Slow Broadband

[Deejay]

Hello Pete

Before you invest in an I-plate, have a look at

http://www.jarviser.co.uk/jarviser/broadbandspeed.html

in particular, section three.

Cheers

Dave

 

[ike]

I've noticed t'internet has been sluggish more often of late. (Plusnet). Maybe there's been problems on the backbone.

 

[newt]

After 2 weeks at 3 megs, guess what down to 500k. They tried interleaving did not make any difference. BT man came today my line right up to the PC can support 5megs, my router also says the same, but actual throughput 500k. He could do no more but report back to ISP. I emailed ISP and said what happened and that it must be at the exchange. half hour later phone call from India, please could you do a speed check, now up to 5 megs . She would not say what they have done. Not holding my breath it will probably go down again.

 

[RogerS]

After 2 weeks at 3 megs, guess what down to 500k. They tried interleaving did not make any difference. BT man came today my line right up to the PC can support 5megs, my router also says the same, but actual throughput 500k. He could do no more but report back to ISP. I emailed ISP and said what happened and that it must be at the exchange. half hour later phone call from India, please could you do a speed check, now up to 5 megs . She would not say what they have done. Not holding my breath it will probably go down again.

You see, Pete, they've only got so many bytes to give out. Todays' your turn :wink:

 

[newt]

Roger the trouble is you could be right.

 

[oddsocks]

I'm with pipex and have had slow internet for about 4 weeks and it got slower each day. I called the indian call center (who was actually very efficient) and was told that I had to run the specific Tiscali tester 6 times (3 times before 6pm and 3 times 6pm-11pm). Only then could they escalate to second line - each test gives a reference code they look up against the registered phone user. The first time I ran the test it reported a speed of 8kbit/s (yes slower than the slowest dial up!). Fastest over the 12 tests I actually ran was 110 kbit/s. I reported back at approx 7pm and next morning at 9:10 I had a call asking me to retest - now at 3.6Meg which is where it is every time (max for my location is 4Mbit/s). They confirmed they had reset the exchange parameters. At all times my router was declaring an ADSL capability of 3.7mbits/ with no errors and the expected noise margin (12dB)

the test can be run by anyone - just enter
http://speedcheck.ispconnect.co.uk

 

[John McM]

Ring your ISP cancellation department instead of faults. Tell them you're thinking of cancelling because you are fed up with them throttling your speed. Hey presto, sorted.
That was my experience anyway. I'm with Plusnet.

 

[RogerS]

Ring your ISP cancellation department instead of faults. Tell them you're thinking of cancelling because you are fed up with them throttling your speed. Hey presto, sorted.
That was my experience anyway. I'm with Plusnet.

That's interesting to hear, John. Can you tell us a bit more of your troubles as I'm with Plusnet and have long suspected something of this nature.

Roger

 

[John McM]

Roger, When I threatened to move ISP, Plusnet admitted to throttling my speed. After 4pm it often went very slow. Although I was paying £14.99 pm I was apparently still on an old download restriction which they immediately upped to 15Gbits instead of 4. They fell over themselves to get me to stay. If I still had problems they would deal with the faults team for me etc. No problems since. Moral seems to be if you don't complain they'll let you carry on as you are. The cancellation department was easier to get through to and took action there and then.

 

[TonyW]

I agree that asking to cancel should get them moving - shame that we seem to have to resort to threats to get service these days

Just ask for your MAC code which you wll need when/if you change ISP. I believe that they must provide this within 5 days according to regulations. If you do not use it I think it expires automatically within 30 days - you can ask for another at any time.

Asking for your MAC code makes it very plain that you are going to sign up with another provider. I am fairly sure that this will get you to speak to someone who will try and keep you with a promise to investigate your case and put things right

Cheers
Tony

 

[andycktm]

If you have to get your mac code to get action,maybe you should be using it?

 

[misterfish]

Our speed has slowed over the last few months - noticeably slower in the evenings and at weekends.

Currently my contract is for 20gb download at upto 8mb speed and with a contention of 1:50. I was recently offered the option to change this to 'unlimited download at the better contention of 1:20 with the same speed but at a lower cost, so I signed up but am still waiting as BT have told the ISP that there is no further capacity at the local exchange. Apparently BT should now install extra kit/capacity at the exchange at which time I will get the new service. The ISP apologise and say that BT are not usually quick at doing this - it can take them many months!

It may be that other peoples slowdowns are caused by the contention ratio (too many users sharing the capacity at the same time). In my case I just have to wait!

Misterfish