500 meg inconsistent
 

Hello
Long time no speak (although I still do follow this forum!). I decided to go for the £99 ultimate oomph bundle and upgraded from 200 - 500.

Previously I would always get 200-220 on a speed test but I have found that the 500 service is more inconsistent. I run it and get 540 and a few minutes later might get 250. In practical terms I have noticed everything is snappier, downloads are fast and had no issues.

Out of interest I was wondering if anyone else has similar outcomes?

Re: 500 meg inconsistent
 

Yes and No.

Yes, because unlike when I was on 350Mb, I occasionally get something close to the advertised speed rather than the much faster I usually get. On a 350Mb connection I got 386Mb/21Mb 24/7.

No, because most times I will get 556Mb / 36Mb, but not 24/7. This doesn't seem to be related to time of day or who is using bandwidth in the house. Oddly, after an under-par test, if I do a retest it is likely to be normal speed.

Naturally, like you, I have wondered why. Is it that perhaps, the speed tester itself is struggling with higher speeds? Probably not, because I get the same inconsistency with a variety of testers. Perhaps the greater speed is putting the shared cable between Node and Street box under pressure. Probably not, because it doesn't make a difference whether it is at peak time or in the small hours. I had thought that the inconsistency is due to the capacity of my processor. This can cause instability during a test. My processor is an i5-6600 CPU @ 3.30GHz. It's not that then. So maybe it is that the nearer we get to 1Gb bandwidth my motherboard, network card and Cat5e ethernet sometimes struggle. It won't be my Asus RT-AC88U.

That's all that I can think of right now. Anyway, it isn't of great importance, because variations of 20-30Mb hardly affect the service we get, but it is interesting. Will connections of 1Gb give similar or worse inconsistency in tests.



Tests with two teens gaming in their rooms!

https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2019/07/3.png



URL=https://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk]https://www.speedcheckerapi.com/Images/324710586.jpg[/URL]

The dslreports tester was too erratic to be reliable. It ranged between 300Mb and 600Mb during the test. That is often a symptom of a struggling processor.

Re: 500 meg inconsistent
 

With this being a new service, I’m sure Virgin Media will find ways to tweak the service. I believe the problem may stem from the service being bonded and out of order packets.

Bonding is great; however, it can introduce out of order packets. The solution is to create a buffer on the modem, so it can reorder the packets back into the correct order. If this buffer is too small, it will be unable to correct the order of packets and the result is speed tests and downloads will be variable, due to retransmissions.

It sounds like the buffer is just a tiny bit too small, I’m sure they’ll adjust it up over time, like they have done previously.

Re: 500 meg inconsistent
 

Just in case you've not seen it, I use fast.com for speed tests, they generally return the most consistent results for me.

Re: 500 meg inconsistent
 

I'm in a similar situation.

Recently upgraded from 200 to 500Mb, installed the new router and the best I've ever seen is 280Mb on the Speedtest app on my phone. Normally I get between 180-220Mb depending on the time of day

Does broadband still take time to bed in? It's been 10 days or so. Or am I thinking of the old days again :)

I'll probably give them a call but the T's & C's on the 500Mb are shocking, it implies no point in complaining unless it is below 258Mb

Re: 500 meg inconsistent
 

How consistent did you say Fast.com is? I just got this result.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AhlpLoG7kfyGpqUU9D9a_GW2Q3HmRg