Strange problem, is it BT or me?

DavidQ · 5 Jan 2007 at 18:14

Hi folks,

Well since I'm off work now I'm using my internet a lot more than usual, I've noticed that from around 6:30pm until 12:00 am my download speeds are just under 150kbs, yesterday at 6:46pm my internet just disconnected and reconnected. I was downloading from newsgroups just before this happened at over 800kbs and after the disconnect 180kbs and then it slowly deteriorates right down to 120kbs. After 12pm it's like my internet gets a kick in the bum and jumps back up to 800kbs and it happened at 12:04 on Wednesday night and 12:00 on the dot last night. I've spoken to BT support and they've asked me to connect my pc to the test socket for 3 days, I've had my laptop hooked up there for the mean time. I guess my question is are BT throttling me and not admitting it or am I paranoid and it's just a line issue but i find it very obscure that these "line issues" occur at the same periods, this has been happening for around a week or so and I'm currently on BT option 3 iirc with a 40gb cap however i abused it a little and they said they would give me unlimited for free. Any suggestions on how I should approach this issue?

Thanks for reading

tolien · 5 Jan 2007 at 18:16

Posting the stats (ie sync rate, SNR margin, attenuation) from your modem (or router or whatever) would be a start.

DavidQ · 5 Jan 2007 at 21:46

This is what i grabbed from my router, Netgear DG834PN

tolien · 5 Jan 2007 at 21:51

And you're currently getting ~800kB/s? Post the same thing when the speed drops.

DavidQ · 5 Jan 2007 at 21:59

At the moment I'm only getting 60kbs, that's with 20 connections on giganews newsgroups. speed tests are the same and showing my connection is only running above 512k speeds.

tolien · 5 Jan 2007 at 21:59

Try the BT Speedtest (see FAQ) then.

DavidQ · 5 Jan 2007 at 22:10

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 6500 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 7744 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 5451 kbps

If you wish to discuss these results please contact your ISP.

If you are experiencing problems with specific applications, servers or websites please contact your ISP for assistance.

Your test has completed please close this window to exit the performance tester.

Thomss · 5 Jan 2007 at 23:20

Following on from this, I can't access the BT speed test site, is it down at the moment?

NDO are telling to run it over the next 3 day's then get back to them, as I'm having huge pings and slow download speed, although I'm connected at full speed on the modem.

Thanks guys

DavidQ · 5 Jan 2007 at 23:46

Thomss said:
Following on from this, I can't access the BT speed test site, is it down at the moment?

NDO are telling to run it over the next 3 day's then get back to them, as I'm having huge pings and slow download speed, although I'm connected at full speed on the modem.

Thanks guys

it wouldn't load for me in firefox but it did in ie7, have you tried that?

Thomss · 5 Jan 2007 at 23:50

I'll give it a try now, thanks.

Thomss · 5 Jan 2007 at 23:52

Just tried it, dead just as Opera, Firefix.

tolien · 6 Jan 2007 at 00:15

If the speed you get is high from the BT Speedtest and isn't elsewhere, sounds like an ISP issue.

The BT Speedtest is extremely unreliable, but you also need it to report speed faults.

Thomss · 6 Jan 2007 at 00:20

Typical UK Game host trace:

1 * * * [-]
2 175 ms 181 ms 192 ms namescohg0.ilford.broadband.bt.net [217.47.151.65]
3 175 ms 181 ms 183 ms thn1-gi0-3-3.namesco.net [195.7.254.2]
4 163 ms 179 ms 182 ms lonap-1.zen.net.uk [193.203.5.48]
5 173 ms 191 ms 192 ms erazmus-so-0-1-0-0.wh.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.46]
6 168 ms 194 ms 202 ms cavendish-13-1-11.wh.zen.net.uk [62.3.83.69]
7 174 ms 196 ms 204 ms carroll-fa2-0-14.wh.zen.net.uk [82.71.206.53]
8 187 ms 194 ms 219 ms [82.71.218.30]

-

Connection Speed 8128 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 32 db 15.5 db
Noise Margin down: 6 db Upstream: 17 db

-

Downstream line rate = 8128
Maximum stable rate = 7392
Fault threshold rate = 5152

Seams NDO are having lots of problems with this issue, but there telephone support does not know how to advise or deal with it.

If they told me to simply wait a week while a fault was fixed etc it would be a lot better than told to try this that and the other.

Thanks, Thomas

DavidQ · 6 Jan 2007 at 00:39

Yeah BT won't take any kind of action unless there is significant evidence, which looks like it's going to be hard to prove.

Thomss · 6 Jan 2007 at 01:02

Hmmm I've only been with NDO for 2 months now, do you think it may be worth looking at other ISP's?

When I went with NDO, I was also looking at Newnet... I wonder how long it would take it change over to them.

DavidQ · 6 Jan 2007 at 05:39

Apparently UKFSN and Aquiss are meant to be good, I'm in my BT contract for about 7 more months but I've never had any problems with them up until now.

DavidQ · 6 Jan 2007 at 18:30

My intenet is constantly lagging, in cs/css i get loads of loss/choke and ventrilo keeps timing out. :'(

Thomss · 6 Jan 2007 at 20:43

DQN who are you with?

DavidQ · 6 Jan 2007 at 21:28

BT Broadband and I'm getting extremely peeved off at my ridiculous speeds as of late. To top it off i have to go and explain these problems again to someone who barely speaks english on Monday morning.

FeFiDoh · 6 Jan 2007 at 22:03

thank god im not the only one, i have noticed like now for instance d/l speeds are awful! And are generally getting worse, looking at pass speedtest results i can see a kind of gradual decline.

Think ill try and get parents to look else where, i need an ISP that has no contract tho as this is rented premises so cant really be bound into a 12month thing.