Slow Broadband and Stuck in New Contract

As a follow up to my post here: http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/freeserve/t/4214238...

Is there anything I can do to get out of my new broadband contract? At the moment, I'm trying to watch Netflix and i'm getting a download speed of 0.2Mbps! They promised me that I could cancel if anything slows down. And when I called up to cancel (within the 7 days), they told me that its normal for things to slow down when a broadband contract is renewed and I should wait a few days. I waited, and now i'm stuck in a 12 month contract for a broadband that I can't use!
Speed before the new contract 18Mbps every day, all day.
Speed after the new contract 0.2Mbps every evening and weekend. I work during the day so the broadband is in effect useless!

Hey Dan

Who was the 18Mbps contract with? Was it with Orange?

If it was with Orange what did they do - just make a price change?

Might be worth submitting your router stats as a starting point.

In reply to a post by GreenAmber:

If it was with Orange what did they do - just make a price change?

It was Orange and they put OP on new contract to make up for the withdrawal of a VOIP facility.

However he hasn't changed his actual BB; he is still on WBC ADSL2+. All he's done is change his contract and receive a new router.

The original contract was also with Orange.
I was out of contract and was very happy with the speeds. I was getting a good 18Mb connection at all times. Streaming BBC Iplayer/Netflix was a pleasure.

When I spoke to them about my Orange mobile, they put me through to the home broadband team because they said they had a better deal. The guy give me the pricing whcih was £20/month for exactly the same service but with a few more free calls from my homeline. I was originally paying £23/month with only UK unlimited calls. The new package was £20/month for unlimited calls to 54 countries.

I said a few times that i'm very happy with my broadband and I dont want to do anything to reduce the speed. He told me that everything would remain the same, and it might even go a little faster. He told me I could cancel if it wasnt ok.

Router Stats:-
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 21304 Kbps 1151 Kbps
Line Attenuation 9.0 dB 4.2 dB
Noise Margin 5.3 dB 6.2 dB

However, the speed tests show some interesting results.
All streaming services are running very slowly (around 0.5Mbps from BBC Iplayer) and keep freezing during playback every 30 seconds.
Downloads are also slow from most legitmate sources. (eg. Tesco's Blinkbox downloader)
Speedtest.net currently says 1.25Mbps download at the moment (during the day it reports 18Mbps)
http://myspeed.visualware.com says 0.9Mbps download.

Interestingly, BT's speedtester and Thinkbroadband's speed tester both say 18Mbps at all times.

From my point of view, it looks like they've either got some kind of heavy usage on one of their nodes which is affecting some but not all traffic. Or they've added some kind of crazy traffic management to my broadband connection.

Could point to routing or peering, but as it's a resold BT 21cn service it may also be down to them

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Could point to routing or peering, but as it's a resold BT 21cn service it may also be down to them

The problem is, EE's Indian Tech support are trained to reject any third party speed test results. They only go by BT's speed tester which shows 18Mbps.

I'm just upset because I had a good deal and a good service and I blew it to save a few pounds on phone calls.

In reply to a post by danjourno:

Interestingly, BT's speedtester ... say 18Mbps at all times.

That's not sufficient. Run http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/ and then run the Further Diagnostics at foot. Report back the text boxes, not graphics.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by danjourno:

Interestingly, BT's speedtester ... say 18Mbps at all times.

That's not sufficient. Run http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/ and then run the Further Diagnostics at foot. Report back the text boxes, not graphics.

Results Image not loaded



1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.

Download Speed
18.41 Mbps

0 Mbps 21 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 18.41 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 4 Mbps-21 Mbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 18.8 Mbps

2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.

Upload Speed
0.93 Mbps

0 Mbps 0.83 Mbps
Max Achievable Speed

Upload speed achieved during the test was - 0.93Mbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 0.83 Mbps


We were unable to identify any performance problem with your service at this time.
It is possible that any problem you are currently, or had previously experienced may have been caused by traffic congestion on the Internet or by the server you were accessing responding slowly.
If you continue to encounter a problem with a specific server, please contact the administrator of that server in the first instance.

I also get quite bad jitter when using VoIP and http://myspeed.visualware.com/index.php reports that i've got a small amount of packet loss.

Again, never had a problem in the 3 years i've been in this house with Orange BB.

I referred my neighbour onto Orange broadband and he's mentioned that he's been having issues for a while.
I'm asking him to run the same speed tests that i've done to see if he seems similar results.

Could it be that before the new contract, i was on LLU and now i'm on WBC?

Your BT Speedtester results are similar to mine.

I have no problems with BBC iPlayer (don't use NetFlix).

What are your results from http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/diagnostics ?

I get

Your connection 14431 kbps Your available bandwidth is 14431 kbps. n/a

and (impossible to copy):
D/L Speed: 17.7 Meg
Streaming Speeds: 10.9, 16.3, 16.2 Megs

In reply to a post by danjourno:

Could it be that before the new contract, i was on LLU and now I'm on WBC?

No, Orange ceased LLU in 2011. What's your exchange?

Edited by XRaySpeX (Sun 03-Mar-13 22:05:58)

Hello Danjourno,

Please send me your contact details, broadband telephone number and mobile via Private Message and I will have this escalated.

Regards

Are you connected wired Ethernet or wireless? If wireless then expect inconsistent speeds.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Your BT Speedtester results are similar to mine.

I have no problems with BBC iPlayer (don't use NetFlix).

What are your results from http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/diagnostics ?

I get

Your connection 14431 kbps Your available bandwidth is 14431 kbps. n/a

and (impossible to copy):
D/L Speed: 17.7 Meg
Streaming Speeds: 10.9, 16.3, 16.2 Megs

I'll have to retest this tomorrow evening as the speeds have returned to 18Mbps.

However I just asked my neighbour to do a speed test and he got 2.67Mbps from the BT Speed test. Both houses are about 5 to 10 metres away from the Exchange so I can't see why he should have a result so low.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Are you connected wired Ethernet or wireless? If wireless then expect inconsistent speeds.

Tried both wired and wireless. Those results were using a wired connection directly to the router.
I'm in IT Consultant so I'm aware of the issues that can cause low speeds. I've tried different routers including the Brightbox, new filters and using the BT test socket.

In reply to a post by danjourno:

I'm in IT Consultant so I'm aware of the issues that can cause low speeds

I wasn't to know that. Were you aware of the IP Profile before I asked you to obtain it? You never mentioned it ever, but it could limit low speeds.

In reply to a post by UKDoc:

Hello Danjourno,

Please send me your contact details, broadband telephone number and mobile via Private Message and I will have this escalated.

Regards

Thanks. I'll retest tomorrow evening and will send over a PM if the slowdown occurs. I've already sent in a letter of complaint to try to get it escalated. But its only been a few days so EE havent had time to process it yet.

In the meantime, can I send you my neighbour's details? His broadband keeps dropping and I don't think his speed is normal. So far, EE have replaced his router and filters. The problem is, he isn't that technically minded so doesnt know how to get it escalated.

Dan - did you change your set-up in anyway also? New router etc?

I had this exact same problem about a week ago. It just disappeared after a couple of days. Was [censored] annoying though. BTW Speedtest and here both reporting high speeds, speedtest.net and actual internet browsing and usage was below 1Mb/sec.