100Mbps FTTP bandwidth capped at 5Mbps but not by ISP?

Goldfish

Goldfish

Goldfish

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5 Apr 2023
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7
Location
Oxford
Hello, I've found expert forums really helpful in the past, and often full of the kind of people who like puzzles- hopefully.

In brief- 3 years ago I had Gigaclear fibre optic installed FTTP, and it has never worked well, literally buffering on std quality TV, wifi phone calls drop, particularly if I'm trying to email attachments at the same time. After 3 years of frustration, and literally hours of tech supoprt calls with Gigaclear, today I finally got some validation;

The tech support team told me they'd discovered that in the last 5 years I've NEVER used more than 5Mbps bandwidth, and "that is unusally low". ( I have 3x Alexas, 1x Ring doorbell, a laptop, mobile and TV).

I fully believe I've been running on max 5Mbps for the last 3 years. But Gigaclear say they haven't limited it. Also 90% of the time speed tests show 30-100Mbps (100Mbps is what I pay for). 10% of the time tests come back sub 5Mbps, Occasionally sub 1Mbps.... but usually when download speeds are low, upload speeds higher. I have a screenshot from earlier this week of 3.15 download and 70.25 upload. (It's 12.15am and I've just done an Ookla test, download 27.78Mbps, Upload 43.20Mbps).

What has been tried;
I've been through all the standard tech support stuff many times, including being talked through checks of settings by several different members of staff and they've never found anything untoward.
Gigaclear thought the router was faulty, but I've tried 4 different ones now. I've also swapped power cables and data cables.
Gigaclear said the router range wasn't enough for my house- My house is small but I set up 3 interlinked Linksys Nodes so nothing I use is more than 4metres from a Node, but the problem persisted.
Yes I have the same bandwidth issues on my tv, phone and laptop, ( also on my old desktop).
Gigaclear told me to move the master node as it was within 4 metres of a fridge and a mirror- I ignored them


So ANY ideas as to what could be capping my bandwidth at 5Mbps when Gigaclear say it isn't them, and when I can still get up to 100Mbps on a speed test?
Is it a red herring that upload speeds can be 100Mbps when download speeds are sub 5Mbps?

I live in a village with poor mobile signal and my only other internet option is the ancient BT copper wire, which the previous owner warned me off because the box it terminates in floods when it rains.

Any ideas would be most welcome. Thanks
Susie
 
If you have swapped routers before, then it is unlikely to be the router/gateway as the issue. This means that it has to be an internal issue (inside your residence, one or more of your devices) or it is the external line coming in to your place (or even further out) that is the problem. Given however, Gigaclear has said it is clear on their end, we can assume (for now) that the issue must be internal and should focus on eliminating that (your internal network) first as the source of your problem.

You have said that you have swapped data cables (I am assuming RJ45 Cat5e or higher graded), so that should eliminate the cables as the issue. However, what you haven't listed, is whether you have eliminated the devices themselves as the source of your problem.

Have you tried to disconnect everything except the router, and then plug your laptop directly to the router with a data cable and then seeing if the issue persists? Then, slowly add each device back onto the network to eliminate them as the (potential) source of your problem? You should know which one is the problem if you find that your speeds are OK without them plugged in, and drops when they are plugged in.

If you have eliminated all devices inside your residence as being the reason why your connection is at 5mbps, you should be able to tell Gigaclear at that point that you have eliminated all possible sources of the cause of the problem in your internal local network and thus the issue must be external at that point. It'll be something they need to sort out then.
 
Meddling-Monk said:
Have you tried to disconnect everything except the router, and then plug your laptop directly to the router with a data cable and then seeing if the issue persists? Then, slowly add each device back onto the network to eliminate them as the (potential) source of your problem? You should know which one is the problem if you find that your speeds are OK without them plugged in, and drops when they are plugged in.
Click to expand...
Absolutely this. It’s pointless doing tests over Wi-Fi.
 
Goldfish said:
Hello, I've found expert forums really helpful in the past, and often full of the kind of people who like puzzles- hopefully.

In brief- 3 years ago I had Gigaclear fibre optic installed FTTP, and it has never worked well, literally buffering on std quality TV, wifi phone calls drop, particularly if I'm trying to email attachments at the same time. After 3 years of frustration, and literally hours of tech supoprt calls with Gigaclear, today I finally got some validation;

The tech support team told me they'd discovered that in the last 5 years I've NEVER used more than 5Mbps bandwidth, and "that is unusally low". ( I have 3x Alexas, 1x Ring doorbell, a laptop, mobile and TV).

I fully believe I've been running on max 5Mbps for the last 3 years. But Gigaclear say they haven't limited it. Also 90% of the time speed tests show 30-100Mbps (100Mbps is what I pay for). 10% of the time tests come back sub 5Mbps, Occasionally sub 1Mbps.... but usually when download speeds are low, upload speeds higher. I have a screenshot from earlier this week of 3.15 download and 70.25 upload. (It's 12.15am and I've just done an Ookla test, download 27.78Mbps, Upload 43.20Mbps).

What has been tried;
I've been through all the standard tech support stuff many times, including being talked through checks of settings by several different members of staff and they've never found anything untoward.
Gigaclear thought the router was faulty, but I've tried 4 different ones now. I've also swapped power cables and data cables.
Gigaclear said the router range wasn't enough for my house- My house is small but I set up 3 interlinked Linksys Nodes so nothing I use is more than 4metres from a Node, but the problem persisted.
Yes I have the same bandwidth issues on my tv, phone and laptop, ( also on my old desktop).
Gigaclear told me to move the master node as it was within 4 metres of a fridge and a mirror- I ignored them


So ANY ideas as to what could be capping my bandwidth at 5Mbps when Gigaclear say it isn't them, and when I can still get up to 100Mbps on a speed test?
Is it a red herring that upload speeds can be 100Mbps when download speeds are sub 5Mbps?

I live in a village with poor mobile signal and my only other internet option is the ancient BT copper wire, which the previous owner warned me off because the box it terminates in floods when it rains.

Any ideas would be most welcome. Thanks
Susie
Click to expand...

I've skimmed your post but not seeing a mention of you trying a wired connection to the router?

Plug a laptop/PC directly into the router and then try some speedtests and report back what you get.
 
What I want to know is if you've been happy for this long with 5Mbps why the hell are you paying for 100Mbps, get a cheaper package.
 
Yes, you need to test this with an Ethernet cable directly plugged in to the router.
Wifi rarely performs as it is supposed to and sometimes is absolutely terrible.
It sounds like the wifi is just not performing in your house. You perhaps need to get a more powerful router, repeaters, or perhaps even a few powerline devices.
 
Last edited:
A wired test is going to be crucial here, but even so if it's happening across multiple devices and routers it potentially suggests either a fault with your fibre converter/ONT or an issue on Gigaclear's side.
 
I would try linking the router and a PC together with some sort of cable and try that.
 
Maybe if you don't want to try, what others have suggested, and connect the router to the pc using a cable you could instead try connecting the pc to the router using a cable.
 
Gigaclear telling you that you have not ever used more than 5mbit/s of bandwidth.

You have run multiple speed tets well in excess of 5mbit/s.

Seeing a problem with those 2 statements?

Do a wired test.
 
Meddling-Monk said:
If you have swapped routers before, then it is unlikely to be the router/gateway as the issue. This means that it has to be an internal issue (inside your residence, one or more of your devices) or it is the external line coming in to your place (or even further out) that is the problem. Given however, Gigaclear has said it is clear on their end, we can assume (for now) that the issue must be internal and should focus on eliminating that (your internal network) first as the source of your problem.

You have said that you have swapped data cables (I am assuming RJ45 Cat5e or higher graded), so that should eliminate the cables as the issue. However, what you haven't listed, is whether you have eliminated the devices themselves as the source of your problem.

Have you tried to disconnect everything except the router, and then plug your laptop directly to the router with a data cable and then seeing if the issue persists? Then, slowly add each device back onto the network to eliminate them as the (potential) source of your problem? You should know which one is the problem if you find that your speeds are OK without them plugged in, and drops when they are plugged in.

If you have eliminated all devices inside your residence as being the reason why your connection is at 5mbps, you should be able to tell Gigaclear at that point that you have eliminated all possible sources of the cause of the problem in your internal local network and thus the issue must be external at that point. It'll be something they need to sort out then.
Click to expand...
Hello,
Thank you for your helpful reply. As you said I have swapped routers, and cables, ( Cat5e and Cat6). I have done what you suggested but in a different way- I unplugged all devices for 10 days to see if the problem persists with just my laptop and phone needing bandwidth, but as it's been an intermittent problem it's hard to test. The revelation that I've somehow been limited to 5Mbps was useful as it explains why the problem is intermittent- it only happens when I need more than 5Mbps bandwidth......so I guess what I should do is devise a test where I up and download 100Mb from cloud storage to see if it takes 1 second or 20+seconds.
 
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