Rubbish ISP Or Me?

[Rob29]

Hi guys wonder if you can give me some advice? I have been reading various threads about download/upload speeds on here some getting really good speeds and some getting bad ones.

As you can see from the time did this mid afternoon.

Then i did this late night.

My question surely that is very wrong? I know it gets busy at night but that is taking the mick!!!! Is there anyway i can monitor this more thoroughly? I am meant to be on 8mb connection????
Any advice appreciated. Sorry for the long post.

 

[rpstewart]

I am meant to be on 8mb connection????

The connection between you and the exchange has a theoretical maximum downstream throughput of 8mbps. The connection is rate adaptive so will run at the maximum speed that your line length and quality will support. Once you take this into account and factor in protocol overheads you won't get close to 8mbps. For example I can stand in my back garden and see the phone cable out of my house and down the street all the way to the exchange (200yds) but I still only get 6.5, maybe 7Mbps.

The connection to the internet beyond the exchange is a whole different matter, how many folk are crammed onto that is dependant on your ISP's infrastructure so when everyone starts using the net your share of the available capacity goes down so you get the slowdowns you're seeing.

Basically you have two options - either stump up upwards of five figures a month for a dedicated leased line or deal with it I'm afraid.

 

[Rob29]

Thanks for the reply rpstewart is it worth me going to a different provider? Are Be There any good. For the same price i pay BT i can get a better deal with them. I don't mind dealing with it like i say it is fine during the day just at night thats all. Really daft question time.... what does an exchange look like?

 

[rpstewart]

Really daft question time.... what does an exchange look like?

The one along from me looks surprisingly like the rest of the buildings in the street - it even has bay windows. The big grills on the inside of the windows and the spikes on the fence are a bit of a giveaway mind.

Most of them though are just plain office like buildings.


You'll probably see better speeds moving to Be, they're an unbundled supplier so they use their own kit in the exchange and their own connections from there to the rest of the net. This means that they can provide the same bandwidth for less (or more for the same money) than using BT's shared centrals. The only problem is that only certain exchanges are Be enabled.

 

[Rob29]

Again thank you for the reply rpstewart.

>>>>>>Goes hunting for his exchange.