Exchange congestion?

I am with fast.co.uk on market 1 exchange so only have adsl 8mbit available (sadly).

I am getting slow speeds at peak times, not sure when it starts as only use the connection in the evening but it fluctuates between 2mbit and 3.5mbit until about 11pm when it usually starts to speed up to 6.5mbit+ which is about right for adsl @ 8mbit it would seem (7mbit on a good day).

I have been in contact with them and they have been fairly helpful although running speedtests is quite boring now. I am just wondering if there is some way to pay extra for a less contended service rather than having to put up with slow speeds because there appears to be a lack of bandwidth to go round, its not really fair when others can get FTTC/cable or pay £4 a month to plusnet for a similar service.

Any advice would be welcomed.

Thanks

There seems to be a general problem. See this post by an Entanet reseller ISP.

Which exchange are you on?

General to entanet? Or general to IPStream Max?

If your exchange is 20CN you should have the option to go on to Max Premium which will probably cost you around £8 extra. This gives you faster uploads (up to 832kbps) as well as a higher priority on the BT network. I've seen people suffering from exchange contention find that improves things.

In the post I linked to, Martin said

In reply to a post by aquiss:

It should be also noted that many of the 20CN exchanges are no longer being upgraded by BT for backhaul as there is basically no more than 6 months before those get moved over to 21CN. As Service Providers we have had for some months the exchange lists for the final push over to 21CN.

We get many reports from customers (only on 20CN) where Entanet's nodes are sub 50% (evenings are good example)....yet, if we press with BT directly (and we do have those means to bypass Entanet for information) then it's becoming very clear that BTs own VPs are also red-raw in places.

So while I take your points, there are also questions to ask of BT about the lack of upgrades to what BT deem a dead network.

Doesn't that mean he believes it is general to IPStream/ADSL Max, not just Entanet?

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 01-Nov-13 12:10:00)

I'm Martin btw

My statement still stands.

Hi Martin,
Did you see my PM from last Saturday asking if it would be possible to see your 20CN upgrade docs?
Or perhaps you could let TBB publish them?

Thanks.

Had not followed through as a lot to do

Sorry Martin. Fixed.

I often mix the two of you up . Usually I check before posting .

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/STEASTK

Tiny exchange so can't imagine they would upgrade to 21cn although it looks like most of the larger nearby exchanges have it.

I will see if fast can offer anything more as currently all they are saying is we can book a BT engineer to visit, which would be a waste of time, if this is all they can do then I might as well try a different ISP as nothing to lose.

There are currently no known 20CN VP capacity problems on your exchange. There may still be an exchange problem, however BT are not currently reporting that they are aware of it.

Record last updated: 18 Oct 13

Or they just aren't telling anyone.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 01-Nov-13 20:53:03)

I remember reading an OFCOM adjudication on Market 1 pricing that pointed out there was a backhaul capacity limit on ATM 20CN DSLAMs that meant to increase total backhaul capacity often meant adding another DSLAM and migrating some (half ?) of the users over to it.

Sort of made sense at the time, 155M ATM capacity per DSLAM or 145M of data.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultati... has some odds and ends.

Would moving over to a 'premium' service help do you think?, fast say they can do this for an additional £10.80pm (upto 1.2mbps upload) with a 3 month contract, or would I be better off trying a different ISP?.

Edited by Spetznaz (Sat 02-Nov-13 12:47:16)

Premium has higher priority - double the minimum speed when congested. I would start there. The upload on 20CN Business/Premium is 832k.

Another ISP would only help if the VP you're on happens to be congested and the one they are on isn't. Bit of a gamble.

Thanks for the advice, I guess its a gamble either way then, its a 3 month contract so only costing me £33 really, if it doesn't help I'll try another ISP.

Well my upgrade was completed today, now synced at 832kbps but no difference to speeds, getting 2mbit down at the moment, disappointed that I am wasting money now but knew it was a gamble.

Frankly its time a USC of 8mbit was brought in, BT seem to have plenty of money to invest in buying champions league football rights but not on things they should be spending it on.

Guess I'll have to put up with it now until FTTC is installed in 2016, 17, 18 or whenever they get around to it.

In reply to a post by Spetznaz:

Frankly its time a USC of 8mbit was brought in

That would be lovely - but is unfeasible as things stand. Even if you rolled out FTTC on every cabinet, the length of some lines from the cabinet means that 8Mbit/s is unachievable. Some lines are so long that FTTC will not work at all.

The ideal would be universal FTTP - but I believe the figure that has been put on that is £15-20 billion, nearly an order of magnitude more expensive than the commercial FTTC/P roll-out.

As it is, there is not yet any clarity how the 2 Mbit/s USC in the BDUK projects will be met. It is near certain that not every case can be handled using Openreach metallic pair and fibre infrastructure, and some cases will require alternative solutions such as fixed wireless and satellite.

Well I am now on premium but the plot thickens...

Using www.speedtest.btwholesale.com:

If I run the 'tap3' test logged in with [email protected]_domain I get 6.5mbit plus but when logged in with my fast.co.uk account I get sub 2mbit consistently, does this mean the problem is with fast?.

Still slow after upgrade, I am starting to grow suspicious of fast now as when I asked them why I was getting a consistent 6.5mbit+ result running the 'tap3' test using [email protected]_domain and sub 3mbit when logged into their ADSL connection they just said the next step would be to arrange a BT engineer to visit and I would be charged if no fault was found, which it clearly wouldn't be, sounds like they are avoiding the question?.

Surely if I'm getting a good speed using the speedtest login it bypasses the ISP therefore they are the issue?, or am I missing something.

In reply to a post by Spetznaz:

If I run the 'tap3' test logged in with [email protected]_domain I get 6.5mbit plus but when logged in with my fast.co.uk account I get sub 2mbit consistently, does this mean the problem is with fast?.

yes. If the DSLAM can deliver you 6.5M from a BT test server on the ATM network somewhere it stands to reason that FAST has to be the constraint when the traffic is routing via them.

It also explains why switchin gto Premium didn't help - the enhanced priority is over the ATM part of the network that isn't a problem.

In reply to a post by Spetznaz:

I am with fast.co.uk

A bit obvious but I think that should be slow.co.uk!

Time to get your MAC I think.

Surely if I'm getting a good speed using the speedtest login it bypasses the ISP therefore they are the issue?, or am I missing something.

No, you've got it right, it proves that the bottleneck is with your ISP not BT Wholesale, vote with your feet and migrate.

In reply to a post by Spetznaz:

Surely if I'm getting a good speed using the speedtest login it bypasses the ISP therefore they are the issue?, or am I missing something.

Hi Spetznaz,

I've just been reading through your thread with interest as I've recently had a similar problem to you. I am also on a 20CN exchange, max line speed possible is 8Mb (my line syncs around 7200Kbps).

Up till the end of October I was using Freeola (an Entanet reseller) my download speed up until September were always around 4.5 - 6 Mbs depending on the time of day. From September my speeds whilst using the BTwholesale speed tests ranged from 1.5Mbs to 0.01Mbs (No that's not a typing error). I finally did the level three test and I got a download speed of 6.1Mbs straight after the 0.01Mbps result.

I was on a business tariff with an 0.8Mbs upload, so allegedly had a superior level of throughput.

Anyway, I moved on November 1st to Zen, immediately ran the BTwholesale speedtest and my downloads were back to 6Mbps again and since, speeds are once again fluctuating between 5 & 6.

So, after a long explanation, Yes your ISP is the issue.

Request a MAC, I know I did and am pleased I've moved away.

Hi

Thanks for the helpful information, the ISP claim it is not them and the only next step is an engineer visit which would be a total waste of time and money.

I am a bit annoyed with them as when I asked why I would get a faster speed from the speedtest login they avoided answering and just came up with the suggestion of an engineer visit.

The only issue I have is having 'migrated' to the max premium service I believe there is a 3 month contract (this is what the ISP said), although I'm not sure if that applies to the ISP or just with BT wholesale, anyone know where I stand on this?.

If speed test can produce a good speed by just login changes it proves without a doubt that the ADSL line can handle the speeds and that its a backhaul issue, issue wholesale or ISP based.

In reply to a post by Spetznaz:

The only issue I have is having 'migrated' to the max premium service I believe there is a 3 month contract (this is what the ISP said), although I'm not sure if that applies to the ISP or just with BT wholesale, anyone know where I stand on this?.

If it wasn't made clear to you at the time of purchase then it isn't going to be enforceable. From a wholesale point of view you may migrate to another Max Premium circuit, but in any case I'm not aware of a 3 month minimum contract term on wholesale ADSL.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

If it wasn't made clear to you at the time of purchase then it isn't going to be enforceable. From a wholesale point of view you may migrate to another Max Premium circuit, but in any case I'm not aware of a 3 month minimum contract term on wholesale ADSL.

It might not legally be enforceable, but that doesn't stop the ISP believing that it is, handing it over to a debt collection agency, and ignoring letters about it (as my father reports happened to him with Eclipse)..

In reply to a post by sthen:

It might not legally be enforceable, but that doesn't stop the ISP believing that it is, handing it over to a debt collection agency, and ignoring letters about it (as my father reports happened to him with Eclipse)..

and that doesn't stop you ignoring letters from the debt collection agency, saying if they phone then you will report them to the police for harassment etc.

It might also be worth pointing out that the nature of of the connection and test results you have obtained lead you to the conclusion that the ISP is in breach of legal obligations under consumer legislation to use "reasonable skill ans care in the provision of a service". That's what trading standards told me that Pipex were in breach of when they were throttling my service from 3pm daily.

The Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 states that consumers who enter into a contract for goods or services can expect these to be supplied with reasonable care and skill. Where there is an identifiable failure within the ISP infrastructure (as Identified by the differing methods of testing you have used) the you should be able to assert your rights for remedy or cancellation of any contract - If necessary involve your local trading standards.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Tonight I am getting the same issue 1 Mbit download at the moment but again if I use the tap3 test on BT wholesale speedtest I get 6.82 Mbit.

I can live with it at the moment as I don't really watch much in the way of video or do large downloads during peak times but considering they are a premium price ISP the level of service is poor, I have replied again to their last email which was basically stating that it was a BT engineer visit (as my cost) or nothing as I feel this is not acceptable when they have not answered my question regarding why I see the difference in speedtest results.

I don't really want to get into a long argument about the 3 month contract so I guess I'll see it out having noted the dates and leave as soon as the period is up, unless of course they sort things out in the meantime or things go downhill further, in which case I might getting out before the 3 months.

Edited by Spetznaz (Tue 26-Nov-13 21:54:00)