Infuriatingly slow broadband speed

jonas123

jonas123

jonas123

Associate
Joined
11 Dec 2005
Posts
219
Hello all,

I've had this problem for over 3 months now and it's driving me insane.

So I have toucan broadband (yes I know, they're terrible) and I've been receiving broadband speeds of approximately 200kbp/s over the last 3 months. I can't even watch a youtube video. The service i subscribed to is the 8Mbit service so I've pretty miffed.

Anyways, I've called toucan (or their indian call centre) many times, and the last call I had said they did a line test and they get 4500kbp/s from the exchange to my router??? I can't find the problem anywhere and do not know what to check anymore?

Anyway, so now I've plugged in my speedtouch modem direct to my computer and still have the slow speeds. However i opened speedtouch diagnostics and it says my line rate is:

Upstream: 448Kb/s
Downstream: 4794Kb/s???

What do these numbers mean and does that mean it's just me being stupid to why my speeds are SOOOO slow?


Any help will be appreciated
 
Check what your IP profile is on speedtester.bt.com - you might have connected at a crap speed at one time which would have lowered your IP profile speed. If it is lower than it should be call them and ask them to reset it.
 
Your upstream is exactly what it should be for IPStream Max, and downstream should put you on the 4000kbps IP profile. Run the BT Speedtester and see what it's actually set to.
 
Sorry I think you all misunderstood!

The ACTUAL download speeds i'm getting are about 15-20kb/s ie: not 4Mbit

However, when I plug in my usb modem and run the speedtouch diagnostic tool, it says my line rate is:

Upstream: 448Kb/s
Downstream: 4794Kb/s

HOWEVER, these are not the speeds i'm downloading at, it's just the speed that the diag tool is reporting my line rate at.
 
jonas123 said:
Sorry I think you all misunderstood!

The ACTUAL download speeds i'm getting are about 15-20kb/s ie: not 4Mbit

However, when I plug in my usb modem and run the speedtouch diagnostic tool, it says my line rate is:

Upstream: 448Kb/s
Downstream: 4794Kb/s

HOWEVER, these are not the speeds i'm downloading at, it's just the speed that the diag tool is reporting my line rate at.
Click to expand...

Nope, I didn't misunderstand. It does sound like your IP profile has been reduced - check on speedtester.bt.com.

The SpeedTouch diagnostic tool probably just looks at the speed you're currently connecting at rather than the actual speed which is why it reports 4794Kbps
 
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Yep - that's why you need to run the BT Speedtester to find out what IP profile your line is set to. Even if you're connected at 4Mbit, your IP profile could be set to 256kbps which would give you the speeds that you're seeing. Your router only knows the sync speed - it has no idea how much data the ISP is configured to send down your line - they're not the same thing. Have a read here if you're interested.
 
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ok cool thanks

How do you get that site to work? Everytime I run the test, it just redirects me to their speedtest part so it only tests my download speed?



Just some other bits on info:

1.) I've phoned toucan many times are they always run a line test and say it's running at over 4Mbits. They say the line test is from the exchange to my router.
2.) My speed does vary during the day, so this morning, i'm getting a d/l speed of 500kbp/s (which is the fastest I've had for a long time)
 
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jonas123 said:
ok cool thanks

How do you get that site to work? Everytime I run the test, it just redirects me to their speedtest part so it only tests my download speed?



Just some other bits on info:

1.) I've phoned toucan many times are they always run a line test and say it's running at over 4Mbits. They say the line test is from the exchange to my router.
2.) My speed does vary during the day, so this morning, i'm getting a d/l speed of 500kbp/s (which is the fastest I've had for a long time)
Click to expand...

You should just be able to enter your phone number, press OK and it'll run the test which will give your connection rate, your IP profile and your actual download/upload speed.
 
when i run the test (on the bt speedtest website) it gives me the following:



"The speed test has completed on test server speedtester1.nat.bt.com for user 02076026196 and you have downloaded a 1.7Mb file at a speed of

172 kilo bits per second (Kbps), your service bandwidth will have been quoted to you in kilo bits per second.

Your IP address is xx.xx.xxx.xxx, your browser is reported as being Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 and is running on Windows NT 6.0."


But nothing about IP profile?
 
i phoned toucan and they said they probably just aren't putting enough bandwidth through our exchange. I'm not a happy bunny, they're such a useless isp and they couldn't even work that out after about 10 phone calls :mad:
 
Ack, sounds to me like you have a datastream line instead of ipstream hence why the BT speedtester isn't showing your ip profile.

All you can do is rant at Toucan and change provider, I very much doubt you'll get them to do anything about it.

On a side note, I thought BT had done away with datastream lines and put everyone on ipstream - oh well :)

FYI: Datastream *was* commonly used by the lower end of the ISP market for cheap provision at exchange level ie 10 users sharing a 2Mb pipe etc. However as pointed out a long while ago on these very forums, datastream done correctly can be faster than ipstream.
 
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Are you tied into a contract? If not, I'd be changing ISP pronto :) There's no excuse for that kind of service when there are lots of better options.
 
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