SSE fibre

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This is my ISP, and they seem to be cutting out regularly and/or only being able to handle youtube vids at a disgraceful 144p, and even then, often cutting out.

What's the value option regarding fibre broadband nowadays?
 
Soldato
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Have you checked for a line fault?

Have you checked that it isn't the router playing up?

Have you complained to your ISP?

For an alternative ISP (which won't help much if it is a line problem) I like Plusnet.
 
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Have you checked for a line fault?

Have you checked that it isn't the router playing up?

Have you complained to your ISP?

For an alternative ISP (which won't help much if it is a line problem) I like Plusnet.

I've checked for nothing. I've been with SSE for about 3-4 years. Their router is primitive. Just now speed tests show 26 mbps down, 8.6 mbps up. I've seen it at 8 mbps during peak times when unable to sustain 144p youtube videos. There is surely a conspiracy with ISPs to put priority on speedtests and show a few mbps results, when actually they're providing something more like 100 kbps
 
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No conspiracy. It's so easy to compare speed test results to actual throughput they'd never get away with it.

According to this, the conspiracy is real :eek:

Unfortunately, most ISPs have started noticing when a user initiates a speed test and stop throttling for the duration of the test. So, the speed test results look normal, but as soon as the test is done, the ISP goes right back to throttling.
 
Caporegime
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Wow a page that exists mainly to sell VPN subscriptions via affiliate links makes an unfounded claim that ISPs throttle non-speedtest traffic and conclude that a VPN is a good way to fix it. What a surprise!
 
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Wow a page that exists mainly to sell VPN subscriptions via affiliate links makes an unfounded claim that ISPs throttle non-speedtest traffic and conclude that a VPN is a good way to fix it. What a surprise!

I would love to test this theory, but I don't have a VPN. The fact I suspected it before finding that site lends it some credence in my mind.

A VPN might indeed be my first port of call before faffing around endlessly with technical support with my ISP who'll instruct me to do painfully slow nonsense like resetting the router, before eventually offering me the option of an engineer visit at my expense or having the audacity to state with 100% certainty my bandwidth issues at peak time are due to malware or some random made up nonsense.
 
Soldato
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I would love to test this theory, but I don't have a VPN. The fact I suspected it before finding that site lends it some credence in my mind.

A VPN might indeed be my first port of call before faffing around endlessly with technical support with my ISP who'll instruct me to do painfully slow nonsense like resetting the router, before eventually offering me the option of an engineer visit at my expense or having the audacity to state with 100% certainty my bandwidth issues at peak time are due to malware or some random made up nonsense.

So you’re unwilling to approach your ISP or do even the most basic of checks, but already know that they’re a waste of time and have a crack pot conspiracy theory that bares no resemblance to reality and no basis in fact with any UK FTTC ISP. The only thing that would make this better is you saying you did your ‘testing’ over Wi-fi.

Pull router stats, check the sync, check the actual speeds using multiple end points to account for routing, if your line falls outside of the anticipated lower handback speed, contact your ISP and get them to investigate the actual issue, but at least consider the option that they may know more than you do and the suggested fixes can and often do work.
 
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Well however bad SSE could get before, it's nothing compared with now. We had an entire evening of unusable internet a few days ago and it's still not sorted out. My 35 MBps fibre now resembles 512kbps ADSL on a dodgy ISP from 2006. A while ago I received a letter from them saying they're transferring their broadband services over to Vodafone in everything but name - who I believe are currently the cheapest and nastiest broadband provider around.

I currently see posts of many saying SSE are now completely unreachable on their customer service line regarding their internet. As for those overly triggered by my earlier slightly sarcastic use of the word 'conspiracy' regarding an article that said ISPs can recognise internet speed tests and provide bandwidth for them while having severely constricted service on other internet activities because 'it's regulated and therefore impossible', I assume these same people are Volkswagen steering-wheel-hardover-fuel-emission-test-cheat deniers, because such corporate 'conspiracies' can't exist in this day and age.

I've now bit the bullet and coughed up for BT Fibre. Unfortunately I've got two agonising weeks to wait until my service gets transferred over.
 
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You haven't listened to a word anyone has said in this thread. Since you are moving ISP there is no more to comment and good luck with BT Fibre. ;)
Clearly you haven't read my most recent post except for the last sentence. SSE are now unreachable since their recent all-evening outage and now constant poor internet for a huge amount of customers.

ZmSN8au.png
 
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SSE are now unreachable since their recent all-evening outage and now constant poor internet for a huge amount of customers.

There is no way they would be unreachable. What this means is there are longer wait times. This would be the case with every business in the UK if something like this went down. What's it matter you moving away now.
 
Soldato
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Clearly you haven't read my most recent post except for the last sentence. SSE are now unreachable since their recent all-evening outage and now constant poor internet for a huge amount of customers.

ZmSN8au.png

I have to ask, are you - or should you be - on some form of medication?

Companies occasionally have issues, every single ISP I have used, worked for or had professional dealings with, has at some point had an outage, heck I used to joke that every one of VM’s product launch’s ever had spectacularly failed on day one (analogue, digital, telephony, dial-up), the only exception was broadband and that only just lasted till day two. Strangely enough when something like that happens - as it’s usually unplanned - you have a dramatic increase in call volume from people who think they need to tell the company, AHT/AWT increase dramatically as the call volume wasn’t forecast and therefore not enough staff are available. That doesn’t make them uncontactable, simply if you want to ring them right then, it will take longer. Even OCUK had a period where they had to pull the phone lines to actually catch up with contacts via other channels. It’s not a conspiracy, it doesn’t require a tin foil hat, and you don’t have to try and link some obscure American site that’s sole purpose of existing is to sell you a VPN.

Either way, good luck with BT, though frankly you’re going to find they shockingly enough also have outages and call queues, just like everyone else.
 
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I’ve worked for an isp and I tell you now throttling speed tests isn’t happening.

There’s no magic to the way networks work apart from pipeline analogy.

if you are having issues there is something obviously going wrong. This is either your router, the bt line or at the isp level. It could be even further problems at another end like a website or where the ‘data’ is coming from. You haven’t even done anything as you have already stated to rectify the problem and as I’ve already said you haven’t listened to what anyone else has stated.

There’s some very knowledgable people on these forums and some have CCIE’s and working for ISPs. Some even have their own businesses too.
 
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Do you know how to diagnose a line when there are problems?

Can you give us the steps and actions before and after calling SSE?

how is your new ISP doing?

I've played around with my router and seen it at its worst where it constantly failed 1 of 2 of its DNS tests. I switched the DNS to Google's DNS. It made none if any difference. Being a layman, I thought DNS affected webpages only, but at the same time online gaming was wrecked and unplayable, which I thought was an entirely different kettle of fish. The closet thing I have to Netflix and other streaming services is my Sky box, and that too regularly failed outright to record anything On Demand.

Things are now better. BT doesn't go live for another 6 days. Almost tempted to cancel the change of ISP, except I depend on my home connection for business purposes, and it'll be exceedingly painful for me should my internet fail while I'm on call during peak times, like it did recently, where no apology or acknowledgement of their ever being a problem was given until 2 days later and only with a twitter fob-off largely stating 'don't call us'.

Personally I can't afford such downtime, and if premium BT and other ISPs are exactly the same (which I douibt) then seems I'll have to learn the hard way that the UK's fibre network/all ISPs blow still in 2019, despite hearing from some BT users who have had rock solid connections and are heavy content uploaders / server hosters and have been for years without interruption.
 
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Caporegime
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If you cannot afford downtime then I would recommend a BT Business broadband service with 4G assure, which is the easiest way to get close to 100% uptime.
 
Caporegime
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I've played around with my router and seen it at its worst where it constantly failed 1 of 2 of its DNS tests. I switched the DNS to Google's DNS. It made none if any difference. Being a layman, I thought DNS affected webpages only, but at the same time online gaming was wrecked and unplayable, which I thought was an entirely different kettle of fish. The closet thing I have to Netflix and other streaming services is my Sky box, and that too regularly failed outright to record anything On Demand.

Things are now better. BT doesn't go live for another 6 days. Almost tempted to cancel the change of ISP, except I depend on my home connection for business purposes, and it'll be exceedingly painful for me should my internet fail while I'm on call during peak times, like it did recently, where no apology or acknowledgement of their ever being a problem was given until 2 days later and only with a twitter fob-off largely stating 'don't call us'.

Personally I can't afford such downtime, and if premium BT and other ISPs are exactly the same (which I douibt) then seems I'll have to learn the hard way that the UK's fibre network/all ISPs blow still in 2019, despite hearing from some BT users who have had rock solid connections and are heavy content uploaders / server hosters and have been for years without interruption.
Thought about getting another line installed and having ADSL on it? Or as suggested a 4G fallback?
 
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