10MB connection, 10MB in day, 2MB in evening?

tvout · 22-10-2008, 21:27

This may be owing to my local UBR being 'oversubscribed' but I notice that running tests during the daytime gets speeds of very near 10MB (usually 9.5-9.8). I've tested it in the evening and it ranges between 1-2MB. I've tried both the speed test on here and www.speedtest.net.
I'm just surfing the net normally, not doing any big downloads or anything at all. Is this likely to be the oversubscription or throttling of bandwidth (can't remember the name of it - where they reduce your speed)...?

General Angel · 22-10-2008, 21:51

I believe the throttling is called the STM in which your bandwidth is managed depending on how much you downloaded during peak hours, since you said you mainly web browse etc it could be due to oversubscription.
Perhaps some more knowledgable then me could help you out

1too3 · 22-10-2008, 21:58

Howdy,

I think its either an oversubscription issue or they are throttling everybody, it's not personally bandwidth related either since I have gone from around 7Mbps at 4:30pm today, down to the utter ridiculousness of <500Kbps at 7:30pm; and I've only transferred 180MB today, which is pretty reasonable if you ask me.. I even compared it at every 30 mins using 3 speed test sites too.

Shame really, cuz it never used to be this way. Fall from grace? I will be giving them a call at the weekend and asking some tough questions, this must now constitute breach of contract surely?

1too3

General Angel · 22-10-2008, 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1too3

Howdy,

I think its either an oversubscription issue or they are throttling everybody, it's not personally bandwidth related either since I have gone from around 7Mbps at 4:30pm today, down to the utter ridiculousness of <500Kbps at 7:30pm; and I've only transferred 180MB today, which is pretty reasonable if you ask me.. I even compared it at every 30 mins using 3 speed test sites too.

Shame really, cuz it never used to be this way. Fall from grace? I will be giving them a call at the weekend and asking some tough questions, this must now constitute breach of contract surely?

1too3

hmmm im not so sure, i think the "Up to" protects them from such claims

1too3 · 22-10-2008, 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by General Angel

hmmm im not so sure, i think the "Up to" protects them from such claims

True, clever wording in their packages, no wonder they chose that exact phrasing then. But I'm sure they'll have a hard time justifying why anyone should stick with a L package, when they are actually getting M rates or lower, that must be theft since you pay for X and get Y; may fall into misadvertising and goods sold not fit for purpose etc.. Its a minefield!

ccarmock · 22-10-2008, 22:08

I am noticing the same on the business 10 Mb/s service. They say it's due to a high TX load on the New Malden UBR I am on, but have no dates to resolve it. It coincided exactly with the roll out of the 4->10 Mb/s services.

General Angel · 22-10-2008, 22:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1too3

True, clever wording in their packages, no wonder they chose that exact phrasing then. But I'm sure they'll have a hard time justifying why anyone should stick with a L package, when they are actually getting M rates or lower, that must be theft since you pay for X and get Y; may fall into misadvertising and goods sold not fit for purpose etc.. Its a minefield!

Its certainly bad for some people, i have heard of people with the XL packages getting speeds less then 2 meg and thats without being throttled.
You buy the XL package because you want the speed benefits associated with it.... its a joke at times

---------- Post added at 21:10 ---------- Previous post was at 21:09 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccarmock

I am noticing the same on the business 10 Mb/s service. They say it's due to a high TX load on the New Malden UBR I am on, but have no dates to resolve it. It coincided exactly with the roll out of the 4->10 Mb/s services.

I have heard people say that when they were on the old 4 meg package they were getting solid speeds close to 4, once they rolled out the 4->10 they can't get above 2 meg.

1too3 · 22-10-2008, 22:19

To be honest it seems that most of the issues have been within the last year, more so in the last month or few weeks. It's not looking good if they keep this level of network "service" up, people will just flock to ADSL/2 and beyond. I recall back in the NTL days people would get solid connection speeds, no variations, apart from the people which did have issues with NTL which also did happen, but I don't remember it being anything like this. The other day a speed test site told me I had a 24kbps connection, thats sub-modem, if believed then that has gotta be a joke in the 21st century lol. Yet pings seem fine, so they are up to somin with the traffic. Does anyone know if it affects all traffic, or just HTTP?

Turkey Machine · 22-10-2008, 22:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccarmock

I am noticing the same on the business 10 Mb/s service. They say it's due to a high TX load on the New Malden UBR I am on, but have no dates to resolve it. It coincided exactly with the roll out of the 4->10 Mb/s services.

If it's happening on the business line too, that implies their service is not fit for purpose, and the business in question should be actively looking for an alternative or hounding Virgin till they give you what you pay more for.

23-10-2008, 00:14

Of course a cynic might suggest that the number of people doing speed tests in peak hours might overload the test servers & the results reported are nothing to do with the actual speeds available ???

1too3 · 23-10-2008, 00:30

Indeed the speed test sites may be overloaded at peak times yielding poor results. But having known slow downloads from other sites goes a long way to show the download speed is being cut back for some reason, it's also pretty noticeable to the end-user, heck even the VM Status page was unavailable the other day due to the crawl.

Also, when you compare it by doing the same download via a separate ADSL net connection (different ISP) in the same house you can see something is up possibly.

Right on cue, at 11pm, VM back up to 6-8Mbps.

Of course, it's not much use to have an internet connection which is only useful when you are meant to be fast asleep. Oh well.

D.Casey · 23-10-2008, 00:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by General Angel

Its certainly bad for some people, i have heard of people with the XL packages getting speeds less then 2 meg and thats without being throttled.
You buy the XL package because you want the speed benefits associated with it.... its a joke at times

Myself & all my neighbours + every person I've talked to who's on the ubr I am get less than 2mb every night on our 20mb connections, been like that since may

23-10-2008, 00:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1too3

Indeed the speed test sites may be overloaded at peak times yielding poor results. But having known slow downloads from other sites goes a long way to show the download speed is being cut back for some reason, it's also pretty noticeable to the end-user, heck even the VM Status page was unavailable the other day due to the crawl.

Also, when you compare it by doing the same download via a separate ADSL net connection (different ISP) in the same house you can see something is up possibly.

Right on cue, at 11pm, VM back up to 6-8Mbps.

Of course, it's not much use to have an internet connection which is only useful when you are meant to be fast asleep. Oh well.

I did say I was being cynical

- I don't agree with the 'only useful while you are asleep' statement, though, I am just about to cue up a number of files to download, which will continue while I'm asleep & I'll set the PC to turn off when they are complete.

I appreciate that isn't ideal for everyone, but it works for me - in fact I cannot understand why people wouldn't want to separate their downloads & their other web access in the same way???