When Are Slower Than Max Speeds A Fault?

Ignition · 10-04-2005, 14:31

What it says really, at what point would you lovely people consider the following options unacceptably slow (please one from each section for peak and off-peak speeds).
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Any Telewest bods please do vote, also ADSL peeps, it's just in this section as it's the busiest

punky · 10-04-2005, 14:36

Well, you have to allow for the usual overheads, which NTL don't, they advertise theoretical maximum of 0% overheads, which is impossible? 5% overheads are realistic aren't they?

NTL should guarantee at least 15% within the realistic maxmimum, 24/7 so I ticked 20% for both. Anything less than that, it should be ticketed you should get refunds on your bill.

Raistlin · 10-04-2005, 14:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by punky

Well, you have to allow for the usual overheads, which NTL don't, they advertise theoretical maximum of 0% overheads, which is impossible? 5% overheads are realistic aren't they?

NTL should guarantee at least 15% within the realistic maxmimum, 24/7 so I ticked 20% for both. Anything less than that, it should be ticketed you should get refunds on your bill.

What he said

10-04-2005, 14:51

Perhaps the question should be 'what is considered acceptable' rather than 'what is considered a fault'. Logically, on a 20:1 contended service, anything < 5% is a FAULT, but anything < 80% could be regarded as 'unacceptable', particularly in off-peak time.

Ignition · 10-04-2005, 14:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnHorb

Perhaps the question should be 'what is considered acceptable' rather than 'what is considered a fault'. Logically, on a 20:1 contended service, anything < 5% is a FAULT, but anything < 80% could be regarded as 'unacceptable', particularly in off-peak time.

Duly edited.

I should quantify that I've seen posts on here reporting 85% performance as indicating a fault..

10-04-2005, 15:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ignition

Duly edited.

I should quantify that I've seen posts on here reporting 85% performance as indicating a fault..

hmm - bearing in mind some of us have had speed increases, recently, I was inclined to be charitable, here.

- 75% of 2Mb is still 200% better than the 750Kb I used to have and found 'acceptable'

Chrysalis · 10-04-2005, 19:29

Off-peak, 80% of Max

I would expect my isp to be capable of at least that during quiet periods.

ian@huth · 10-04-2005, 23:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnHorb

Perhaps the question should be 'what is considered acceptable' rather than 'what is considered a fault'. Logically, on a 20:1 contended service, anything < 5% is a FAULT, but anything < 80% could be regarded as 'unacceptable', particularly in off-peak time.

I would tend to agree broadly with that although a user could get less than 5% of the theoretical maximum and there may be no fault at all on the NTL side. It could be the users fault entirely, how he has got his system configured and how he is using his connection that is the problem.

Many users think that they have a right to the full 100% speed of their connection and that if they can't achieve this then NTL should improve the infrastructure so that they can. Oh, and NTL should at the same time treble the download speed, at least treble the upload speed and half the cost.

daxx · 11-04-2005, 00:51

Off Peak 95%
Peak 80%
on a correctly configured machine

jtwn · 11-04-2005, 02:04

This is probably going to sound wrong and not a great help, but personally, less than 100% service i would consider a fault, as in since the start i have had never than less, generally the problems being myself.

Though in heavy areas, I'd expect off peak no less than 95% and for the isp to compensate to about 85% on-peak. If the system can't hold that much, they shold change how the system works or not over-subscribe areas, which obviously in the world of business, is not going to happen.

On the topic, Do ntl actively refuse service in areas knowingly oversubscribed (not talking about saying no to properties not on their db)? Would policy be to get as many as possible and then warn/remove the heaviest users?

**Paul** · 11-04-2005, 08:38

Speed is dependant on the intermediate network (outside of ntl) and the far end server. If four or more people are downloading from a server on a 10Mbit connection then they are not going to get 3Mbit each, not matter what ntl's network is like ......

DieDieMyDarling · 11-04-2005, 09:58

On my 1.5mb connection i ALWAYS got the full 188k (i think that's what it was). Now that i'm on 3mb i get about 355k. For 1.5 that was 100% of the speed i should have been getting. On 3mb i'm about 20k short. I'd consider that reasonable though. I'd say 80% in peak hours is fine, and about 95% (not including overheads) is fine in off-peak.

Stuart · 11-04-2005, 10:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul M

Speed is dependant on the intermediate network (outside of ntl) and the far end server. If four or more people are downloading from a server on a 10Mbit connection then they are not going to get 3Mbit each, not matter what ntl's network is like ......

That's actually a point I've made a few times myself..

You can have the fastest connection on earth, yet if the server you are accessing (or any of the intermediate "hops" on the data's journery to you) is operating at anywhere near it's full capacity, you will be limited by that.

Earwig · 13-04-2005, 18:07

My tick went into the 85% catagory...

The odd day here and there of slower than normal I can live with quite happily.
The problems start when you have days, weeks and in some cases months of poor speeds this is when customers start to get ratty.

Funnily though any and all slow speeds I have had have ALWAYS been with the upload and not download........

Chris W · 13-04-2005, 20:13

It depends how people are measuring their speed- for example:

- i will be happy with downing 150k on bit torrent
- i will be happy with 300k on a reliable http download source
- i would not be happy with a result less than 250k on robin walkers test site....

Generally speaking though, i would expect a network to be able to provide 75% of the maximum during peak times and 85 at others.