Speed problem that not even my ISP could undertand

Hello

I really hate to post this kind of problems, but I'm desperate

I moved to London a couple of weeks ago and I chose Sky as my ISP, with a broadband that promised me between 10-20 Mbps.
I started to check it and more or less ok with the browser, youtube and all the stuff. However, when I started to try to download something the problem started.

Summarising everything:
When I download from Steam, GOG, blizzard, MEGA, torrent, windows update or even the big test files the this website has, it always download between 1.3- 2 Mbps (when I try the 5 MB file or less, it downloads around 8 Mbps). The other problem (even bigger) is that when I'm downloading something, the internet speed of the whole house just works horribel (i cannot even use google on my phone or my laptop if I start a download)

The weird thing is that when I try a speed test (from this website, sky website or other 4 or 5), it always give me between 13 and 24 Mbps as my speed.

I contacted the service, and they checked everything from their place, even "sending" me a document or something like that that was suposed to download at my correct speed.
The engineer came today (because he has to install the TV), so the lady from the contact service told me to ask him.

I wasnt here, so my sister had to deal with the problem (I gave her a piece of paper with all the info for the guy xD). It appears that he tried everything, and checked that the connection was actually slow when he dowloaded any kind of files (its suposed that he download something from youtube at correct speed, but I checked my browser history, my download folder and my bin and there is nothing there, but ok). He also checked that is true that anything works well when I'm downloading something. He tried to contact BT (its suposed to be my provider or something like that) and they checked everything from them, saying that everything is ok...

At the end, no solution, they told me that it might be my building (?), the programs that I used and the websites (yeah, of course, 6 differnt places...) or my computers (that was just an excuse...)

I use wifi, but I've also tried connecting my lapton wired and its exactly the same.

I've tried to install the website tool, but it's giving me problems with my windos 10

Here a live my speed results form this website:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

I just want to know what should I do... even if you cant solve my problem or don't know what is happening, what do you recommend me? complain and try to unsuscribe and change my ISP? try to make them send another technician/engineer to solve the problem? contact my landlord because is a problem from my house?

I really like gaming, it's my favorite hobby when I come back from work... I dont want to not be able to play just because my sister iphone start an update, because they dowload something for netflix or because my windows update start a little update.... I could live with the "low speed" ( I used to had 1 Mbps a couple of years ago, so it's not a big problem), but not with all those problems

PD: Sorry if my english isn't perfect, if there is something that you don't understand, just tell me and I'll try to write it better.

Edited by deleted (Sun 07-Aug-16 00:56:36)

Are you getting your bits and Bytes mixed up?

Download speeds are normally measured in MB/s (megaBytes per second) and speedtests normally show in Mb/s (megabits per second)

Good thinking. The OP also needs to know, (hence this post adding information), that 1MB = 8Mb.

However, he does seem to have a problem of some sort. That 13Mbps should cope.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 07-Aug-16 08:42:22)

If you have another suitable PC, I suggest that you try that, both Ethernet and WiFI.

That may help to identify whether it is the PC you have been using; or if the problem is further away, not local to your PC itself.

Also your Modem/Router is another item locally, which will be common to the tests you do, so keep that in mind.

And if convenient, try your PC at a friend's location, for example, again using Ethernet and WiFi.

Or invite a friend with a suitable PC, to come along and test on your system.

Almost forgot, make sure the PC's WiFi is disconnected/switched OFF when testing with Ethernet cable; and that the Ethernet cable is disconnected at both ends, when testing with WiFi. I don't know for sure; but suspect that there could be conflict.

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

Those sorts of problems help all of us to expand our knowledge, so don't be afraid to post them.

Edited by deleted (Sun 07-Aug-16 11:30:41)

Your issue might be an IPv6 versus IPv4 issue.

As a test follow the instructions in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTDFJHVn9n4 that show how to turn off IPv6 on the PC

It's a possibility, I tried to be careful with that, but I will double check it this night, when I come back home

I tried with my laptop and my mobile phone and they also have the problem, I was using my laptop without problem just 2 weeks ago in my previous house.

I will see and follow the video's instructions later, that looks promising

Thank you for your fast answers

Edited by deleted (Sun 07-Aug-16 11:54:06)

Can you confirm the download speed you see is 130kb/s to 200kb/s not 1.3MB/s when you are downloading.

In reply to a post by serk21:

When I download from Steam, GOG, blizzard, MEGA, torrent, windows update or even the big test files the this website has, it always download between 1.3- 2 Mbps (when I try the 5 MB file or less, it downloads around 8 Mbps).

As has been said, could be bits vs bytes.

The high result for the small file is probably just false as browsers often start downloading before you've even clicked on where you want to save the file to/as, but don't start calculating speed till after.

In reply to a post by serk21:

I really like gaming, it's my favorite hobby when I come back from work... I dont want to not be able to play just because my sister iphone start an update, because they dowload something for netflix or because my windows update start a little update.... I could live with the "low speed" ( I used to had 1 Mbps a couple of years ago, so it's not a big problem), but not with all those problems

That is normal on a shared connection, though I don't know if you are in some way being affected more badly then anyone else.

Plusnet have traffic management that helps with this - not much use to you though.

I don't know what Sky routers are capable of WRT QOS (even if they have it you may find that it's upstream only). Technically it is possible to partially sort downstream QOS from the "wrong end of the bottleneck", but you need a capable modem/router (maybe Open WRT) or some special geeky network setup involving routing traffic through say a Linux PC. You also need to sacrifice some downstream bandwidth.

Sky routers do no QOS what so ever.

Eg if you fire up a torrent or a google drive upload everything falls over to almost unusable. On my SR102 sky router if I was torrenting or doing something with lots of connections (200+ connections) on more than one device, I would not even be able to connect new devices to the wireless SSID until the activity stopped.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 07-Aug-16 14:37:19)

So, I've tried turning off my IPv6, I don't see anything different. With that turned off, I've recheck verything
So, this is what my profile on sky says:
My broadband

So, checking that, I'm afraid that my connection speed is just 13-20 Mbitsps, so following this webpage
18 Mbps = 2.2 MB/sec, something similar to my results, because I write it wrong and I download at 1.3-2 MBps

As you said, the speed tests tell me the information in Mbps and my downloads in MBps

So, problem solved... I was a fool , sorry for being a noob that doesn't know how to read properly :/

Anyways, my problem now then is to try to make that my computer dont "take all the internet" whe it's downloading, even if that slow down my downloads (I prefer to download 800kb/s and be able to use my browser than download at 1300 but had all my devices working very bad)

Edited by deleted (Sun 07-Aug-16 23:09:12)

I'll pick up on just one thing in response to this. And that is regarding Steam.

The Steam Client provides a way to throttle the bandwidth used when downloading new games or game updates - I think it also applies to when the application downloads its own updates also.

In the Steam Client, goto Settings (either from the Steam menu or the View Menu). Select Downloads from the list on the left of the Settings window. Look for the Download Restrictions part of that page and on the right hand side you should find "Limit Bandwidth To" with a drop-down box underneath it. Use the drop-down to select what amount of bandwidth to allow the client to use when doing downloads. Be sure to note whether the options are in KB/s or Kb/s - there is another option on that same page that allows you to choose whether to display downloads in Bytes or Bits and I think it changes what is displayed in the drop down list as well as the download rate displayed when actually downloading something.

As noted previously, the Sky router (SR102) is appalling at allocating WAN bandwidth to multiple LAN devices if one of them tries to monopolise all the downstream capacity.

Generally I have Steam throttled to about 50% of my DSL download speed so that other devices can actually even browse websites without timeouts. For huge updates, I just pause them in Steam, then remove the throttling and kick off the downloads when I go to bed.

That will solve Steam grabbing all the bandwith. But for all the other stuff, you have no real options other than either:
a. doing downloads / torrents overnight while you sleep
b. replacing the Sky router with something that can apply somewhat intelligent QOS (Quality of Service) prioritisation based on the traffic type. (Alternatively, an additional router that can do the same between the Sky router and your network devices, such that the Sky router effectively becomes a dumb DSL modem).

Anyways, my problem now then is to try to make that my computer dont "take all the internet" whe it's downloading, even if that slow down my downloads (I prefer to download 800kb/s and be able to use my browser than download at 1300 but had all my devices working very bad)

There are 3 methods to help:

1) Get a fibre connection with Sky, having 10Mbps upload means things are less likely to become saturated and slow down as much
2) Get a router that supports QOS
3) Switch to an ISP with a router / network which prioritises traffic

Now in my experience, QOS is not a silver bullet, but it does help a little.

A lot of ISP provided routers (not Sky though) have WWM on their routers, this basically prioritises traffic, Plusnet also do traffic prioritisation at a network level. It helps a fair bit, but again, if you are downloading it will never be the exact same experience as using a clean connection.

http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/221/~/...

https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/about-traffic-pr...

Sky is a pain, since there is no QOS, no network prioritisation and the router is also quite poor generally, so combined the experience can suffer. That said, ultimately, even with QOS etc, I find it can still suffer, it is just not AS bad.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 08-Aug-16 01:37:00)

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

1) Get a fibre connection with Sky, having 10Mbps upload means things are less likely to become saturated and slow down as much
2) Get a router that supports QOS
3) Switch to an ISP with a router / network which prioritises traffic

Now in my experience, QOS is not a silver bullet, but it does help a little.

A lot of ISP provided routers (not Sky though) have WWM on their routers

QOS is tricky especially if you want it downstream.

If your wireless is faster than your internet then WWM alone is still not going help you, though if you are gaming a lot then wired is going to be better anyway.

I've been doing my own QOS/nat for years, but then only with ipv4, I would probably be faffing around for quite some time if I had to get it to work in front of a semi locked down router with ipv6.

I don't know what routers will do downstream QOS. Though I haven't used openwrt, I assume it would be possible with that as it's just linux and that's what I use already.

I think he means use upstream QOS to reduce what is available to the streaming service. That reduces the downstream usage by it and frees upstream for the gaming. Win-Win, and maybe some wins.

You can't (in practice using the QOS tools available) control downloads by restricting upload, it's just way too complicated and you won't know what numbers to use.

Pacing empty upstream acks is a theoretical way to limit downloads, but you would need some special and complex software to do it properly.

Downstream is restricted by upstream ACKs being congested by other upstream data. You can help this by using QOS to prioritise upstream ACKs.

True, but that's not what he said.

The observation that flooded upstream hurts downloads is related in the sense that it shows scope for limiting download using upload, but in practice doing it in a controlled way with any normal QOS methods doesn't work.

He said WWM which is nonsense.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

He said WWM which is nonsense.

I guess my lack of quoting doesn't help esp. if reading flat but -

Different "he". I started talking about acks after RobertoS said -

"I think he means use upstream QOS to reduce what is available to the streaming service. That reduces the downstream usage by it and frees upstream for the gaming. Win-Win, and maybe some wins."

I had previously said that WWM wouldn't help.

In reply to a post by legume:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

He said WWM which is nonsense.

I had previously said that WWM wouldn't help.

WWM does not exist.

My understanding of WMM was flawed here. Apologies.

QOS wise, I did mean on the upstream, as my understanding is when the upstream becomes saturated, the downstream performance suffers massively.

I have never set up QOS on downstream personally.

I don't believe you can set downstream QOS on your router. It's too late after they have been sent.

WWM does not exist.

Well it exists in the sense that a quick google comes up with something to do with wi-fi and QOS.
Fair enough, I have no idea whether "normal" kit can do it or not. Even if it could, as I said, it wouldn't help here.

Maybe you're thinking of wireless multi-media (WMM) ?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Maybe you're thinking of wireless multi-media (WMM) ?

Yes I mis-typed WMM.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

I don't believe you can set downstream QOS on your router. It's too late after they have been sent.

It is not perfect, but you can make a shared connection with bulk traffic and gaming work - I started doing this back when everyone had 288/576 sync with BTs BRAS buffer around 600ms long. That was hard.

As downstream bit rates increase it gets easier. It's not free, as I said initially, you have to sacrifice bandwidth.
On a fast ish connection like the OPs you could probably set limits say 85 -90% for normal downloads, for a heavily seeded torrent you would need less.

It is of course not the same as upstream as your line limits the incoming speed, plus you don't have total control, but as you set the QOS to less than downspeed you will build up a queue to work with. The idea then is to let through/prio what you deem latency sensitive and to queue up the bulk with a shortish buffer so you soon drop a packet (head drop is possible with some qdiscs and is preferred). This causes tcp congestion control of the sender to back off and keeps the remote buffer from getting filled up with bulk packets that block your interactive packets.

Why would you cripple your connection when prioritising outgoing ACKs is a much more elegant solution?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Why would you cripple your connection when prioritising outgoing ACKs is a much more elegant solution?

That is not a solution for one person downloading preventing another gaming at the same time.

I also don't consider 85-90% of full speed a crippled connection when it allows multiple users to co-exist, plus if you want you can turn it on/off as required.

In reply to a post by legume:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Why would you cripple your connection when prioritising outgoing ACKs is a much more elegant solution?

That is not a solution for one person downloading preventing another gaming at the same time.

I think it is.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by legume:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Why would you cripple your connection when prioritising outgoing ACKs is a much more elegant solution?

That is not a solution for one person downloading preventing another gaming at the same time.

I think it is.

I disagree.

If the OP sees increased latency when downloading (which is normal, though I don't know how big the buffer is on a sky ADSL connection) that's nothing to do with upstream, as upstream is not flooded anyway for this specific test, so any upstream QOS in place isn't active.

Doing upstream QOS is needed of course, and priorotising empty acks above bulk is normal - but game traffic should get a higher prio than both.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

A lot of ISP provided routers (not Sky though) have WWM on their routers

What do you base this on? A wireless router without WMM wouldn't last 5 minutes in the wild.

LoL, now you are talking the language of mordor (aka I dont understand anything xD)

Thanks, I've found the options on the steam, battlenet and other clients, so the problem is partially solved

The only problem now, is when any of the stupid phones start an update or even my own windows update... but I think that I can survive

Edited by deleted (Mon 08-Aug-16 19:55:27)

I apologised earlier, it supports WMM but as far as I know no QOS.

I guess you haven't tried it.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

I guess you haven't tried it.

Tried what?

In reply to a post by serk21:

The only problem now, is when any of the stupid phones start an update or even my own windows update... but I think that I can survive

In reply to a post by serk21:

The other problem (even bigger) is that when I'm downloading something, the internet speed of the whole house just works horribel (i cannot even use google on my phone or my laptop if I start a download)

This isn't normal, for a regular download to cripple things - maybe check again. It is a very different case to p2p downloads.