Help - going insane with BT Broadband!!!

Hi - I'm really hoping someone can shed some light on whats wrong with my broadband. It's astoundingly slow and has been every night for the past four weeks. I've called the call centre and got effectively nothing in terms of help and I'm pulling my hair out. I know from speaking to BT I should be getting 10mbs plus but I'm getting less than 1mb in effect and my ping rates to any uk sites are over 400ms!!!

This means absolutely EVERYTHING is impossibly slow. Web Browsing, email, on-line gaming, remote working via VPN are all impossible.

My router says this..
Line state Connected
Connection time 0 days, 1:22:09
Downstream 15,101 Kbps
Upstream 855 Kbps


ADSL settings
VPI/VCI 0/38
Type PPPoA
Modulation ITU-T G.992.5
Latency type Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up) 6.0 dB / 9.6 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up) 25.5 dB / 13.9 dB
Output power (Down/Up) 21.1 dBm / 12.4 dBm
Loss of Framing (Local) 0
Loss of Signal (Local) 0
Loss of Power (Local) 0
FEC Errors (Down/Up) 18640 / 11
CRC Errors (Down/Up) 8 / 2147480000
HEC Errors (Down/Up) nil / 173593
Error Seconds (Local) 5

My pings are...

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 40 ms 99 ms 99 ms BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]
2 561 ms 585 ms 429 ms 217.32.142.96
3 474 ms 401 ms 434 ms 217.32.142.126
4 * 419 ms 489 ms 213.120.163.18
5 555 ms 512 ms 512 ms 213.120.157.21
6 476 ms 531 ms 467 ms 213.120.157.178
7 507 ms 545 ms 494 ms 213.120.157.113
8 524 ms 478 ms 435 ms core1-gig4-0-0.manchester.ukcore.bt.net [1
2.81]
9 478 ms 406 ms 552 ms core1-pos0-14-0-0.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [62
03.74]
10 467 ms 401 ms 569 ms core1-pos14-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [195
5.225]
11 550 ms * * 194.74.65.42
12 596 ms 546 ms 655 ms 212.58.238.129
13 590 ms 496 ms 498 ms rdirslb0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.136]
14 492 ms 419 ms 439 ms virtual3.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]

Can anyone suggest anything? Is it interleaving?

Your on WBC or up to 24mb broadband! Looked at the sync and though ah I have a fair idea of the problem but nope everything with your line looks tip top. A few errors but thats about it.

Best thing is to contact one of the BT reps on the forum here, they should be able to get it sorted out for you.

Looks like its a problem on your end - possibly a torrent, software updater using P2P, virus/trojan or similiar. Testing inbound theres absolutely no problems upto the last point before your linecard. Unless its an intermittent problem.

Edited by deleted (Thu 09-Jul-09 00:16:51)

Thanks guys, the call centre guys didn't think it was a line problem either, but they didn't seem to know what to do to fix it other than reset the profile and wait 48hrs.

The odd thing is this is what I get in the morning...
[IMG]http://www.speedtest.net/result/513449688.png[/IMG]

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 46 ms 99 ms 99 ms BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]
2 39 ms 31 ms 31 ms 217.32.142.96
3 210 ms 239 ms 163 ms 217.32.142.126
4 42 ms 46 ms 47 ms 213.120.163.18
5 40 ms 37 ms 54 ms 213.120.157.21
6 39 ms 58 ms 62 ms 213.120.157.178
7 40 ms 39 ms 37 ms 213.120.157.113
8 77 ms 72 ms 82 ms edinburgh-access1-s1-1.ukcore.bt.net [194.72.2.8
1]
9 182 ms 147 ms 101 ms core1-pos0-14-0-0.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [62.172.1
03.74]
10 81 ms 71 ms 78 ms core1-pos14-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [195.99.12
5.225]
11 167 ms 212 ms 239 ms 194.74.65.42
12 275 ms 251 ms 165 ms 212.58.238.129
13 470 ms 267 ms 193 ms rdirslb0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.136]
14 245 ms 301 ms 315 ms virtual3.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.254.252]

In the evening I get the latency shown in the OP and I usually get this throughput..

[IMG]
http://www.speedtest.net/result/512281173.png[/IMG]

So is it some kind of throttling or QOS? Or just contention issues at the local exchange in the evening? Would changing the interleaving help a bit with the latency (which is my biggest problem)?

Those speed test results both indicate that something on your end is using a lot of bandwidth... compare the sync speeds to actual throughput.

And because your considered a "heavy" user (BT pretty much seem to see anyone using more than 20-30gig a heavy user and cap them) your being throttled to approx. 1.2Mbit down during peak times. I'm not sure if upload is throttled during peak but mine deffinatly drops as well.


Before taking this any further you need to be completely 100% confident that this isn't caused by traffic originating in your premises - otherwise theres a chance you'll end up getting charged by BT if they start sending out engineers, etc.

If your connected via wired ethernet then try disabling wireless on your router - its possible someone has hacked it and is making use of your bandwidth.

Getting Interleaving turned off will do nothing for pings like that - they are caused by traffic volume.

Edited by deleted (Thu 09-Jul-09 18:05:09)

Thanks for the tips Rroff - thats good info.

I've done a few things to rule out any hackers...

1) Wireless is always off anyway (never used it and switched it off on day one)
2) unplugged my desktop PC and connected up my work Laptop with wireshark
3) sniffed traffic off the local network

And I can't see anything going on at the moment. And still getting horrific ping rates so I'm left with contention at the local exhange as the only explanation?

TBH if it was a throttle being applied it would be nice of BT to inform me and give me the option of upgrading to unlimited. As it is with the latency the broadband is entirely useless.

bt has at pres a major problem, that 1 of their main servers caught fire, this server not only feeds bt, but all isp networks, so untilit is up and running as it should be we are all suffering. i just had bt engineer in to sort mine out, from 1700 to 2300 it was non existent, but after re - routing my phone line and other probs i am now getting 1.2 during these hours and up to 3 m other times.

In reply to a post by dannyboy60:

bt has at pres a major problem, that 1 of their main servers caught fire, this server not only feeds bt, but all isp networks, so untilit is up and running as it should be we are all suffering. i just had bt engineer in to sort mine out, from 1700 to 2300 it was non existent, but after re - routing my phone line and other probs i am now getting 1.2 during these hours and up to 3 m other times.

Who gave you that guff? Have you any evidence that it is true?

For some odd reason I can't find any sudden complaints on any of the ISP forums here that I visit, including Plusnet.

When did it occur?

They never tell you about the throttling and its applied even on unlimited - BT are rubbish basically...

If your 100% sure theres no traffic originating within your network then the problem must lie within either the linecard your connected to or the equipment thats immediatly connected to is suffering very bad localised congestion/overloading as everything from that point onwards I can test from here and see working fine*.

* Fine in that its not 100+ms pings and packet loss is less than 1% - however it is relatively congested with pings upto 60-70ms where they should be <20ms.

Edited by deleted (Thu 09-Jul-09 23:28:57)

this info was from a friend that lives near the bt server that went up in flames. remember bt owns b/b lines and all others only hire it from them, so if your b/b dropped for a short while that is the reason. i have screenshots of my speeds but dont no how to add them here otherwise you would see pik of before the engineer came out and after.just do what i did send e-mails to server complaining of speed issues, and really complain about it until it is sorted.they sent the engineer out, and found my phone line was going past my house up the hill and back to me, so he re-routed it strait to mine and now getting on average 4.2 d/l.also found a junction box in loft thats not needed so done away with that, so my speed has improved a lot.