Very slow connection though all looks ok!!

Hi All !

This is my first post as I have joined the forum in the hope of some advice to resolve a problem.
I have spent hours on the phone to Orange broadband tech support and every time I have to go through the same stuff, always ending in being advised to leave my router on for another 72 hours. (it's always on)

My Orange broadband is running extremely slow and has been for several weeks. I currently have a download speed of between 220k and 420k during the day which rises to around 1.5M after midnight and before about 10am.

I have a brand new BT master socket and filter. The tests were carried out using the test socket and a wired connection, although wifi speed tests on my laptops show similar results.
My exchange is Hadlow
I have checked the speed with a variety of testers and they are all giving similar results...

The BT Speedtester results vary a little but a typical result would be:
Download speed during test 0.4Mbps
DSL connection rate 7.9Mbps (down), .45Mbps (up)
IP profile for your line is 6 Mbps

I still use the Livebox which has been fine until now, and I have also tried a second Livebox that I was given with identical results.
The router details are typically:
Noise Margin 12.2
Attenuation 27
Attainable download rate 8160
7936 down, 448 up

Any help you kind folks can give me will be VERY gratefully received!!!

Many Thanks

Your router stats & IP profile are good but you are getting atrocious throughput .

I put that down to lots of congestion at your exchange which is only 20CN which means every ISP there is reselling BT's ADSL Max platform. I'm afraid there is nobody else to go to as there are no LLU ISPs or Virgin Cable.

Hi XRaySpeX
Thanks very much for taking the time to reply!

Please forgive me for my 'newness' everyone, but I have always enjoyed a good and fast service (unless I have had a line or filtering problem) right up until the last few weeks when speeds have suddenly plummeted dramatically.

So- are there any other checks that can be made, another course of action I can take here, or must I move to BT to get a more reliable speed? Do you think they will be any more consistent, or does the problem lie solely in the exchange capacity?
I work in audio and rely on being able to download sizeable files fairly quickly so this is important to me.

Thanks for your help folks!

Hello Jezzas,

If you send your details in a Private Message, I will have this escalated. Please include your broadband land line number and an alternate contact number, and someone will call you back.

Regards

I think you should consider external interferance from other devices and look at what might be turned off at night and on most of the day.

It could be external to your property - so useful to establish if neighbours have the same issue - if so, you may have to look further afield.

If it's just you, then it's most likely something in your property, close to - or connected to your telephone line. Even a CRT monitor or TV can cause exactly this problem, so look for something that has a usage pattern mathing your speed variations...

Hi Gavin and TechGuyUK

Thanks for your responses! Gavin - I have sent a PM...
I have been sitting in front of my computer here since around 8.20. At that time I checked the connection speed and it was up to nearly 3mb. It's now 10.00 and the speed is down to around 450k. Nothing has changed in the house here so it is either recent exchange congestion or some new external interference, though I can't imagine what it could be as nothing has changed as far as I know. The overhead line enters the property away from anything and the router and wiring position have not changed since it all worked well. My next door neighbour has Orange BB, I will see if I can get a speed reading from her setup, that would be helpful. I have a steady connection, and if it were a line or connection problem I assume it would impact on my IP profile which seems fine.
Once again Many Thanks!

Hi - Do you see your SNR vary much at the same time as the speed variations? - External interfernace would usually show up as an snr variation, which I forgot to mention before... Sorry!

Thanks TechGuy

I now have the RouterStats lite program. I'll run it for a while and post the findings.

Cheers!

Hi-

The RouterStats-Lite program shows a rock steady connection at a noise margin of 11.9 and speed of 7904.
My router page shows an attenuation of 27dB.

The BT Speedtester now repeatedly shows an HTTP 500 error or says that there is an error collecting my data and all it will show is the download speed of 336k, no IP profile etc.

I will try and run a speed test next door....

Thanks!!

Hi,

If you can leave routerstats running when the speed varies, that will be great.

If the SNR doesn't move - then it's most likely not an interferance problem and you can look elsewhere...

Hi Folks-

As I said I would in an earlier post, I have visited my neighbour who is also with Orange and run a speed test.
The results obtained are very similar to my own with a 120ms ping, download speed of 520k and upload of 360k. I guess this implies that the problem lies with the exchange...

Any thoughts?

Best Wishes

Hi - It doesn't explain the overnight improvement unless there is massive contention in the daytime only, i.e. everyone and their cat is downloading a LOT or watching YouTube all day and evening...

Let's see what the SNR stats say overnight...

Also do you have any close neighbour not on Orange? - If so, their speed and stats would be interesting...

Hi Again Folks-

I've just been to the neighbour opposite who is with BT. Their speeds are 6.6Mb download and 440K up, IP profile 8Mb, and it's the same exchange- Quite a difference!!!

I think BT supply the Orange service (?) so I'm sure there should not be this kind of disparity....

Cheers

Edited by deleted (Wed 18-Apr-12 16:57:57)

Hi dear readers -

An update to my posts yesterday.
I ran the Routerstats-Lite program from 10pm when my download speed was 520k until this morning. The connected speed has stayed ruler flat at around 7900 as did the noise ratio at around 12.4 dB. I ran a speed test at 1.30am and it showed 1.8Mb. At 8.00am today it was 2.8Mb. I was so surprised I ran it again it had instantly dropped to 700k and a 3rd test registered 1.6Mb within the space of a couple of minutes. The upload speed stays fairly constant though. This is on both wired and wifi connections. At 9.30 the DL speed is 1.2, 560K, 980K in 3 consecutive tests.

With my neighbour on Orange running at the same very poor speeds as me, while my other neighbour on BT is running at full speed (from the same telephone pole) and my router connection speed and IP profile being just as they should, I guess I have to wait for the promised call from Orange and hope they can resolve this quickly.

Cheers

Hi Jezzas

Well it looks like you've proved it's an Orange issue and eliminated what you reasonably can at your end, I am assuming there's nothing else downloading on your connection like iPlayer or P2P traffic - or anyone else using the connection wirelessly without permission - but that aside, it looks like congestion / contention within the Orange network, which unfortunately first level support may be unaware of or unwilling to admit. However, you can be fairly confident to press them hard to escalate the issue and if you can get your neighbour to do the same, then you might get somewhere - especially if you can get a support ref and quote it when reporting the other line.

Bad news is that congestion issues might take some time to resolve - but unless you get started, it might never happen.

Good luck with Orange CS!
TechGuyUK

In reply to a post by TechGuyUK:

it looks like congestion / contention within the Orange network

There is no Orange network! It's BTw's.

Hi Folks-

Gavin from Orange did as promised (VERY MANY THANKS GAVIN!!) and I was visited today by 2 nice men from BT.
They did check my line, but already knew about the issue and have been dealing with other customers in my area with the exact same problem. The answer does indeed lie at the exchange, some of which is in need of an upgrade as it is running over capacity. They explained that just because my neighbour had full bandwidth from the same telegraph pole does not mean that their line uses the same optical fibre as mine at the exchange - fair enough. I will have to wait until BTW get around to upgrading the optical link that serves me among others. Hopefully Orange can give them a bit of a push!!

Thanks to all that chipped in (especially Gavin) I've learnt a lot, and now I'll have to wait for BT.....
I'll come back and post as things progress (or not!!).

Best Wishes

Another obvious wasted engineer visit! Just why do they bother?

In reply to a post by Jezzas:

They explained that just because my neighbour had full bandwidth from the same telegraph pole does not mean that their line uses the same optical fibre as mine at the exchange - fair enough. I will have to wait until BTW get around to upgrading the optical link that serves me among others.

It's not fair enuf! If you believe that you'll believe anything.

There is no optical fibre involved at all. You are all on ADSL over copper lines to the exchange; not FTTC. The problem lies entirely within the exchange building.