BT SPEEDS BEING THROTTLED ? ADVISE

jasonsony735 · 23 Sep 2016 at 19:57

Below is what is shows in my BT Hub settings and shows connection - This has always been correct - Ill go do a test and I will get these speeds !

Downstream: 63.25 Mbps
Upstream: 18.16 Mbps

Anyway for the past 2 weeks my PC Broadband is slowing down in the evenings ! The above speeds don't change in the HUB settings ! is BT Trottling my Broadband because If i go do a Speed test its down to 15 MBPS ! when it should be 60 ! Someone please advise its driving me insane ! this never use to happen.

It seems to be happening from 18:00 - 21 : 00

DragonQ · 23 Sep 2016 at 20:04

Similar problem to what I had with Plusnet a few weeks back. Do speed tests as evidence, show it to them, then ask them to investigate.

Swifty55 · 23 Sep 2016 at 20:15

Area?

Maybe congestion?

MissChief · 23 Sep 2016 at 23:39

Make sure you use http://speedtest.btwholesale.com for your testing. Any other site will likely be getting hammered in the evening

Steveocee · 24 Sep 2016 at 08:31

Make sure you are cabled in to the router (not wifi).
Try the speedtest from the btwholesale site
Do a few tests throughout the course of a day, couple in the morning, couple at midday, couple in the evening.

joeyjojo · 24 Sep 2016 at 11:05

Steveocee said:
Make sure you are cabled in to the router (not wifi).
Try the speedtest from the btwholesale site

For a while I swore BT weren't giving me the right speeds; I'd tested my WiFi and didn't think it was the problem. After a chat with a support person she got me to cable in, full speed.

bledd · 24 Sep 2016 at 11:11

joeyjojo said:
For a while I swore BT weren't giving me the right speeds; I'd tested my WiFi and didn't think it was the problem. After a chat with a support person she got me to cable in, full speed.

Surely you'd test that before calling BT ?

TheVoice · 24 Sep 2016 at 11:23

bledd said:
Surely you'd test that before calling BT ?

For a tech enthusiast's forum, I do wonder about this place sometimes.

joeyjojo · 24 Sep 2016 at 14:03

bledd said:
Surely you'd test that before calling BT ?

TheVoice said:
For a tech enthusiast's forum, I do wonder about this place sometimes.

Bit harsh.

A I wrote, I'd already tested speeds around the LAN over the WiFi and they seemed fine. Can't remember the reason now, was years ago.

Also we had various faults around that time, it was just after switching to BT and we'd heard horror stories so I suspected the worst.

wildest_jjk · 24 Sep 2016 at 14:08

MissChief said:
Make sure you use http://speedtest.btwholesale.com for your testing. Any other site will likely be getting hammered in the evening

This is exactly the right advice. I find speedtest.net a bit flakey at times anyway.

Besides that are you able to say your general area in the country OP?

LoadsaMoney · 24 Sep 2016 at 20:54

Ive never had any problems with speedtest.net, i just use the London ones, mainly Vodafone.

MissChief · 24 Sep 2016 at 21:04

wildest_jjk said:
This is exactly the right advice. I find speedtest.net a bit flakey at times anyway.

Besides that are you able to say your general area in the country OP?

IKR? You'd think I did ISP tech support for a living!

wildest_jjk · 24 Sep 2016 at 21:14

MissChief said:
IKR? You'd think I did ISP tech support for a living!

Sarcasm much???

Surely not first line? That was pretty unscripted

asim18 · 25 Sep 2016 at 13:20

LoadsaMoney said:
i just use the London ones, mainly Vodafone.

Why would you use only Vodafone servers located in London? The internet is not located in London and certainly not only on Vodafone.

You need to be testing external routes. Loads of the internet is in NL, France, Germany, etc.

asim18 · 25 Sep 2016 at 13:25

wildest_jjk said:
MissChief said:

Make sure you use http://speedtest.btwholesale.com for your testing. Any other site will likely be getting hammered in the evening

Click to expand...

This is exactly the right advice. I find speedtest.net a bit flakey at times anyway.

Besides that are you able to say your general area in the country OP?

Sorry but no. That is not the right advice unless you only want to gauge the capacity of a single point to point route to the local BT test server. The thing is BT doesn't host the internet so if you're trying to gauge internet performance from BT's speedtest you are absolutely not getting a valid result - and BT is known for atrocious routing practices, so it's pretty hilarious to see they're suggesting people use internal speedtests which have nothing to do with the wider internet.

Furthermore, it's also a complete joke to suggest BT's speedtest when trying to diagnose throttling issues lol. No doubt they have unfiltered and high priority access to their own servers.

Steveocee · 25 Sep 2016 at 14:59

asim18 said:
Sorry but no. That is not the right advice unless you only want to gauge the capacity of a single point to point route to the local BT test server. The thing is BT doesn't host the internet so if you're trying to gauge internet performance from BT's speedtest you are absolutely not getting a valid result - and BT is known for atrocious routing practices, so it's pretty hilarious to see they're suggesting people use internal speedtests which have nothing to do with the wider internet.

Then no speedtest is accurate by that statement. BT advise you to use a BT speed tester with their services as they are responsible for the connections they provide. No ISP will lay claim to speeds over "the internet". It's a perfectly valid response to test to a BT hosted site if you are on a BT line as that should ideally be the first "hop" over the internet itself (ie breakout).

Thats like me saying Virgin aren't providing me 50Mb because HillBilly Joe's speedtest server in the USA isn't giving me 50Mb. I can't complain to Virgin about their routing and partnering links, and their partners partner links, and their partners partners partners links etc etc etc (see where I'm going?)

Steveocee · 25 Sep 2016 at 15:04

asim18 said:
Furthermore, it's also a complete joke to suggest BT's speedtest when trying to diagnose throttling issues lol. No doubt they have unfiltered and high priority access to their own servers.

And?

BT provide you a speed, if the speedtest is unfiltered or prioritised, surely the service is still performing to that level? All traffic cannot be high priority, there has to be allowances for real time or critical protocols.

Plus if BT are QoS'ing to their own servers then they must be running very lean on overall internal bandwidth as QoS only kicks in when the queues are full.

Sorry if that sounds like a harsh response (and the one above) but you're trying to sound like all speed tests are incorrect and that connections should not be managed. If they weren't then much more bandwidth would be needed, thus increasing prices, probably then ensuing a thread from you about the rising price of broadband....

wildest_jjk · 25 Sep 2016 at 15:45

Steveocee said:
Then no speedtest is accurate by that statement. BT advise you to use a BT speed tester with their services as they are responsible for the connections they provide. No ISP will lay claim to speeds over "the internet". It's a perfectly valid response to test to a BT hosted site if you are on a BT line as that should ideally be the first "hop" over the internet itself (ie breakout).

Thats like me saying Virgin aren't providing me 50Mb because HillBilly Joe's speedtest server in the USA isn't giving me 50Mb. I can't complain to Virgin about their routing and partnering links, and their partners partner links, and their partners partners partners links etc etc etc (see where I'm going?)

Couldn't have put it better myself. You can't troubleshoot things if you have loads of external factors affecting the results.

Surely you can only really identify if there are problems with BT's infrastructure (access, metro etc.)?

Devious · 25 Sep 2016 at 15:47

I'm with BT (at least until the 28th then back to sky) and found the same issue in the evenings. Sometimes a router restart fixed it, though the BT home hub 5 likes to restart itself on its own quite a lot ..

asim18 · 25 Sep 2016 at 15:59

Steveocee said:
Then no speedtest is accurate by that statement.

No sorry. You are mistaken. Every speed test is accurate. Every single one.

When you download a file from NL and you get 100Mb/s, it is accurate. When you download a file from Scotland and you get 20Mb/s on the same connection it is still accurate. Anywhere you download a file from is accurate speedwise. It won't say you're throughput is 100mb/s when you're actually downloading at 20mb/s now will it?

What I'm saying is a speed test to your local ISP's local speed test server is absolutely pointless, not inaccurate. It's got nothing do do with inaccuracy, it's to do with pointlessness because the internet is not located at the same endpoint as BT's speed test server.

In fact internet routing goes anywhere between 7-15 levels deeper than the first hop to your ISP. And even deeper if your ISP has crap routing. The expectation should be good connection to major data centres/IXPs, not just the first hop. At the very least you need to be testing to major data centres in EU, because if that result is as expected then the BT's own speedtest result is rendered pointless.