises, then it might be possible that you’re being throttled. At first, proving that your connection is being throttled at a particular website or bandwidth is difficult.
But then there are various tests that you can perform to check if a particular service or website is being throttled.
You can check if Comcast is throttling your connection on any website or app by undergoing an internet speed test, internet health test, or Wehe app test. Through these tests, you can learn about the internet speeds of streaming services that are liable to throttle your internet connection. Read along to know how each test is performed.
Internet Speed Test
It is a method for checking whether your ISP is throttling your internet speed. The test results also tell you about your maximum bandwidth, so there’s no doubt left that your ISP is involved in slowing down your internet speed. To perform the internet speed test, head over to speed tests like speedtest.net or testmy.net and hit the “Go” button.
The tool might take a few minutes to analyze your network speed and inform you about your internet speed. Note down the speed and bandwidth and repeat the test after some time. If the results show considerable variations, Comcast is surely throttling your connection.
Internet Health Test
The Internet Health test measures whether the interconnection points are having some problems. It runs speed measurements from your ISP across various interconnection points to detect any degraded or throttled performance. The test uses codes and infrastructures from M-Lab that send your traffic to a device working as a measuring point outside your service provider network. To conduct the internet health test, visit www.internethealthrest.org and tap on ‘Go.’ The results will show any sign of limitation amid your ISP and the measuring points.
If the difference is significant, it is a sign of Comcast’s throttling. But you should perform and analyze the results for a week or more to have more confirmation.
Wehe App Service
Northeastern University researchers have developed an amazing tool, ‘Wehe.’ This tool allows you to test whether your ISP is throttling your connection on popular streaming apps like Netflix, YouTube, Skype, and Spotify. Here are the steps for using the Wehe app to check if Comcast is throttling your internet speed or not:
- Download the Wehe app on your Android or iOS device.
- Launch the app tap on Accept to the TOS.
- Choose Run Tests.
- Use the toggle buttons to select the apps on which you want to run a test. For example, if you’re going to check that your connection is throttled on Netflix, toggle other options to the off position.
- Tap on the Run Test button. The app will take a few minutes to show the results.
Using any of the methods mentioned above, you can check whether Comcast is throttling your connection. But since the Wehe app is part of a research study, it is not as reliable as the other two. Also, it collects sensitive information such as your location, connection time stamp, and operating system. All the information is visible to the users, and many privacy-conscious people won’t like it.
How to Bypass Comcast Throttling
A VPN is a reliable and perfect tool to stop throttling. It changes your ISP by assigning you a new yet temporary IP address. With the new IP address, you can easily bypass the ISP filters and access the internet without limitations.
Besides this, VPN offers exceptional data encryption capabilities that encrypt your data traffic and route it through an external VPN server in an encoded form that your ISP won’t detect. They won’t ever know which websites you’re browsing, so they won’t throttle your connection.
When it comes to bypassing Comcast throttling, we recommend you stick to the few fastest VPN providers. This VPN shouldn’t have speed-centric features that help circumvent throttling. Also, it should have an extensive server network and some privacy-focused features that make it difficult for your ISP to detect you. Keeping this criterion in mind, below we’ve compiled the most reliable VPN providers that can easily bypass Comcast throttling:
CyberGhost VPN
CyberGhost is another excellent option to consider for bypassing Comcast throttling. It has an extensive server network that’s spread in 91 countries. Moreover, it offers unlimited bandwidth and decent speed. The VPN provider uses the industry’s highest encryption, WireGuard, and OpenVPN protocol to safeguard your ISP data.
It comes with specialized servers for torrenting and streaming. You can stream US Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus in HD quality. The split tunneling feature also maintains your security and speed during torrenting.
NordVPN
NordVPN is one of the most secure and reliable VPN providers that use the NordLynx protocol to speed up the connection. By default, it uses military-grade AES-256 encryption and OpenVPN protocol to protect user data from all prying eyes. The presence of a vast server network also makes it a great option to stop Comcast from throttling the connection.
With more than 5000 servers in 59 countries, users can access geo-blocked content on any streaming site. Also, it allows unlimited torrenting, and connection speed is never an issue. The VPN provider uses various security and privacy-enhancing features that maintain your digital privacy. These features include VPN leak protection, a kill switch, a dedicated IP address, and more.
ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN is another reliable VPN that because of its fastest speeds emerges as one of the best VPNs to bypass Comcast throttling which has more than 3000 servers in 94 countries, all offering fast speeds. The VPN provider uses Lightway protocol which guarantees the fastest connection speeds.
Moreover, it offers secure encryption and protection against DNS and IP leaks. It also has a kill switch, RAM-only server, and zero-knowledge DNS that protect your activities from getting exposed. Besides this, ExpressVPN also allows users to stream Netflix and other popular streaming sites without any speed issues. It offers unlimited bandwidth, which will enable users to download torrents unlimitedly.
Surfshark VPN
The next VPN on our list is Surfshark which comes with fast speed and a decent server network. It consists of over 3400 servers in 61 countries and unlimited bandwidth that helps stop Comcast from throttling your connection. The VPN uses OpenVPN and WireGuard protocol that also ensures fast speed. Furthermore, Surfshark also uses AES-256 bit encryption and impressive security and privacy-focused features like a kill switch and VPN leak protection, reducing the chances of Comcast throttling your connection.
The VPN provider comes with unlimited bandwidth, enabling users to stream and torrent without any issue. With Surfshark VPN, you can unblock US Netflix and several other libraries. Also, it comes with a split tunneling feature that ensures both security and fast speeds while you download torrents.
All these VPNs are tested and tried to bypass Comcast throttling. Though you can find other VPNs, fast speed and reliability are not guaranteed. Hence, select any VPN from the above list and enjoy fast web speed.
Does Comcast Throttle Your Connection?
Like Verizon, another famous US carrier, Comcast, has been throttling users’ internet connections. Comcast has a history of throttling users’ internet speed. In 2007, the broadband providers violated the Net Neutrality laws as it was caught throttling the BitTorrent traffic. The FCC inquired Comcast to reveal how it manages the data traffic.
In response, Comcast decided to use its congestion management system that slows down all users’ speeds who consume high bandwidth instead of targeting specific sites. Later in 2018, the company announced that it’d stopped the practice of throttling users’ internet speed. But still, many users complain about Comcast throttling their connection on particular sites like Netflix and YouTube.
Does Comcast Throttle Netflix?
It is a common belief that Comcast throttles Netflix. According to news sources, Comcast has been involved in paid prioritization surcharges and throttling against Netflix. All these threats compel the popular streaming service to sign an agreement that isn’t ideal for them.
Comcast has been threatening heavy access fees against Netflix. They decided to outright throttle or imposed high access charges of more than $10 a month depending on their monthly package if Netflix didn’t meet the terms that benefit Comcast.
Netflix demands high bandwidth from Comcast while billing customers directly. This resulted in a loss of revenue and lowered per-subscriber fees for Comcast. This frustrates Comcast, and they decided not to follow Net Neutrality more. On a mutual agreement, both companies agreed that Comcast would own the customer billing relationship and share the downstream revenue with Netflix rather than allowing it to collect the money.
Can We Bypass Comcast Throttling Without a VPN?
Using a VPN to bypass Comcast throttling is a permanent and long-term solution. It is the most reliable tool to provide anonymity, making it impossible for your ISP to detect your activities over the web. We tried to dig out other methods to prevent throttling and, after searching through Reddit and Quora, came up with different ways to avoid throttling. These methods include:
- Use proxy service
- Register a complaint against your ISP
- Change your ISP
- Increase your data plan
However, none of them is permanent or capable enough to solve the issue.
Using a proxy service will hide your IP address, but it won’t encrypt the data traffic. It means that your ISP can still learn about your activities. Moreover, proxy service is used by several other people at a time, and thus the speed slows down.
However, using the other two methods, i.e., complaining to the ISP or changing the ISP, won’t make any difference. Thus, it’s better to use a VPN to prevent throttling.
Can We Use a Free VPN to Bypass Comcast Throttling?
The best way to prevent throttling is to use a reliable VPN provider. The free VPN providers are usually unreliable when bypassing throttling, and there are valid reasons for it. They come with limited monthly bandwidth, sometimes making streaming, torrenting, and gaming challenging.
Also, they don’t allow the users to excess all of their server networks. The users can only access a few servers with sluggish connection speeds. Also, using a free is like compromising your privacy and security. The lack of proper encryption and security features further makes it a wrong choice. Hence, one should always use a premium VPN provider for all these reasons.
Why does my Comcast internet speed vary so much?
If you’ve ever noticed that your Comcast internet speeds vary wildly from one moment to the next, you’re not alone. Many Comcast customers have complained about this issue, and it turns out that there’s a reason for it.
Comcast has been throttling its customers’ internet speeds for years, and it’s only recently that the practice has come to light. Throttling is when an ISP intentionally slows down your connection speeds, and it’s something that all major ISPs have been doing to one extent or another.
The reason Comcast throttles its customers’ speeds is simple: money. The more data you use, the more money Comcast makes. So by slowing down your connection, they can encourage you to use more data and boost their profits.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, after going through our guide, you have learned that Comcast throttles your connection in the first place. A reliable VPN provider is the best way to bypass Comcast’s throttling. To enjoy a fast and uninterrupted connection, ensure you’re connected to a reputable and fast VPN provider. The VPNs mentioned above are the ones that you should try to enjoy an excellent browsing experience.
