What happened to the speed ?
 

Hi,

Perhaps someone can shead some light on this.

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

It took just over 10 minutes to get these results:

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 04:45:03 GMT

1st 512K took 210875 ms = 2.4 KB/sec, approx 20 Kbps, 0.02 Mbps
2nd 512K took 106860 ms = 4.8 KB/sec, approx 40 Kbps, 0.04 Mbps
3rd 512K took 116515 ms = 4.4 KB/sec, approx 36 Kbps, 0.04 Mbps
4th 512K took 143875 ms = 3.6 KB/sec, approx 30 Kbps, 0.03 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 32 Kbps, 0.03 Mbps

My question therefore is: What happened to my 10MB connection speed that I was receiving upto about 0300hrs this morning ? I've restarted my modem, I'm free of spyware and I'm still receiving this speed.

Can anyone inform me as to why this is happening?

Thank You!

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

Why has the speed all of a sudden dropped?10mb seems like 512K ?

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

more like 256kbit ouch.

I would assume its some kind of technical fault or maintenance, considering the time of day.

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

Sounds like something is up with your connection. Have you reported it to Faults?

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

I tried, but all I got was please input your telephone number, so I did. It then put me through the menus then "bleeeeep". Then nothing. So I gave up after trying twice. I was going to try the 0845 number, but considering Tech Support don't work past 2000 or open till 0800 I didn't think there was much point.

I have tried again just now 1200 hours and the best that they (India Tech Support) can offer is: "There is a fault in your area..." and no further information. I have just looked at the http://www.ntl-isp.ntl.com/ServiceStatus/ and there isn't anything there as regards a fault other than some "nationwide planned maintenance" on the 27th of this month.

Is it too premature to ask if anyone knows anything? I am in the LN5 (Lincoln\Lincolnshire which connects through Nottingham) region if that helps with narrowing down the problem. I also recall from lastnight being disconnected from my online gaming session at 0100 approximately, untill I lost my connection totally at 0300.

Things seem to be looking up, earlier this morning it took me the best part of 40 minutes to connect to this and any other site. I can now surf (http) at 12kbps and got here in under 10 minutes. I cannot seem connect to my newsgroup providers at anything above 1.6kbps (Thunderbird\Newsleecher) and get frequent timeouts and no headers download. Email also seems to be exceptionally slow suffering the same timeouts untill it disconnects. But worse than that, my speed is so slow. I can't seem to stream any online radio (www.di.fm) without real player or video lan disconnecting... I'm music-less :o(

Can anyone sugest a timeframe as to when this issue is likely to be resolved?

Thank you.

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

My browsing speed is a bit all over the place today but download speeds seem fine.

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:42:04 GMT

1st 512K took 438 ms = 1169 KB/sec, approx 9633 Kbps, 9.41 Mbps
2nd 512K took 422 ms = 1213.3 KB/sec, approx 9998 Kbps, 9.76 Mbps
3rd 512K took 437 ms = 1171.6 KB/sec, approx 9654 Kbps, 9.43 Mbps
4th 512K took 438 ms = 1169 KB/sec, approx 9633 Kbps, 9.41 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 9730 Kbps, 9.5 Mbps

Odd.

I'm in Peterborough.

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

Hans Gruber same here.

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 13:48:25 GMT (2.48pm)

1st 512K took 1375 ms = 372.4 KB/sec, approx 3069 Kbps, 3 Mbps
2nd 512K took 812 ms = 630.5 KB/sec, approx 5195 Kbps, 5.07 Mbps
3rd 512K took 875 ms = 585.1 KB/sec, approx 4821 Kbps, 4.71 Mbps
4th 512K took 1344 ms = 381 KB/sec, approx 3139 Kbps, 3.07 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 4056 Kbps, 3.96 Mbps

the above is normal for me this time of day but browsing including https which doesnt use proxies is very slow.

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

in eastwood - same here - its like being on dial up.

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

Hi. Did you check here to see if your area has any issues?
http://www.ntl-isp.ntl.com/ServiceStatus/

---------- Post added at 14:52 ---------- Previous post was at 14:50 ----------

Actually, here is the information:

Service Status Details

Service Broadband
Posted 27 Mar 14:32
Resolved
Last Update 27 Mar 14:32
Duration Ongoing

Type Connection
Location Nationwide
Status Planned Outage
Start time 28 Mar 00:01
End Time


Description
Planned Maintenance



Detail
As part of the ongoing project to maintain and upgrade our Broadband network, there is a requirement to carry out maintenance and upgrades on components which may result in a loss of service for the duration.

The following work will be taking place during the week commencing Monday 27th March.

On the morning of Tuesday the 28th of March between midnight and 6 AM,

Network optimisation will result in a loss of service in the Oxford, Reading, Hatfield, Melton Mowbray, Dunstable and surrounding areas.

Network updates will result in a loss of service in the Bournemouth, Derby, Baguley, Ashton, Oldham, Hatfield, Lincoln, Mansfield, Mapperley, Northfields, Shepshed and surrounding areas.

Network rebalancing across the country will result in a brief loss of service for all customers.

Due to essential maintenance on the ntlworld email platform, customers may be unable to receive email between midnight and 6am. Any email sent to customers during this time will be delivered after 6am.

On the morning of Wednesday the 29th of March between midnight and 6 AM,

Network optimisation will result in a loss of service in the Eastwood, Newmarket, Bishopsbriggs, Clifton, Flitwick and surrounding areas.

Network updates will result in a loss of service in Nottingham, Newark, Scunthorpe, Stapleford, Southampton and surrounding areas

On the morning of Thursday the 30th of March between midnight and 6 AM,

Network optimisation will result in a loss of service in the Eastwood, Cambridge, Leicester and surrounding areas.

Network updates will result in a loss of service in the Derby, Baguley and surrounding areas

We thank you for your understanding and apologise for any inconvenience these planned works may cause.

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

you being clever?! it clearly states between 12 - 6am - so that doesn't explain why at 4pm on thursday afternoon why my 10meg connection is downloading at 6k a second...rant over!

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

NG18, 2mb running at around 512k :( not good
Noticed it last night when i was struggling to get more than 400k, but at 6am this morning it was full 2mb.

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

Wow, bizarre. You seem to think I am responsible for NTL's service bulletin. Just copying and pasting in an attempt to help you.

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

Well, I appreciated your addition to this thread. At least it gave me an idea what was happening.

Though it has to be said, I agree with Jeff in some aspect, NTL in their infinite wisdom seem to have forgotten how to tell the time. I suppose that's what happens when you employ people who aren't "tech enough" :rolleyes: for the positions they hold. That or they just don't care!?

I fail to see why they couldn't email us all with a note to tell us we were going to be facing a total loss of broadband connection. They manage to send out "news letters" periodically, so why they can't send "service notes" is beyond me. I would rather hear about something that is likely to affect the enjoyment of a service I pay for, rather than telling me the ntl webpage has changed or such useless information.

It's taken me just over 20 minutes to get this far on the site at a connection speed of 0.2kbps. It wasn't working this afternoon as I couldn't connect anywhere at all. It looks like I'm going to be spending the evening watching that rubbish that is broadcast on the tv :(

Does anyone have a timeline as to when this problem shall be resolved ?

Thanks again.

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

sorry imme - was just getting ratty!

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

Hi, Goblin. I hope you get some resolution soon. I went through this a few weeks ago and the "scheduled" outage/downgrade was never pre-announced, and it lasted about a week. It was supposed to be over a period of 24 hours. That was fun, and made meeting my deadlines a real treat.

As for "tech support": Yesterday we called about someting and found that they do not even know what an ethernet cable is. I am not making this up. They also provide our telephone service but can't find us in their system using the very number they provide. They're very intelligent and useful people.

Jeff, NTL makes me ratty too.

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

Nottingham has been a biatch all day yesterday, it was as slow as a slow thing on a slow day, there was nothing on the maintenance page

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

Thanks Imme :)

Ok, you can stop with the cheery news now :D

I would say I can imagine. But I can now see\feel the same thing. The really frustrating thing is that there's nobody to talk too. You phone customer services, they say call Tech Support, you call Tech Support and the most they can give anyone is "there is a problem in your area". Like I didn't know that already!? :Yikes:

I can't help thinking that in the day and age when everyone from the postman to the milkman are running around with handheld computers, that it would be THAT difficult to issue the same things to an NTL Engineer in order to update those that play around with the NTL Service page. Unless of course those that run NTL aren't too impressed with their own network integrity.

No, I believe you.

I reserve judgement. I'm not seeing it for some reason. :rolleyes: Heck, I can't even make myself understood by them. I once spoke to a guy over in india that sounded like he came from Birmingham. He could understand what I was saying, the rest of them... well let's just say neither of us understand what the other is saying. The line quality calling Tech Support is still abysmal. It took me 3 goes at trying to communicate my postcode to them over the stattic present on the line, in the end I thought "ahh ha! Phonetic alphabet... never fails... only to be asked; what is lima, november five (L, N, 5)". I hung up, counted to 20 then redialed, only to get what sounded like the same woman :(

"ratty, .... Ratty!" I'd say more like suicidal. Calling NTL is now on a par with calling the likes of Dell or Microsoft. People generally are happy to avoid stressful situations. Unfortunately, NTL seem intend on increasing the stress in our daily lives with what they now pass off as a "Technical Support" helpdesk or a service for that matter. Still one would hope, things can only get better.

Edit, during typing the above, I've had a "speed test" running in the background, it just finnished as I pressed the "post" button.

----
Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:13:10 GMT

1st 512K took 157328 ms = 3.3 KB/sec, approx 27 Kbps, 0.03 Mbps
2nd 512K took 312531 ms = 1.6 KB/sec, approx 13 Kbps, 0.01 Mbps
3rd 512K took 112156 ms = 4.6 KB/sec, approx 38 Kbps, 0.04 Mbps
4th 512K took 52125 ms = 9.8 KB/sec, approx 81 Kbps, 0.08 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 40 Kbps, 0.04 Mbps
----

I was watching the file download for a while. I quickly drew the conclusion that it would have been quicker for me to get a taxi, visit the site I was downloading from, get them to burn the file to cdr then come back and put it on my computer.

---------- Post added at 10:05 ---------- Previous post was at 09:52 ----------

Has it improved at all ?

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

I think this might be related to the nottingham issues....

My problems started tuesday night once I got home and logged on - about 4pm

I knew they were doing some upgrades / maintenance in the derby area (close to nottingham) early morning tuesday and also on thursday.

I noticed that my ip address has changed from an 81.* address to an 82.* address.

Since that time ( and its still doing it now) my connection drops randomly... I checked my router to see how often it did this and it seems fairly random here are some of the times between drops.

80 mins, 6 mins, 5.30mins,9.50mins,5.10 mins.

It only ever seems to drop the connection if something is happening on it. It was up all night when no bandwdith up or down was going through.

Now I'm back on it again and its randomly dropping every so often.

When it drops the send and recieve lights on the NTL 250 cable modem (that was installed about 2 months ago btw) stop flashing but the sync light stays on. Approx 20-30 seconds later it all comes back to life. The drop makes me lose connection to WoW, irc, teamspeak etc most of the time so it is getting very irratating.

Phoned Tech Support who are sending an engineer out saturday to have a look. Seems a wierd coincidence that others are having this sort of issue and that it never did this on the 81.* address.

Anyone shed any light?

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

I thought I would give an upate to my situation. I called NTL Tech Support again at approximately 1300 and briefly spoke to a guy who not only understood me, but he seemed to know what he was talking about. Unfortunately, in order for tech support to test my connection required the removal of my router. Something I couldn't do due to limited mobility. So ended the call there.

1930 approximately I phoned tech support again with a friend on-hand to do the running around for me. Again I was lucky I got through to someone who seemed to know what he was doing. He requested that I might have problems with p2p due to my lack of speed, though these were unfounded as I don't use that particular software. He stepped my speed up after downloading a file from the "test my speed" page at ntl and then found that when upgraded to 10mb my speed dropped. So from this he deduced that it was my Motorolla Surfboard SB-4100 modem that was at fault and as such would require an engineer to visit me on Monday in order to rectify the problem. I suspect that this may require a new modem but what I can't understand is why the surfboard modem didn't seem to have a problem untill NTL started doing whatever they started doing with the network on Thursday morning!? Up untill that day it was possible to download at a consistant 1200kbps for however long a download took. So it remains to be seen as to what is infact the cause.

Can anyone offer an explanation? Is it feasible that its the modem causing the problem?

Re: What happened to the speed ?
 

Further update. Engineer failed to show on Monday, I got a call around 1530 to say so from a lady at an NTL call center. Another appointment arranged for Tuesday PM.

Tuesday AM my speed is abysmal I'm surfing at 6.2 B\s s....... l ....... o.....w..... l ..... y.... life in the fast lane huh? Anyway, PM arrives eventually and a knock at the door signals the engineers arrival. He takes one look at the modem says "hmm, that one doesn't support above 6MB" (it came as a shock, as I recall the instructions saying 10MB. Not only that it had been running at 12000kbps for about 3 months). Anyway, he nips out to the van comes back with this tiny box, pulls out a smaller blue box. Installs it, sent a text message to who knows where (begin awkward silence) 10 minutes later and I have 10MB again, hooray!

Performed a speedtest and it comes back with 9.5MB which is "quite good" apparantly, seeing as the engineer "enjoys" (tolerates more like) about 8MB himself. Fast forward to 000hrs and I begin my gaming session. Ping is a little bit high but stable right upto 0300 and then Bang ! My speed drops, up goes my ping and I find that I am on 6MB after a speedtest ... I cancel out of my game and start my browser. Speed to connect to Google.com 6.6kb ... connection to Usenet the same, connection with RealPlayer and VLC Media Player to www.di.fm so bad I can't connect (my neighbours were probably pleased alas I'm certainly not). By 0540 I'm getting tired so decide to opt for bed and the slow surfing its getting to me. So I start my downloads and notice I am downloading at a pawltry 4MB, which after a couple of minutes rose to 8MB and then finally about 10 minutes later 10MB before dropping again.

So what happens between 0300 and 0600 at NTL ? As I would like to actually be able to use my connection.