Speeds all over the place

I've always had speeds around half a meg then about a month ago things improved and we were getting a whole 1Mb (after around 12.30am usually). Then yesterday it suddenly ground to a halt..even at 4am it was slow as anything...at some points today we've only manage 90kbps! It's now about 400. But I can't listen to the radio or anything fancy like that.

All that happened yesterday was that I checked on bt if I could get infinity yet as it went live in my town last week. I'm not with BT but my ISP uses a bt line and I plan to get fibre to cabinet with them.
What can I check? Oddly my router is saying I'm still getting 1Mbps!

I pay for ASDL 2+
Connection Speed 10226 kbps 444 kbps
Line Attenuation 38.5 db 21.8 db
Noise Margin 2.4 db 16.0 db

I'm 1 km from exchange. My router is only a few months old, firmware up to date. No viruses (my imac is brand new).
Any ideas what's going on or what to check?
It's most frustrating as I work from home and online!

Your post is a bit confusing as you seem to be talking about kilobits and Megabits per second all the way through, but you have a connection speed of 10Megabits per second.

Are some of your figures supposed to be megaBytes? A byte is 8 bits.

If your best ever speed has never been above 1Megabit per second, something is dreadfully wrong somewhere, because you are connected at ten times that, and your slowdown to 90kbps or 400kbps could be something to do with whatever the major problem is.

No idea what I did there! I think I missed an 0 when trying one of those converters!

It's just a very sudden drop in performance. For example my son was trying to download a minecraft update (so it's not just my mac) that normally takes seconds and he gave up after an hour.

The speed tester on here says I'm currently getting 0.51 Mbps (definitely Mbps, I just checked)

Let us see what results you get from the BT performance tester:-

http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

Please copy and paste the full contents of the two text boxes of the BT speed test that Apprentice asked for, not just the bits you think we need to see .

So are you really saying you have never had over 1Mbps actual? (If you had registered you could have edited and corrected errors, and the whole forum works much better. No Captchas for a starter and a lot fewer adverts).

and thank you...I had no idea about the bytes/bits thing.

So my router is claiming it's getting 10226 kbps but I am actually getting way less!
I've done a few tests now and the range between 380 and 510 kbps (i've doubly doubly checked those now) so that's like 5% of what I should be getting!
It can't be the line if the router says things are fine. The router is new but I guess it could still be wrong.

Ok I logged in! I'll go do that test...might be a little while, have to go dig out that ethernet cable..will have to plug the laptop into the router as I use my imac wirelessly. Thank you very much for your help.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Oddly my router is saying I'm still getting 1Mbps!
I pay for ASDL 2+
Connection Speed 10226 kbps 444 kbps

That's 10 Mbps!

Can you get your numbers and units right and then we can understand the scale of the problem? Also paste an actual speedtest result, like the thinkbroadband forum code from here.

You are receiving ADSL2+, cuz Sync Speed is > 8 Meg.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Can you get your numbers and units right and then we can understand the scale of the problem? Also paste an actual speedtest result, like the thinkbroadband forum code from here.

You are receiving ADSL2+, cuz Sync Speed is > 8 Meg.

Sorry! I have now become aware of the units of broadband measurements!


Right I've done the BT test now

Download speed achieved during the test was - 319 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 4 Mbps-21 Mbps.
IP Profile for your line is - 9.02 Mbps

Upload Speed achieved during the test was - 455 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP Profile on your line is - 448 Kbps

That's awful! You running wireless on a contested channel? You need to run speedtests with Ethernet.

That was with ethernet! I went and dug my cable out. I was really hoping it was a simple thing like neighbour getting something new that interfered.

Edited by deleted (Sat 03-Mar-12 01:45:19)

Can you tell us the ISP please? Some keep copies of the IP Profile that you see in that BT Test, and occasionally it gets badly out of step.

It is the lower of the BT one and theirs that determines the maximum download speed.

Did you say you are using a Mac? What OS?

Edit - the BT IP Profile is correct for your 10226kbps connection speed.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 03-Mar-12 09:50:26)

I'm with Firefly, I've always had a slow connection, just assumed my line was rubbish and would live with it until I could move. But then about 2 weeks ago it started going really fast at night. Close to the speed of the IP Profile. So I know it can go fast now!

I'm using Lion 10.7.2 my husband and son have macbooks running snow leopard. It's slow on my iphone too so I turned the wifi off...3g is faster!

I don't know if they work an IP Profile copy sytem or not.

Have you ever asked them about the slow speed? As we have all said, you should be getting 8Mbps = 1MBps actual speeds on that connection.

All this talk of profiles, time to go back to basics, please describe how all your telephony, Sky boxes, broadband equipment are connected.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I don't know if they work an IP Profile copy sytem or not.

Have you ever asked them about the slow speed? As we have all said, you should be getting 8Mbps = 1MBps actual speeds on that connection.

yeah many times, it was apparently just my phone line being bad, BT said there was nothing wrong though and as I rent the investigations stopped there! I just accepted it and hoped landlord would allow us to get radio net sometime (we are moving soon now anyway and now fibre is in town our worries will be over I hope).
But now I know it can go fast, that the line physically can do it, like it did last week I am very confused!

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

All this talk of profiles, time to go back to basics, please describe how all your telephony, Sky boxes, broadband equipment are connected.

My sky box isn't plugged into the phoneline.
My Netgear DGN2200 N300 (only few months old) is plugged into a splitter which goes into the master socket (well it's the only phone socket). The phone is plugged into the splitter too. I have tried unplugging the phone it to see if it helps but makes no difference.

How long before you move? I'm wondering if trying a short-term migration is worth a try.

A month so not really. Just very frustrating as we both work from home and utterly rely on the internet! I've been staying up til 4am as it's faster at night (well it was) and I got more done.

I thought I'd ask on here just because I'm curious! After accepting slow broadband was just the way it is here (even though I'm only 1km from exchange) and then suddenly getting a half decent speed (so I finally could use iplayer) I want it back now!
Thanks so much for your help!

Do you get a free Home Move with Firefly, or would that tie you into a new 12-momth term?

There doesn't seem to be a lot of point in trying to sort this out, as it isn't a simple one. I'm not sure I would want to be with Firefly at the new place though.

Have you looked into what is available there, and expected speeds?

@Zarjaz . Is there any chance this could be a DSLAM line card or a jumpering problem? I hear what you say, but feel it isn't the OP's end. Unless there is something exceeding strange about Macs and iPhones that I haven't met before. The stats all point to no problems, which is what the OP was told by the ISP.

Well we were going to start anew and go with their fibre to cabinet package. I've been with them many many years and there's no sign of traffic shaping according to glasnost. Maybe it's an unlucky house!
This isn't limited to macs either...I'm a recent convert and the PC was the same! It's a mystery!
I did have one thought, probably crazy but I do live at the bottom of a hill, a hill up which BAE systems (was marconi) build radars. Could this interfere at all (having no idea how broadband works exactly this maybe a laughable thing to ask)?
Thank you!

I'd expect the connection speed to be poor if it was the BAE place. And frequent disconnections associated with your problem. Plus huge error rates.

'@Zarjaz' ?? Don't go getting all Twittery on me young man !

OK, I have trawled through again, and can't see anything like an error count or uptime, but lets suppose you are right !

Lets suppose it has a 3db target snr, this would imply that the pair itself is sweet as a nut. So maybe yes. BTw 21cn equipment is a weird and finicky beast. *Maybe* it is mucking around, maybe it's an over populated VP, maybe it's the ISP's end of things........
It won't however be a jumpering issue.

The trouble with through put speed issues, if the ISP does persuade BTw to get an SFI out, you have to cross your fingers that it isn't one of the 'new breed', who test the pair as good, see that you are in sync and then [censored] off without actually listening to what the punter is complaining about.

The thing that struck me as odd about the stats, was that the upstream attenuation looked high in relation to the downstream. Also th upstream sync rate look surprisingly low for a 21cn circuit ?

Questions, questions, but no answers.

To the OP, you mention BAE, are you in Farnborough ? If so, where ?

Good point about error counts. I'd missed that, grandad .

If I remember later I'll see if the usual telnet way of getting the stats work on that router.

Also the upstream sync rate look surprisingly low for a 21cn circuit ?

Could be Plusnet. They default it to that even on ADSL2+.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

To the OP, you mention BAE, are you in Farnborough ? If so, where ?

Sounds like Portsmouth to me??

Plusnet ?? The OP mentioned 'Firefly' as an ISP.

Zarjaz - might take me a few reads to decipher that, thank you!


Nope I'm in Essex, the hill is Bushy Hill (but we call it Radar Hill for obvious reasons). Marconi used it as a testing site and then BAE took over a few years ago. I'd love to know exactly what they do up there! We often see chinooks land up there.

/me shoots self.

They may be doing the same though.

I just completely lost all net for an hour or so. No connection at all (I really wish my router told me more...I had one once that would give me more information on why it wasn't connecting). Makes me really panic with work!

Most likely nothing that affects your broadband service.

I just completely lost all net for an hour or so.

Did you lose sync, or just PPP ? I wonder if it is a dodgy port in the exchange ....

[cough]

Crikey, that sounds bad Bob, you might want to get that looked at !

While the site remains in use, the large dish which earned the hill its nick-name has since been removed. Online mapping services such as Google Maps clearly show the site in use, including a "H" pad is located there for the landing of helicopters. The public footpath around the site passes the entrance sign warning of "helicopters landing, danger of radiation" and other such dangers associated with a working radar testing site.

I don't know, I don't really know where to look on the router page to find out (my old one would say exactly what part of all the handshake type stuff had failed) . All I know is it was disconnected and the internet light was red.

Edited by deleted (Sun 04-Mar-12 23:01:00)

From this map your speed is not typical. So probably not caused by the BAE site or exchange VP congestion. Also see this checker. That's if it is the right exchange.

Simplest way to know this, did the light that indicates sync go off, or just the one that shows 'internet'. I'd hazard a guess, and say the later, from your description of the red light.

Hassle your ISP to get an LLU SFI task raised.

Can you find a router log?

Well in organising my move I found out I went over my bandwith (not entirely sure how when I can't stream video or iplayer etc most of the time) so I'm doing virus checks on everything now! So perhaps that was why!