Regular Slow Speeds & High Ping on New Connection

I recently moved into a new house in Windermere and 3 weeks ago we had our Sky Broadband Connect installed.

Ever since then despite the router being synchronised at 19Mb, we've been getting speeds of 0.3Mb throughout most of the day. Occasionally (usually in the morning) we do get speeds of about 11Mb.

We have an Exchange-only line connected to the Windermere exchange that doesn't not have Sky LLU.

After speaking with Sky customer services about the issue we've had 2 visits from BT OpenReach. The first time they found issues with the line and resolved them. On the 2nd visit the BT OpenReach engineer said the line was great and there were no issues with it. He suggested that the problem was at Sky's end and reported back to Sky.

The problem has persisted since. In the morning we might manage 10Mb, but it quite quickly drops below 1Mb.

We have also been experiencing regular stalls where the internet connection is still connected but refuses to work, until the router is rebooted. It would often then stall again within minutes. However, after connecting an old Sagemcom Sky router the connection has seemed stable but is still slow at <1Mbps.

We are also seeing very high ping times, often in excess of 1000ms. I've discovered that if I disconnect the broadband at the router then reconnect, ping times are about 40ms, but after a few minutes suddenly shoot up to about 1300ms. Here is a trace route to google.com during the high pings:

traceroute to google.com (216.58.208.78), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 skyrouter.home (192.168.0.1) 2.202 ms 1.268 ms 1.847 ms
2 5adfaee1.bb.sky.com (90.223.174.225) 1285.524 ms 416.123 ms 37.374 ms
3 be8.er12.enslo.isp.sky.com (84.38.37.90) 40.140 ms 123.378 ms 95.408 ms
4 72.14.219.13 (72.14.219.13) 223.733 ms 434.249 ms 805.873 ms
5 209.85.255.76 (209.85.255.76) 1262.017 ms 1277.398 ms 1290.435 ms
6 216.239.51.233 (216.239.51.233) 1269.708 ms 1268.421 ms 567.429 ms
7 lhr14s27-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.208.78) 39.423 ms 40.954 ms 91.998 ms

I'm pretty sure these issues are being caused out with our premises, as we have tried the following:
- Different routers
- Restored router to factory settings
- Ethernet & WiFi
- Speed tests from multiple devices
- Swapped the micro filter
- No other devices connected to the phone line
- Tried BT Wholesale Speed test and SpeedTest.net
- Checked ping via PingTest.net and ping google.com on command line.

So to summarise we are experiencing:
- Regular speeds of <0.5Mb (despite a sync speed of 19Mb)
- High >1000ms pings
- Frequent stalls of the connection requiring a router reboot (on the newer Sky router)

Sky aren't being very helpful anymore and are just saying it might be congestion, but this doesn't necessarily explain the rapid increase in ping times after a few minutes. Clearly the line is good as it's been checked twice by BT OpenReach and the 2nd engineer commented that some people "would die" to have that quality of line.

Surely something is wrong when we're regularly getting 0.3Mb on a line that should support over 16Mb? Any ideas what could be causing this? Would switching to BT resolve these issues? Suggestions appreciated!

Edited by deleted (Sat 07-Feb-15 19:51:34)

Please post your full router stats.

You don't have Sky Connect! That's an unreliable 'Up to 8 Meg' product. Or if you have you aren't getting 19 Meg sync.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Sat 07-Feb-15 23:34:25)

Here are the only stats I can see on the current Sky router: http://cl.ly/image/1Y201g3i3N1o

Sky Broadband Unlimited is not available for us as Sky don't have LLU at our exchange, so the only Sky Broadband option available to us is Sky Broadband Connect. The router is definitely showing 19Mb sync though, see my screenshot. And we have occasionally seen speeds of over 13Mb, but just looked in the small print on the Sky Broadband Connect page and it does in fact say "up to 6Mbps". Sounds like something is in a big twist!

Still curious why our ping is initially 40ms but then shoots up to 1000ms after a few mins of the router being connected.

Yes, they've provisioned you on the BTw product at your exchange where you have an upload sync of the 20CN ADSL Max product while the down sync of the WBC ADSL2+ product. Strange!

Are you measuring your speeds wired or wireless? Wireless can be unreliable.

Try a speedtest wired here http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html and copy to here just the 'Link to this result:' link.

Sky Connect has Network Management control on it and could easily cause problems with change of speed and congestion like problems. There is also reported problems with the latest supplied router.
The connection speeds you are getting are to the exchange and would appear to show ADSL2+
I believe if you have sky talk on non LLU line then you should be able to transfer broadband to another provider.
As for reliability moving broadband to ISP with only a one month contract would be easiest way of proving one way or the other,
Are you within cooling off period.?
Plusnet often give same upload as your getting on ADSL2+ with new connections,

Edited by flippery (Sat 07-Feb-15 23:43:45)

Thanks. I've looked into Sky Connect more and it certainly does seem to be an abysmal product.

I'll be cancelling Sky and moving to BT first thing tomorrow.

Still odd how I've been getting 19Mb sync when it should be capped at 8Mb.

In reply to a post by flippery:

Plusnet often give same upload as your getting on ADSL2+ with new connections

Yes, but only by mistake, when it should be 888K.

In reply to a post by jcwacky:

Thanks. I've looked into Sky Connect more and it certainly does seem to be an abysmal product.
I'll be cancelling Sky and moving to BT first thing tomorrow.

Sky Connect is very unusual these days as Sky have installed their equipment into a serious number of exchanges, but still not all.

Sky basically don't buy enough capacity from BT into the Sky network, so the Connect product is always overloaded