Slow & intermittent internet in S11

[mattfjohnson 10]

Does anyone else have this problem?

 

I signed up with Virgin in December and was promised 8MBit broadband. They said it would gradually speed up over the course of about 10 days. It initially went up to about 6 then just came crashing down to less that 500KBit/s. I also get a lot of 'Server not found' errors but for popular pages like Google and Facebook which are obviously never offline.

 

I tried reporting this to Virgin and they told me to use the BT speed tester to check my speed over the space of 48 hours. This BT speed tester is so bad it hardly ever works. When it does it only lets you do 1 speed test every 3 hours. Plus you have to log in using a special login name on your router and if you try this it says, 'Please run the test once using your own login' I have only ever managed this once then obviously had to wait 3 hours to try again at which time it wasn't working. This is so fustrating. ISP's should be getting so much stick for this kind of blatent Lieing about speeds. but I think people either don't know how to check or in my case can't check cos the connection is so bad.

 

Also even though you're paying £15 a month to the ISP they charge you 25p a minute to report any problems with the service they are supposed to be supplying. Its a total joke. Aren't there any comsumer rights where if youa re paying for a service you should be able to get techincal help if it doesn't work?

[stonecircle 10]

I am with BT and in S10 but here is a link for a different speed test, this was recommended to me by a BT engineer!

 

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

[liam1412 14]

What happens in the first 10 days is the speeds fluctuates to find your best stable rate. So you may have seen speeds vary greatly in these first few days. When it was running at 6meg it would have been unstable ie dropping often so it has settled down at the best speed acheivable without regular dropouts. It is possible that your line is synching at a lower speed than is possible so you could contact your ISP. The problem is that until your speed is lower than 512k regularly BT will not log a speed fault so you maybe a little stumped.

 

A number of things affect the speed including distance from the exchange and the quality of your line.

 

The most reliable speedtester is http://speedchecker.bt.com. Be warned though it is slow and can often crash but if you can get a readout from there and post up here someone who is a little more tech savvy will help you

[daddyg 10]

i have same problem look at my thread?

[mattfjohnson 10]

I am with BT and in S10 but here is a link for a different speed test, this was recommended to me by a BT engineer!

 

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

 

Thats the problem, Virgin want me to specifically use the BT speed tester. I can get others to work and the one time I got the BT one to actually work it showed a speed of about 400KBps. I want to find out if its just me or if its this area in general. If there are far too many people and the contention ratio is just pushed too far for it to useable then surely they have to reduce this ratio so it can come remotely close to the advertised speed.

 

I'm about a mile from the exchange and the line is good. It is registering that it should work at about 7.1MBps. But it is far from this in reality.

[mattfjohnson 10]

PS I just ran that BBMax speed test and got a whopping Download Speed: 855 kbps (106.9 KB/sec ) Upload Speed: 338 kbps (42.3 KB/sec )

 

Now thats pretty bad if you ask me.

[rogorman 10]

Hi,

 

I'm on High Storrs and get less than 500Kbps broadband (Madasafish, part of Brightview, part of BT).

 

I complained to my ISP and they just asked me to check and check, then blamed BT. Which owned them.

 

Moving down the hill soon and BT have told me the next place should have a 1Mb service. Which will seem like heaven. Which is sad, because I used to live in a village outside Canterbury way down south and get up to 5Mb. So it's true, the North is neglected.

[Bladesman 10]

My net is as slow 200kbps at the moment in S11.

 

Anyone else having slow net today?

[bkcin 10]

I'm in S11 on BT Broadband, getting about 650 KB/sec download at the moment.

[Savannah2 10]

Since October 2005 BTw have now started declaring what speeds they find acceptable on their part of the IP Stream Network.

 

Connection:

2 Mbps 400kbps

1 Mbps 200Kbps

512 Kbps 100Kbps

 

Max services where the line operates at 2Mb or above may provide End Users, at peak times, with the same data throughput as they would have experienced on an equivalent 2Mb fixed rate Broadband service.

Max services where the line operates below 2Mb may provide End Users, at peak times, with the same data throughput as they would have experienced on an equivalent fixed rate Broadband service (ie BT IPStream Home Max service which operated at 500kbps would have an equivalent service at peak times of that of a BT IPStream Home 500kbps service).

 

Local Exchange Status Checker

[andco 10]

I live in S11, am on IDNet and paying for 8Gb; according to that first link my Download Speed: 2654 kbps (331.8 KB/sec ) Upload Speed: 371 kbps (46.4 KB/sec )

[Bladesman 10]

BT have managed to tell me nothing as usual.