Very slow speeds in the evening

Hi All,

My Internet connection slows down to a crawl in the evenings. Well not even a crawl; it's often slower than dialup! During the day and at night it is fine and I get speeds of 6600 to 7000 kbps.

After raising the matter with TalkTalk I got the following response.

-----------------------------------


We have raised your query to our network operations team, who have confirmed after liaising with BT that the slow throughput on your line is being caused by its connection to a TalkTalk Business point of presence which is served by a particular BT link. BT have confirmed that the connection to this point of presence is oversubscribed and suffers low throughput during peak hours, however BT are not in a position at this time to increase the capacity of the connection. There may be plans in the future to route your connection to another point of presence, set up an additional BT connection to serve the current pointof presence, or install TalkTalk Business equipment in your local telephone exchange, any of which would resolve the issue, however any future plans have not been confirmed at this time.

I am sorry I do not have better news for you; we are aware of the problem and that it is affecting a number of customers which connect to this particular point of presence, however until agreements can be made with BT regarding the capacity of the link, we have no ability to increase throughput on your connection during peak hours.

--------------------------------

I take it the above means that the problem is with TalkTalk and that they are just not able or willing to do anything about it.

They more or less told me on the phone that I would be better off migrating to another ISP!

Is TalkTalk really this bad?

In reply to a post by scotch_whisky:

BT have confirmed that the connection to this point of presence is oversubscribed and suffers low throughput during peak hours, however BT are not in a position at this time to increase the capacity of the connection.

Does this mean BT could help but have no plans to do so ?

.

Edited by Jack_Hackett (Mon 30-Jan-12 12:21:19)

It's not often a ISP is so forth coming with the truth , rather than being bad , I actually think they have been very good and you should take there advice and migrate .

Is this a TalkTalk LLU connection, or is it TalkTalk but over the BT network, e.g. IPStream.

or put another way, do you pay the supplement for being outside the TalkTalk network footprint?

For LLU, TalkTalk says and pays for a particular capacity, so while it may be a BT link congesting, TalkTalk is only paying for X capacity, but needs to pay for X + n capacity.

For IPStream, see if others on other providers using BT network are also slow? If yes, then needs BT to do some work at the exchange. If only TalkTalk customers are slow then suggests the usual under investment in off-net capacity. Something that O2, Sky and TalkTalk are well known for.

If none of that makes sense, can you tell us which exchange you are connected to:

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search postcode in here will tell you.

Hi All,

I am on IPStream. I live in a village and there is no other option available.

I guess what I am trying to say is "Will I have the same problems if I move to another ISP."

At TalkTalk's suggestion I carried out some tests. The results are shown below..The first test is to BT Speedtest via the ISP. The second test is by altering my login details to connect directly to BT therefore bypassing TalkTalk.This was at 4 p.m. before things start to get really bad.

I am a very light user and the biggest downloads I do are Windows updates.

I am tempted by AAISP. What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance for the advice.


This Test comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.

Download Speed
706 Kbps

0 Kbps 7150 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 706 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 1200-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :8128 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 832 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 7150 Kbps


This test was not conclusive and further testing is required.This might be
useful for your ISP to investigate the fault.

If you wish to carry out further tests,pleaseclick on 'Continue' button.If
not, please close the window using 'Exit' button and contact your ISP for
further assistance with these results.



Please visit FAQ section if you are unable To understand the test results.


****************************and now connected direct toBT***************************

FAQ


This Last Test comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background
information.

Download Speed
6620 Kbps

0 Kbps 7150 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

Download speedachieved during the test was - 6620 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 1200-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :8128Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 832 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 7150 Kbps


Your service was found to be performing poorly. Please raise a fault with
your service provider, stating that the BT Performance Tester tool
indicates poor service throughput performance after the second test.

Edited by deleted (Mon 30-Jan-12 16:22:40)

I used to live in a village with same connection speeds. My throughput was 6900 all day long. Was with Nildram before they got taken over (in 2006/7)

As the BT tester avoids the ISP link, but still uses the exchange, I would say your stats firmly lay the blame with TalkTalk.

I was with Freedom2Surf before they were taken over by Opal and then TalkTalk Business.

Never slowed down until TalkTalk got involved. The service I'm on now is "supposed" to have a 20:1 contention ratio rather than 50:1 which is even more annoying.

i think they did away with contention ratios when they introduced ADSLmax and rate adaptive dsl. But I see you are paying for the extra upload and "priority at the exchange" as I was doing back then also. At least you are under the 1200 which means you have a valid issue.

You have to raise this as a fault with TT who can then pass it to BTw. Don't let them fob you off.

In reply to a post by scotch_whisky:

After raising the matter with TalkTalk I got the following response.
-----------------------------------
We have raised your query to our network operations team, who have confirmed after liaising with BT that the slow throughput on your line is being caused by its connection to a TalkTalk Business point of presence which is served by a particular BT link. BT have confirmed that the connection to this point of presence is oversubscribed and suffers low throughput during peak hours, however BT are not in a position at this time to increase the capacity of the connection. There may be plans in the future to route your connection to another point of presence, set up an additional BT connection to serve the current pointof presence, or install TalkTalk Business equipment in your local telephone exchange, any of which would resolve the issue, however any future plans have not been confirmed at this time.

I am sorry I do not have better news for you; we are aware of the problem and that it is affecting a number of customers which connect to this particular point of presence, however until agreements can be made with BT regarding the capacity of the link, we have no ability to increase throughput on your connection during peak hours.

to me this reads that BT have confirmed that TT havent bought any more capacity, but is worded to make you think it is a BT issue,

"which is served by a particular BT link" yes but TT hire these links, and can hire more.

" BT have confirmed that the connection to this point of presence is oversubscribed and suffers low throughput during peak hours" - but they didn't say BT are responsible for this situation.

", however BT are not in a position at this time to increase the capacity of the connection. " - ie TT havent paid them for more capacity

" There may be plans in the future to route your connection to another point of presence, set up an additional BT connection to serve the current pointof presence, or install TalkTalk Business equipment in your local telephone exchange, any of which would resolve the issue, however any future plans have not been confirmed at this time." - this is written to make you think these are BT plans being discussed, but in fact they are TalkTalk plans being discussed as it mentions installing TalkTalk business equipment in the exchange, which can only be TalkTalk's plans. BT can't plan this, they just have to do it if asked (LLU agreement). Notice also that it is TalkTalk's decision whether an "additional BT connection" gets paid for

" however until agreements can be made with BT regarding the capacity of the link, we have no ab ility to increase throughput on your connection during peak hours." - ie until TalkTalk pay for more capacity they can't increase your speeds....duh.

I might be wrong, but that is how I read that statement from TalkTalk. Demand action or MAC.