I’m surprised that this can’t be reliably re-created, I have three iPads in my house currently and all have the same issue.
I can confirm that for me, turning off background downloading does address some of the speed issue, however this still needs to be fixed, something is broken on iPad only (iPhone works perfectly with Background Download enabled).
This issue dates back years and years, over multiple network (1Gbps and 10Gbps), Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E and now Wi-Fi 7) and iPad technologies. This thread has some of the discussion - Slow downloads using the new 'Downloads' feature
Here are test on the same iPad, to the same server, over the same network. Network type is Wi-Fi, both are 2x2 clients, same access point used for all testing and no other active use or streaming.
iPad Background Download enabled
iPad Background Download disabled
iPhone Background Download enabled (iPhone
