Anyone else find the testing router crashes a lot and if you have any thing connected to it's LAN ports you loose connectivity.

I need to switch things around (again) so that the testing box is the last thing on my LAN...

Would be nice if this issues could be fixed though, as I actually need the extra LAN ports or I need to get a separate switch.

I can see it on my thinkbroadband quality monitor.

That said I've never noticed it actually working. Seems invisible to me and doesn't interfere with streaming or anything.

I'm wondering if you have only 2Mbps upload?

I have noticed it crashing a few times. Mine has turned off and on by itself quite a few times.
Other than this no issues. Never had the ethernet side of things crash but I only had one thing connected. I now have changed that over to a wifi connection too (so nothings wired anymore).

Definitely isn't the best firmware in the world though. I have found it tests even if the ethernets in use so you might as well just wire the ethernet devices in before it anyway.

It also seems oblivious to any wifi usage.

Just connect it up lastly as you say. Don't make it a permanent part of your network (ie need the ports etc) as the device isn't yours and the test doesn't last forever. Not sure if we keep the equipment at the end.

Even when i had 10mbps upload i could not do anything when it was testing overall a buggy waste of time imo.

One has to wonder, with all this instability or misbehaviour or whatever, how accurate or useful any results are. By that I mean does its testing actually work properly even when it seems to work, and is the data they receive then properly analysed?

Well I had a look at how I could plug it in without anything using a LAN port on it. I can't so it's not plugged in any more and will most likely stay like that. After all I'm not getting anything out of it now, no interesting data to look at and I've had it plugged in long enough for the initial £25.

I'm not going to get a switch just so I can have it plugged in, already got too much clutter around my TV and no free plug sockets either! (well I got one now that's unplugged but I'd need two to have a switch and it plugged back in)

Well a second month has gone by and I guess there ought to have been a report by now.

Last month I had to request mine as there was apparently a problem with the distribution list.

Anyone had a speed update recently?

Richard

Nope.

Hi Guys,

Your speed updates have now been sent out. We are planning to do these updates fortnightly going forward.

I see a few of you are still having some issues with interference on your connection - if you have, please do get in touch via email with as much detail on your issue and how you are set-up as possible. I know that some of you have some more complex set-ups than the typical home broadband user and we have been able to help some of you resolve your interference issues by adjusting how you are connected. The majority of the panel have not experienced any issues with their connection, our apologies if yours has been affected. Should you no longer wish to take part in the panel, do get in touch so that we can recover the device from you.

The data we get from these tests is actually very accurate, we've tested this on a number of different lines of varying speeds and it is one of the most accurate testing systems you'll come across - we wouldn't be running this exercise otherwise. Thanks again for your continued help on the project.

Many Thanks,
Conor
ICM Research

Just got my update... I'm not really bothered about it though. I know my connection works well I don't need an update on that really.

The only thing I have noticed is that this device is quite intense when testing. Only really noticed this the last few days.
If I run a speedtest whilst this is testing it can go as low as 4Mbps and literally bounce from 60Mbps to 1Mbps and all over the place until it stops testing. It's like for some reason this device takes priority even though nothings hard wired into it. Perhaps it downloads via multiple threaded downloads?

It has a very similar effect to running a torrent with 200+ connections.

If that's the case it's not really a fair representation. Congestion at a local exchange is often covered up by multiple threaded downloads whereas a single threaded download can be slow.
When Sky had backhaul issues at the start of this year a multiple threaded download covered it up wheres iplayer etc wouldn't even work.

Interestingly I have an average of 75Mbps and there have been 7 people using the BB this past week. Not sure how the average is calculated but if they're taking figures when we were all using the net surely my result would be much lower. It definitely tests whilst we're using the net though.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 28-Aug-12 17:04:23)