In reply to a post by SkyFire:

The BT congestion reports aren't updated in real-time; they're generated by BT on a regular basis (as I recall, monthly - though it might be more frequent than that) and are based on an exchange operating outside of BT's planning guidance (so customers regularly seeing speeds below the published thresholds) for a sustained period of time.

Unfortunately green does not mean 'no contention' it just means it's within acceptable boundaries.

ta,
Phil.

Nildram isn't much use then, i just tried the BT Speedtester again.

Download speedachieved during the test was - 5493 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :7136 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 6000 Kbps

Think Broadbands speed test said my speed was 3.4mbp/s at 1.10pm, now i re-test just twenty minutes later and i get 5.1mbp/s, it seems to be fluctuating quite a bit.

Incidentally the fault which brought my internet down developed late April, i think it was the 27th April and the Zen control panel shows a new sync on the 2nd of May and it changed several times up till the latest which has been stable now for a week.

Edited by deleted (Wed 25-May-11 13:36:38)

I've been having similar problems in recent weeks - though I should make it clear it may have been a bit slower at peak times for a while and I've only just noticed because it's suddenly become more severe. The problem times for me seem to be later on in the evenings, after 9pm, with Friday & Sunday nights being the most likely times for it to slow down.

I'm not that worried about dropping from say 6mb to 4mb - it's not ideal but I'm well aware broadband over BT lines isn't ideal... However, I have had a few instances of my connection slowing right down to 0.5mb to 3mb and I'm not impressed with that at all. Zen support said they could see no problems with my line, BT said there was no contention at my exchange, so no one can do anything.

I've done a whole host of things at my own end to try and eliminate any possible issues, and I think I can now safely assume that immaterial of what Zen & BT say, there is some kind of issue outwith my own control. Contention at the exchange may well be all it is - but the sudden sheer drop in speed suggests something is not right.The slowdown hasn't been so severe this week, but I'll be continuing to monitor speeds.

Unfortunately, if it continues, it seems the only possible way of improving things is to move to an LLU provider.

I am going through the same issues for the last week or so.

But my speed dropped from a fairly reliable 7mbps to 300kbps. It tends to pick up to around 1000kbps later in the evening and up to 3000kbps late at night. And then is back to 6mbps in the morning. I do expect that the max speed in the evening will fluctuate, however not to these extremely low limits.

You can imagine I am not impressed. The guys at Zen are fantastic and are helping me figuring it out. So far it points to BT, but now I am facing the danger of having BT over to test and if nothing wrong found charge me £250!! And will still have the problem! Is this BT trying to force us to move broadband to them, my paranoid self is asking....

This seems to be a real problem lately for many users and am yet to see an answer to it. Other than moving to another line provider (LLU is in my area).

The sad thing is that I like Zen - they have been excellent for all the years I have been dealing with them. I don't want to move, but cannot use my internet with 300kbps download speed.

I hope this gets sorted over the next few days...

Edited by deleted (Thu 26-May-11 14:02:49)

In reply to a post by MiGLancer:

I am going through the same issues for the last week or so.

But my speed dropped from a fairly reliable 7mbps to 300kbps. It tends to pick up to around 1000kbps later in the evening and up to 3000kbps late at night. And then is back to 6mbps in the morning. I do expect that the max speed in the evening will fluctuate, however not to these extremely low limits.

You can imagine I am not impressed. The guys at Zen are fantastic and are helping me figuring it out. So far it points to BT, but now I am facing the danger of having BT over to test and if nothing wrong found charge me £250!! And will still have the problem! Is this BT trying to force us to move broadband to them, my paranoid self is asking....

This seems to be a real problem lately for many users and am yet to see an answer to it. Other than moving to another line provider (LLU is in my area).

The sad thing is that I like Zen - they have been excellent for all the years I have been dealing with them. I don't want to move, but cannot use my internet with 300kbps download speed.

I hope this gets sorted over the next few days...

Its not a fault, its BT and/or ZEN taking the [censored].

From what the poster has said it does soundslike they have an issue open with us and BT, hence the concern about engineer charges.

Given that, it's either that this customer has an issue separate to contention, or the contention is resulting in speeds below BT's thresholds.

regards,
Phil.

In reply to a post by Tox_Laximus:

Its not a fault, its BT and/or ZEN taking the [censored].

If you have nothing constructive to say, why bother?

In reply to a post by MiGLancer:

The sad thing is that I like Zen - they have been excellent for all the years I have been dealing with them. I don't want to move, but cannot use my internet with 300kbps download speed.

I hope this gets sorted over the next few days...

Good luck to you and the OP, but that's three weeks in a row I've been having these issues, and I'm really beginning to think LLU has to be worth a try. I joined Zen because I didn't mind paying a bit more for a reliable & better quality service, and I've been delighted with it for the few years I've been with them. But this is the kind of speed issues at peak times that I moved away from BT Broadband to avoid - the only difference is I'm now paying more....

Thankfully this weekend was the first in 3 when it didn't drop to really low speeds (0.5Mb), but still, download speeds dropped from 600kbs to 200kbs between lunchtime and now

In reply to a post by MiGLancer:

In reply to a post by Tox_Laximus:

Its not a fault, its BT and/or ZEN taking the [censored].

If you have nothing constructive to say, why bother?

That guy will have to spend loads to determine if its a fault, this so called problem is happening a lot recently, they are not the first company to do this and won't be the last, look at your speed tests at certain times, it don't take a professor to work out whats going on.

A lot of money will be saved, is that constructive enough?

You can ring zen, they will blame BT, and around in circles you will go.

In reply to a post by Tox_Laximus:

In reply to a post by MiGLancer:

In reply to a post by Tox_Laximus:

Its not a fault, its BT and/or ZEN taking the [censored].

If you have nothing constructive to say, why bother?

That guy will have to spend loads to determine if its a fault, this so called problem is happening a lot recently, they are not the first company to do this and won't be the last, look at your speed tests at certain times, it don't take a professor to work out whats going on.

A lot of money will be saved, is that constructive enough?

You can ring zen, they will blame BT, and around in circles you will go.

No it isn't constructive enough. I would like you to post exactly what is the root cause of this issue, together with evidence of it.

Big hint - Zen do not traffic shape.

In reply to a post by alewis:

In reply to a post by Tox_Laximus:

In reply to a post by MiGLancer:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

If you have nothing constructive to say, why bother?

That guy will have to spend loads to determine if its a fault, this so called problem is happening a lot recently, they are not the first company to do this and won't be the last, look at your speed tests at certain times, it don't take a professor to work out whats going on.

A lot of money will be saved, is that constructive enough?

You can ring zen, they will blame BT, and around in circles you will go.

No it isn't constructive enough. I would like you to post exactly what is the root cause of this issue, together with evidence of it.

Big hint - Zen do not traffic shape.

That would require monitoring a lot of zen users every hour to build evidence, I can't do that.

You could try migrating to idnet and see if the same happens, they have monthly contracts too, so moving back and forth will not be a problem.

Traffic shaping or contention is all the same to us, you might as well migrate to a cheaper isp, but the contention effect will be amplified.

I can offer a prediction, this is gonna get steadily worse, off the top of my head I can't think of anything in this country that has improved this century.