Tech: Broadband Speed problem

Subject: Tech: Broadband Speed problem
From: Dazbo
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 08:00 AM

I've been finding at home that my uploading and downloading speeds seem a lot slower than they were 6 months or a year ago. Yesterday I found a site that checks your speed (Broadband speed checker) here in the UK. I ran the test and it said my download speed was 750kb/s and the upload speed is 50kb/s. They also told me my exchange and the max speed should be 3meg/sec (which agrees with my provider's statement, BT, when I got broadband). I intend to monitor the situation for a week or so to see what the speed is like on different days and times.

Is this a problem with the service provider/telephone lines or could there be a contributory element from my pc? I use Windows Vista and use Norton protection.

Cheers

Subject: RE: Tech: Broadband Speed problem
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 08:27 AM

The providers use all sorts of tricks, they claim to know when you are on a peer2peer run, and video download and slow you down during peak hours. I found access on dial-up was abysmal during the Olympics, and noise about broadband seemed to concur. Maybe they are upgrading locally or they know what you are doing.

My dial-up is infinitely better now but I have all but stopped using one except to send e-mails. They answer all e-mails with irrelavent questions until you finally get a blank e-mail. It is the trend nowadays. My Waitrose payasyougo has a free support line and I get good service from it.

But all cheap broadband (say less than £20/mth) has a 50:1 sharing ratio. Go rip-out yer neighbour's line and re-test. Mind you it may take 49 angry residents before you find the one.

Subject: RE: Tech: Broadband Speed problem
From: treewind
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 09:54 AM

Might be worth unplugging your broadband router or modem and re-connecting it.
Could be deterioration of line quality (water getting in the junction boxes, that sort of thing)
Could be a contention issue - as Mr Red says, if the other 49 users you share with are busier than they used to be they you'll get less bandwidth. The 3Mb quoted is only the maximum, not guaranteed at all.

The internet's full: time for some people to get off!

Anahata

Subject: RE: Tech: Broadband Speed problem
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 10:21 AM

I had a mysterious broadband problem a few months ago - weird things like mail mysteriously refusing to log in, as well as slow line speed- called BT, and after they'd threatened me with £180 fee if they dind't find a fault, a linesman came out and found the wire broken, but making intermittent contact, at the box on the post. Some of the protocols retry until they succeed, others don't, hence the different behaviours.

Other possibilities are a compromised computer (a "something unauthorised" eating into your bandwidth), contention (try at different times of day/ night), problems with your firewall, contention, a failing ethernet port......

You can eleiminate some of these- try with another computer, just bang a fresh Linux into an old machine and fire it up. That will eliminate worms etc., and also the computer's hardware, and since it's just for test you can do without a software firewall safely. Reset the router - turn off for an hour or so so you're sure you get a new lease at the other end.

After that, it's just the usual half- truths peddled by ISPs, if you can find a better 'ole...

Subject: RE: Tech: Broadband Speed problem
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 03:54 PM

Anahata has a good point: just as a computer reboot will solve many problems, a cable or DSL modem reboot fixes lots of things, too. Just unplug the power to the modem, wait ten seconds, and plug it in again.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Broadband Speed problem
From: Nick
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:25 PM

Just tested mine and it's the slowest it's been for ages but I rarely check at 9:30 at night

TEST_DATE        DOWNLOAD_SPEED        UPLOAD_SPEED        LATENCY        SERVER_NAME
11/17/2007 11:30 AM GMT        4280 kb/s        379 kb/s        77 ms        Maidenhead
11/18/2007 12:43 AM GMT        5291 kb/s        378 kb/s        112 ms        Maidenhead
11/18/2007 1:30 AM GMT        5147 kb/s        379 kb/s        111 ms        Maidenhead
11/26/2007 8:24 AM GMT        5135 kb/s        380 kb/s        162 ms        Maidenhead
12/1/2007 4:37 PM GMT        4377 kb/s        379 kb/s        64 ms        Maidenhead
12/5/2007 8:12 AM GMT        4813 kb/s        377 kb/s        90 ms        Maidenhead
12/19/2007 6:51 AM GMT        4826 kb/s        378 kb/s        72 ms        Maidenhead
12/20/2007 8:08 AM GMT        4817 kb/s        329 kb/s        56 ms        Maidenhead
12/24/2007 9:38 AM GMT        2104 kb/s        373 kb/s        61 ms        Maidenhead
12/24/2007 11:45 AM GMT        4825 kb/s        378 kb/s        63 ms        Maidenhead
12/26/2007 11:12 AM GMT        4820 kb/s        378 kb/s        60 ms        Maidenhead
12/30/2007 3:03 AM GMT        4820 kb/s        378 kb/s        65 ms        Maidenhead
1/13/2008 12:14 AM GMT        4808 kb/s        379 kb/s        62 ms        Maidenhead
1/24/2008 4:41 PM GMT        4843 kb/s        331 kb/s        59 ms        Maidenhead
3/3/2008 2:59 AM GMT        4824 kb/s        378 kb/s        54 ms        Maidenhead
3/3/2008 3:00 AM GMT        4816 kb/s        371 kb/s        64 ms        Maidenhead
9/18/2008 8:21 PM GMT        1186 kb/s        356 kb/s        151 ms        Maidenhead

I live in a village in North Yorkshire and use madasafish (brightview)

Subject: RE: Tech: Broadband Speed problem
From: Folkiedave
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 05:24 PM

I had a similar problem with my broadband and I also got threatened with the large call-out charge. (in my case £169.00). I called their bluff and arranged an appointment through my ISP (plusnet - which is also BT) and the engineer came, plugged his laptop in and got the same speeds as I did.

In fact they had sent a great lad worked who tirelessly for three and a half hours going backwards and forwards to the sub-station until it worked reasonably well - which to me is downloading BBC TV programmes via Iplayer. No problems since. And it has gradually ioncreased speed too.

It would be interesting to see how many people have actually had to pay the call-out charge!!