1. Check to make sure no one is using bandwidth on your connection
2. Call comcast and ask if your internet speeds are being throttled, most internet providers have a fixed amount of information you can download/upload per month(for example, 250GB per month), and exceeding that amount will usually result in them lowering your speeds
3. Switch isp's

1. Should be clear.
2. Will check out.
3. Thanks!

Your ISP isn't required to give you the full amount of bandwidth. They don't say "up to" for nothing.

I pay for 15 down/2 up and get 1/10th of that. 7 Down should be fine for anything in your situation, anyhow.

Ah, that would make sense, thanks for help :/

some isps will fuck you harder in the ass when it concerns meeting their "estimated" speeds, for example I'm supposed to get 12download, and most of the time I get 11.25, with occasional dips here and there

I just find it hard to understand that people 3 houses away are getting speeds 3x faster when we get the same plan :/

I would complain to them. Also, if you use wireless make sure you use WPA2 since it's not easy to crack like WEP.

It also depends on how the internet gets to your house, you could be experiencing signal degradation because you're further from the source than your friend is.

Do you use Wlan? If so, check your channel.

Not sure if you know, but just FYI. 15 Mbps doesn't mean 15 MB/s(MB/s or KB/s is what you see when you actually download something). You should expect to see roughly 1.5 MB/s for downloads. You would have to see speeds of 150 KB/s download to be 1/10th of your expected speed.

That's the problem dude. When I was living in Chicago my Comcast shit cable speed was anywhere from 10mbit to 30mbit.

It's all rather deceiving.

1/2 the advertised speed though is a bit much.

Here is my random listing of internet fix stuff.

Step 1, check your network and see who all is using it if you aren't password protected (you should be).

Step 2, if you have access to your router directly, just hop into it by googling the model or calling your ISP and asking for the access information if they provided you with the router/modem. Then throttle everybody else who uses internet at your house so that your computer gets priority. I had to do this back when I'd have guests over regularly because they'd pillage my internet at night.

Step 3, if you're on wireless, test it wired because in most cases wireless is a joke.

Step 4, open CMD, type in ping www.google.com -n 50, this will tell you if you have packet loss, if you are experiencing any packet loss you need to call your ISP because something is broken.

Step 5, in CMD, type tracert www.google.com, this will show you roughly how you're being routed to California, you can try other websites that are based elsewhere around the country, such as www.whitehouse.gov which is in Chicago for the time being. If you notice any really strange routing choices that don't make any sense (like going in the wrong direction geographically) you may need to call your ISP because something is broken.

Step 6, if nothing seems to apply - no random people using your internet, no roommates/family members pillaging your bandwidth, no packet loss, and no weird routing, you need to call your ISP and see if they can do anything, but likely they wont be able to.

With cable it could very well be that somebody who lives close to you is sucking up all your bandwidth. In college the house I lived at actually got a letter from the company asking us to destroy the internet less because everybody on the block was complaining about poor speeds and we were devouring all the bandwidth in the area lol.

Just FYI, most ISPs may say "estimated" but they usually have a within 10% or 20% Guarantee in their TOS for non-fiber connections. Assuming you don't have a bandwith Cap/Not having your internet leeched hard, you could just look through their TOS notify them that you're not within the guaranteed range, which usually leads to them conceding very quickly and you getting decent internet back.

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I work in the support bit for an ISP in the UK and you wouldn't believe how many peoples computers are to blame. Do you and them a favour and go into safe mode /w networking and connect with a cable and then run your speedtests. If they are still way off then just call them up I'd say. They should do everything mentioned here and usually they can't / won't trust tests they haven't seen with their own eyes.

Are you on wireless? It may be the case that you are being bottlenecked by your wireless connection, try wired.

Wow, thanks for all the advice guys, but the problem seems a bit silly now, apparently our phone system needs to be wired for whatever reason due to something about international calls. When I wired my laptop instead, the speeds were as they should be. Now I'll just need to figure out someway to get the phone system off wired with it still working >.>. Thanks again!