Internet Conundrum

Crimefighter

Crimefighter

Crimefighter

Associate
Joined
11 Jun 2008
Posts
1,276
Location
Stuck on the A406
Hi there,

Im getting really annoyed with the Internet connection in my flat, but I cant figure out what is causing the problem - I am hoping some people here can help me out.

My knowledge in this area is kinda basic.

We have a BT 8MB Broadband service with their Homehub router. Ive only been moved in for a couple of months to this new flat so I am not the account holder. Myself and 2 other flatmates use this connection wirelessly.

I have done a bit of research and our line seems to be ok - its 650m from the local exchange and when I rang up BT they tested the line and said it should be fine. They also said that we hadnt exceeded any bandwidth limits and were not being throttled back at all

Basically the symptoms of the problem are, Internet speed reduces to a crawl to the point where web pages dont even load, and often drops out completely to restart a few minutes later. It can stay like this for hours at a time, and it affects all the computers attached to the conenction not just mine.

Whats really frustrating is that sometimes it works really well for long periods - I get good latency in games and download/uploads are great for a time.
However it never lasts and slumps back to a crawl within a few days.

Ive checked with my flatmates and they dont abuse downloads/torrents or any kind of streaming. The connection is also rubbish when none of their computers are even turned on, so I dont think the other flatmates are the cause of the problem.

After my investigation, Ive narrowed it down to what I think could be the causes of the problem:

- Traffic Shaping on behalf of BT at peak times.
- Faulty/Crap Router
- Wrong settings on router?
- External interference on our wireless network from some other kind of network.

We have reached the end of our patience with this, and are about to change to either Sky or 02 - I just wanted to check if there was a simple explanation for all this before I go ahead and change it.

Any help appreciated.
 
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First, Is there security set up on the router, could be somebody else connecting from next door etc..

Second, the BT homehub is a pile of rubbish, better getting a real router.

Third, dont trust anything BT tells you, I had similar problems and all my tests showed the fault was not my line or gear, slow downs always happened during the same time periods, after several complaint calls, suddenly it "fixed " itself !
 
Yeah the connection is secured =)

The last time I rang up and complained, we had good service for 3 weeks. It has now gone back to its old misbehaving ways however, and I am at the end of my tether with it.
 
Check for any kind of activity around the hub during the times it dips in performance, i.e. lights going on, heating going on, anything at all like that.

Try connecting to the hub via ethernet to see if you suffer the same problem. If you don't, then it's the router (homehubs are touch and go anyway - some can be excellent, some can be absolute balls) and switching providers probably wouldn't be anything other than a major hassle. If you do figure out that it's the router, either buy a new one (advised) or go through to the trusty old BT call centres and try and haggle a new one (not advised). If you don't want to change the router, just try changing the wireless channel on the hub (1, 6 and 11 work best), but I'd recommend changing it anyway for a more consistent connection.

Hope this helps :O
 
Thanks mate thats some interesting suggestions.

Ill try the ethernet thing as I have a cable available.

Id like to try the hub channel change, however I am not the account holder so that could pose a problem. Ill investigate further.

I have tried testings things such as lights and TV interference, however no appliances seemed to have any effect on the Hub.
 
Trying a cable would be an idea too, there's about a million different variables in there that could all make your connection slow to a crawl.

If it's better with that, you're left with the HomeHub, ADSL or BT. Don't be too surprised if it's BT...

Edit: Changing the channel won't make any odds if you use a cable, and the other wireless machines should pick it up without a problem if you change it.
 
tolien said:
Edit: Changing the channel won't make any odds if you use a cable, and the other wireless machines should pick it up without a problem if you change it.
Click to expand...

Yeah I understand =)

The difficulty I forsee is that I do not have the password for logging into the hub and changing the channel (I have already tried this). Its worth a go though.

Ill try using a cable just to make its definitely the router causing the problems and not the line (or the BT equip/traffic shaping at the end of the line).
 
Does the BB light go off at all when you "drop out"? If so, it's more than likely a BT problem, but if not, it's the equipment. And to change the password for logging into the router, just do a hardware reset on it and it'll go back to defaults (admin/admin) ;)

Also, I didn't think BT actually did any traffic shaping...? I've never been subject to it, although I live in the middle of nowhere and my exchange probably only has a handful of people with broadband on it...
 
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Not sure about the light thing - I havent looked.

I saw a website linked to from this forum, which showed that BT used traffic shaping. I work off a popular exchange so it could be a possibility, although an unlikely one.
 
It's not the exchange that dictates whether you'll see traffic shaping but your ISP's connection to the BT Wholesale network. BT Retail do traffic shape too, especially at peak times.
 
Thanks tolien thats good to know. I had QT with the GF last night, so Ill try some of the suggestions above tonight and see if I can improve the situation.

Will report back here.

Thanks everyone for the responses so far, the ideas have been fantastic.
 
Well I have tried a few things tonight:

Connected to the home hub directly:
- The result was the internet connection performed superbly - good speed and latency etc very good. The moment I switched back to wireless connection, it went back to crappy performance.

From this I concluded that there is/was something wrong with the Homehub Wireless network.

I then did a Hub reset so I cold reset the Homehub admin settings and password.

Im now getting even worse speed than before on wireless, probably 56k speed. I am changing the channels at the mo until I find one that works well.

Have tried two so far (6,7) and no luck yet.
 
have you a bt homehub 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0?
my wireless is crap, but I'm guessing its to do with wpa and my laptop. different setups are much better. ethernet via a gigabit router is pretty good, but we have limited options here for changing...so BT it is really, and we're about 6km from the exchange!!!
 
Ok well I changed it to channel 11 and it worked well for a couple of hours, but it has now deteriorated back to where it was before - high latency and bad browsing speeds.

Its very strange behaviour

Ive run out of time tonight so Ill see tomorrow or Saturday if there is any improvement. If there is not, I think it will be new ISP time.
 
3dcandy said:
have you a bt homehub 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0?
my wireless is crap, but I'm guessing its to do with wpa and my laptop. different setups are much better. ethernet via a gigabit router is pretty good, but we have limited options here for changing...so BT it is really, and we're about 6km from the exchange!!!
Click to expand...

Not sure which model - its a large white one that is a book shape.

I guess I could go with an ethernet cable, but its not really practical with my current flat layout.
 
I *think* the corners are rounded but I will double check tonight.

The behaviour is very strange, but Im not going to get myself a degree trying to sort it out as I feel Ive wasted enough time on it already.

GF is away for the weekend, so if I cant solve it by Monday Im going to switch the flat over to a 16MB plan from 02 at £10 a month as I am a mobile customer with them already, and have heard very good things about their customer service and equipment.
 
I have found BT homehub wireless to be a bit flaky with certain combinations. ie my USR pcmcia card isn't great when wpa is used, it can take ages to establish a connection and speeds can be poor. however broadcom chipsets work fine, and so do intel chipsets. so i'm guessing that the bt homehub isn't a fantastic performer. however, for us in our location, there isn't many options as we live in the sticks with a small population. bt don't seem to want to let other companies put their equipment in our exchange so we're stuck. the bt home hub 2 has some very good options for us 2, as you can limit connectivity on a time basis to individual machines, and as we have a 10 year old, that will be fantastic as he wants a pc in his bedroom. also, we use the homehub phones a bit too, and they work well, so it's swings and roundabouts.
you may just have a combination that doesn't work well, or a neighbour with wireless that is messing up your connection. I don't use wireless very much any more because of the amount of wireless connections about and the resulting loss of speed. everything except the laptop are conected via a gigabit switch into my own network and it works fine. all the neighbours have crap wireless speeds because of various issues, and many of them have reverted to wired connections and are happy.
 
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