broadband router and internet speeds

hey, this question is kinda buggin me, does a broadband router decrease the speed of your internet connection, a guy i know upgraded his connection to 3mbps, it's a cable service btw, but whenever he runs a speed test, it pops up with 1.8mbps only, when he disconnects the router, 2.5mbps pops up, is there anything that the router contributes to this concern? thanks

You find quirky things with cable networks here.. may even be that there is some bandwidth capping going on with his router's MAC address, and when he uses his normal box's NIC its not being limited...

The setup of these cable companies can be fairly obfuscated, sometimes downright difficult to work out.

does mac cloning/spoofing help?

Well I suppose mac cloning may help, mac spoofing is a different ballgame alltogether..

is mac spoofing not equal to mac cloning? how is it different?

Sorry I had myself confused last post, I thought you were talking about arp spoofing [which is a different ballgame altogether]
*slaps head in stupidity*