Must be one of the least expected causes of service degredation: "internet squashed by fridge" 

Grevelrash:

 

It turns out that my cable wasn't in a conduit and the wheel of the fridge had slightly crushed it. I ran a new Cat6 cable (that will be going in a conduit) that I'd bought to run down the the bedroom TV and it now works as expected.

 

Great result. This is one example of why troubleshooting is so important and that includes not only computers but routers, cables, position, etc.

cddt:

 

Must be one of the least expected causes of service degredation: "internet squashed by fridge" 

 

Have you tried turning it off and on again (not the internet... the fridge?) 

And here's one last strange one. I tried again to download the file from my friend's Sydney server, only for it to chug again at about 700Kbps.

He said it might sound counterintuitive, but he suggested turning on the VPN and setting it to Aus. So I set it to Sydney and it instantly maxed out his connection. 🤷

Oh well, no idea how or why but it all works now.

Grevelrash:[snip]

Honestly, I was expecting people to tell me depending on where I lived, or what ISP I was with that my mileage for gigabit might vary. 

 

Yeah, nah. You're not in Australia any more ;-) With the odd exception, you'll get the advertised performance on just about any ISP in NZ.

Grevelrash:

 

And here's one last strange one. I tried again to download the file from my friend's Sydney server, only for it to chug again at about 700Kbps.

He said it might sound counterintuitive, but he suggested turning on the VPN and setting it to Aus. So I set it to Sydney and it instantly maxed out his connection. 🤷

 

Out of interest, what does the return path look like from your friend's Telstra connection back to yours?

Lorenceo:

 

Out of interest, what does the return path look like from your friend's Telstra connection back to yours?

 

Grevelrash:
I'm not too sure how I'd find that out.

 

Run another "tracert" from his connection back to your IP public address.

Lorenceo:

 

Run another "tracert" from his connection back to your IP public address.

 

Tracing route to [110.142.....] over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  Aircove-514 [192.168....]
  2     7 ms     6 ms     6 ms  115-188-128-1-adsl.sparkbb.co.nz [115.188.128.1]
  3     8 ms     7 ms     8 ms  222.152.41.161
  4     8 ms     7 ms     7 ms  122.56.119.216
  5     7 ms     8 ms     8 ms  ae10-10.tkbr12.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.232.29]
  6    32 ms    37 ms    31 ms  et10-0-5.sebr3.global-gateway.net.nz [122.56.127.94]
  7    35 ms    35 ms    31 ms  103.13.80.121
  8    58 ms    31 ms    31 ms  ae-1.au.sydnau05.au.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.9.217]
  9    33 ms    32 ms    34 ms  Bundle-Ether85.chw-edge903.sydney.telstra.net [203.27.189.221]
 10    33 ms    35 ms    34 ms  bundle-ether12.stl-core30.sydney.telstra.net [203.50.11.176]
 11    43 ms    31 ms    31 ms  ae10.chw-ice301.sydney.telstra.net [203.50.61.65]
 12    31 ms    32 ms    32 ms  1.156.127.254
 13    40 ms    39 ms    39 ms  cpe-110-142-135-54.static.nsw.asp.telstra.net [110.142.135.54]
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16