Raymond Zhu

June 29, 2022

Why 1G network caps at 940Mbps?

1G ethernet or even 1G internet access becomes very affordable for home usage.
However, if you do speed test (iperf3 for local area network or speedtest.net for internet), if everything is well configured, the speed is very likely capped at 940Mbps regardless what cable you use, wire or wireless, what brand of the router/switch.

Why is the magic number 940Mbps?

Well, if you ever used postcards, you may find it easier to understand this.
On a postcard, let's assume the maximum characters to write is 1000. Besides all the words you'd like to share with your friends and family, you have to leave some space for address otherwise the postcard is useless and cannot be delivered.
Ethernet is like this, it breaks a big file/data down to a ton of "postcards" (or technically it is called frame) where it contains a piece of the original file/data. For this postcard to be correctly delivered, ethernet address has to be added along with some other necessary information, it's these postcards overhead which caps the 1Gbps network to maximum 940Mbps useful data rate.

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