Something wrong in PE4?

[Billy-Bob]

I've had 50Mb for over 2 months, and 20Mb for 2 years before that: never a problem before. Always got within 90% of advertised speed. My service has been consistently bad now since 26 December.

What I always got before 26/12/09:
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/12/1.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

What I've been getting since 26/12/09:
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/12/2.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

Can this really be down to increased load over the christmas holidays, or is something else going on here? I know that speedtest sites can be notoriously unreliable, but until 26/12/09, speedtest.net always coped perfectly for me, so unless something's gone wrong with their site only in the last few days, I doubt it's that.

I've checked the config file in my modem: still says d/l 53000000 bps

I'm not suffering any packet loss.

Latency doesn't look too bad (although it has increased in the last 5 days)

Downstream power levels are 7.02, 7.54 and 6.81 dBmV

Modem log contains nothing unusual.

I'm in an area that (at least since I've lived here) has never had oversubscription issues.

Any ideas?

[richardford1976]

Hi there,

Having similar speed issues myself in PE2 area. im only on 20mb but my connection started playing up around xmas time, wondering if all the xmas lights are playing havoc with my wireless router.


Rich

[Sephiroth]

I've had 50Mb for over 2 months, and 20Mb for 2 years before that: never a problem before. Always got within 90% of advertised speed. My service has been consistently bad now since 26 December.

What I always got before 26/12/09:
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/12/1.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

What I've been getting since 26/12/09:
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/12/2.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

Can this really be down to increased load over the christmas holidays, or is something else going on here? I know that speedtest sites can be notoriously unreliable, but until 26/12/09, speedtest.net always coped perfectly for me, so unless something's gone wrong with their site only in the last few days, I doubt it's that.
........

Any ideas?

It seems to me that a speed test made at 07:49, outside of peak time, will be rather higher on balance of probability than one made at 21:07, in peak time.

And, as you imply, speed tests taken singly can misinform.

So if you think something's wrong, you coukld download 3 files simultaneously off the VM games site (there's a URL in one of the posts in this section), then aggregate the Bytes/second, multiply by 10 to get your bits per second.

Do this 07:00 ish and 21:00 ish and a reasonable picture should emerge.

[Billy-Bob]

It seems to me that a speed test made at 07:49, outside of peak time, will be rather higher on balance of probability than one made at 21:07, in peak time.

And, as you imply, speed tests taken singly can misinform.

So if you think something's wrong, you coukld download 3 files simultaneously off the VM games site (there's a URL in one of the posts in this section), then aggregate the Bytes/second, multiply by 10 to get your bits per second.

Do this 07:00 ish and 21:00 ish and a reasonable picture should emerge.

Thanks for the advice Sephiroth. You are right, of course: I picked bad examples for the speedtests - should have selected the same time of day for each! However, I've tested at various times of day, and it was consistently good before 26th/ consistently bad after 26th.

I did try downloading 3 game files from the virginmedia/blueyondergames folder, and got a combined speed of about 30Mbps - better than the speedtest result, but still markedly different to what I had got used to.

The good news is that without apparently doing anything (not even another modem reboot), my speed mysteriously returned to it's usual 48/49 Mbps yesterday evening, and seems to be holding.

---------- Post added at 18:02 ---------- Previous post was at 17:59 ----------

Hi there,

Having similar speed issues myself in PE2 area. im only on 20mb but my connection started playing up around xmas time, wondering if all the xmas lights are playing havoc with my wireless router.


Rich

Hi Richard, I forgot to say - I'm on a gigabit wired connection, so wireless interference couldn't be a factor with my set-up. My speed is back to normal as of last night - how about yours?

[richardford1976]

Speeds appear to have improved today but still not quite upto the speed i used to get for 20mb. Next test will be to check to see if it is a wireless problem but plugging a ethernet cable between laptop and CM. Thankfully i work for VM so i am in the priveleged position of being able to check the transmission path back from the HE to my CM.

[Billy-Bob]

Thankfully i work for VM so i am in the priveleged position of being able to check the transmission path back from the HE to my CM.

Lucky you! ;)

[richardford1976]

yeah i can bypass india. Lovely people but very frustrating to deal with when you have a problem.

[Sephiroth]

yeah i can bypass india. Lovely people but very frustrating to deal with when you have a problem.

So we can expect your post count to rise very rapidly here! :nworthy: