In reply to a post by postal:

But no if IDNet customer support arent to helpful I doubt the forums will be any better.

If you don't try the forum you won't find out will you.

LOL - seriously customer support would be the first port of call for any end user of any type of service. I believe that the monthly charge includes customer service or am I wrong?
And I've taken that route.
Only posted on here at the urging of a friend.

Forums can often pool user experiences to narrow down an issue, whereas IDNet have to look at your case individually. We're not a replacement for customer service and don't try to be, but we do come at things a different way.

In reply to a post by postal:

LOL - seriously customer support would be the first port of call for any end user of any type of service. I believe that the monthly charge includes customer service or am I wrong?
And I've taken that route.
Only posted on here at the urging of a friend.

No way did I say it was not up to support. Obviously you do have a right to expect support, but not knowing the full circumstances of your particular case I can't really comment as to whether they have fallen short in this instance. I simply pointed out that if you hopped over to iDNetters rather than post here, you would find more people who may be in a better to position to help you.

Still, if you prefer whining on here rather than accept any suggestions from people who are actually trying to help you solve your problem, that's your choice.

Whining Hmmm - I apologise if thats how it came across. But you need to factor a certain degree of frustration when a conmpanies customer service is less than helpful at times. You also need to understand why someone would be hesitant about using a forums when they feel the customer service should really be the last step in trying to resolve something.
And also judging by your response relating to whining you can again see why someone would be hesitant about posting on a forum.
I thought by posting here I could get some sort of feedback from like a 3rd party?.
To be honest I regret following my friends advice and posting on these forums. You've made me laugh with that response tho, but in a way I was expecting it as thats how I feel when I email IDnet sometimes *sigh*
I did take the advice about downloading a specific file at different times during the day these are the results within IE 8.

Direct x 9 redist (offline installer) from download.microsoft.com Size 80.3 MB

13:10 80.3 mb in 58 sec 1.38 mb/sec
18:50 80.3 mb in 1 min 26 sec 956 KB/sec
19:45 80.3 mb in 2 min 5 sec 658 kb/sec
20:00 80.3 mb in 3 min 0 sec 457 kb/sec

No idea if these are in anyway reflective of anything tho... any thoughts?

I did check out the idnetter forums (so I did follow the advice) but any problems raised in the forums were met with similar requests per Bt speedtester etc. And I didn't really notice any recent posts along similar lines. I may be brave and post on there and mention I have contacted support etc.
But I'm not really sure I have an issue as I wonder if its just down to the whole upto a certain speed that you can expect with broadband products in the Uk?

Anyway sorry for my whining!

Those download speeds help paint a picture that there is congestion as you said during the evening.
So the sort of things you could do is:-

1) Check your router values to make sure that your actual line remains the same during that variable download speed period.

2) Confirm with others as to how IDnet is performing in the evenings. My speed doesn't appear to change at any time day or night, with Idnet, so I assume there isn't a problem their end.

3) Try checking your exchange on the PlusNet link given by another poster a few posts back, as that might show the up-to-date status.

4) Try the BT Speedtester at different times http://www.speedtester.bt.com/

I tend to think that there may still be some issues with your exchange, ie it may require upgrade work to handle possible peak congestion. These are the sorts of things a call to Idnet will help with.
I've found their technical support to be fine, but as per all things technical, a phone call can often help in explaining things rather than just relying on emails etc.

Exchange capacity is currently Green - oddly tho for the first time ever its in the top 10 of exchange searches on the Plusnet info page which might not be a good thing - there was an outage at the beginning of Jan and the Vp capacity was flagged as red all through January?
I can't run a succesful test at the bt speedtester at all during the evenings.
I have rung IDnet and raised this issue a few times since the whole Peterborough BRAS issue the thing is that I have problems out of their office hours so I tend to email - Also last time I rang their mailbox was full.
But this should be in no way be considered as me whining its just getting some feedback and expressing experiences.
But cheers for your reply.

Edited by deleted (Fri 05-Feb-10 21:02:22)

In reply to a post by postal:

Whining Hmmm - I apologise if thats how it came across. But you need to factor a certain degree of frustration when a conmpanies customer service is less than helpful at times. You also need to understand why someone would be hesitant about using a forums when they feel the customer service should really be the last step in trying to resolve something.
And also judging by your response relating to whining you can again see why someone would be hesitant about posting on a forum.
.......
Anyway sorry for my whining!

I think it's me that should apologise as perhaps I came on a bit strong.

Vorlon has covered all the relevant points and there's really nothing I can add. I know fault finding can be a tiresome business and, sometimes it sounds as if they are reading from a script and fobbing you off. The point of iDNetters is that they can often pool their collective experience to isolate a fault.

My speeds are pretty consistent throughout. Some sites sometimes appear slower at night but this could be because the site itself is experiencing heavy loads rather than any other problems. In the case of your downloads, there is obviously a slowdown at night but this could be heavier loads on the site, exchange congestion, or it could be a problem with iDNet. Hence all the testing - tedious I know, but it is the only way to narrow it down.

Give support a ring - it's a freephone number - and do try iDNetters. They are a friendly bunch and, in my experience will do all they can to help.

No need to apologise I'm just glad I edited my original post...
I emailed IDNet again last night providing the info I posted here with the test file from download.microsoft.com heres the reply.

"I am confident that your line and equipment (router, PC etc) are working correctly. I also know that our own network is operating with plenty of available capacity. This now leaves either the download site which, as it is Microsoft, I strongly doubt is the cause or that your Exchange is over-subscribed as so therefore experiences congestion during peak hours which are usually early to late evenings. We will try to establish this fact with BT but sometimes they are either unable to provide the data or are reticent (for unknown reasons) to supply such information."

That has to be the most positive reply I've had since they confirmed past problems were due to an issue with a Peterborough BRAS. SO cheers for the suggestion about downloading a file from microsoft...

However last night after I went to bed I left my consoles and 2 of my PC's on, and both the consoles and various network sensitive applications on the PC's all had been signed out at some point between 11pm and 11am. No scheduled maintenence as far as I can tell and I know the 360 if I sign in and leave it on I don't get automatically signed out at least in the past various friends have complained that I've been away at the dashboard for I think my record was 25 days The PS3 I'm not so sure about as the PSN is a bit poor.

So I'm not sure what this suggests - I did check my router log and the wan as been active for 36 hrs (its quite low as I switched routers when I was experiencing issues on thursday to see if it helped... It didn't)

SO anyway thanks for your help.

I did sign up with the IDnetters forum but I'm just considering how best to pitch my post lol.

Oh ignore the new sig - if it shows up

Hi Postal,

I have seen other posts about the Peterborough exchanges and got the impression there were two of them serving that area?
If it were me I would always be slightly suspicious after the exchange problems and rightly or wrongly just assume that further works were still going ahead especially as you are still seeing issues.

I usually find here that exchange works start around 2 am unless it's more major. It might be worth you just googling the Peterborough exchange or even better searching on here (TBB) all the forums with the search tool to see if any others are still facing problems as you are albeit with other ISP's.

Can you also keep an eye on your line stats, just to see if they are staying within their normal spec for your line and are not varying wildly at different times of the day.

I also think that we are all still "programmed" with the time of 6PM, as that always used to be the evening rate start for BT calls and one I was always aware of when using dial up in the 90's. In that regard I tend to think that there are still some people who go online around that time. It's always between 6-8pm I've found that if there is going to be a sluggish period and that's with any ISP, that'll be when it will happen.

As of this time too, speeds with IDnet and on my Exchange are very good.