ALL IN LINCOLN AREA

[Ben Taylor]

Anyone else in Lincoln area getting very bad speeds?? (under 1mb pretty much at all times, except 3 to 4AM, lends me to think this is severe network congestion)

Never had this problem until a week or two ago. I'm a heavy user, have I been "sin binned"??

[york]

having same problems, only gets bad during peak times which like you, leads me to believe the network is congested.

started at 5pm lastnight, seemed to have got better around 10pm onwards.

[Ben Taylor]

Have you complained about it?

[york]

you mean have i called tech support in india on my mobile phone which costs £5-10 a time? no i havent, and lets face it, if it is congestion, they aint gonna do anything based on what i or most other customers say about it.

Other issues that are present are i play games, second reason i use my internet and since i can browse websites without issues NTL india will just tell me/us that NTL doesnt support gaming online.

Suppose we could argue that our download speeds are incorrect but either way, until alot of customers leave NTL or NTL upgrade the network in our area i cant see a solution to this problem.
I remember reading somewhere that they only upgraded the capacity in feb in lincoln.

Sorry for all the doom and gloom but this is NTL were talking about, they must think thier problems will just sort themselves out, either that or cheating/limiting other use.. i mean 'traffic shaping' is the only solution.

[Ben Taylor]

If they're having a problem with congestion then i would rather they traffic shaped, at the moment, judging by all the lag, the network is pretty much saturated.

Im currently investigating moving off ntl

[york]

I hear ya buddy, while ive said my part on traffic shaping in another thread but truth is NTL are unable to provide an unlimited service, ive been testing my connection since 1pm today.

Date/Time/DL Speed/UL Speed/Ping/Server

11/23/2006 2:59 PM GMT 348 kb/s 186 kb/s 52 ms Derby
11/23/2006 2:51 PM GMT 411 kb/s 184 kb/s 62 ms Derby
11/23/2006 2:50 PM GMT 426 kb/s 184 kb/s 54 ms Derby
11/23/2006 2:50 PM GMT 447 kb/s 177 kb/s 57 ms Derby
11/23/2006 2:33 PM GMT 422 kb/s 158 kb/s 15 ms Derby
11/23/2006 2:32 PM GMT 604 kb/s 166 kb/s 55 ms Derby
11/23/2006 1:11 PM GMT 946 kb/s 183 kb/s 38 ms Derby

As you can see its been gradually getting worse as more users start using the net, cant play any games online right now

I have a 1MB service btw, at 1pm it work perfect.

[Sneck]

I'm in lincoln here on 4mb supposedly and have been having this problem for about a week now, any time between 3 and probably about 8 the speed just drops. It seems silly they keep going from 2mb to 4mb and then 10mb and even talking about more when they can't even serve us what we are paying for at the minute.

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 16:14:11 GMT
1st 128K took 984 ms = 133203 Bytes/sec = approx 1108 kbits/sec
2nd 128K took 1078 ms = 121588 Bytes/sec = approx 1012 kbits/sec
3rd 128K took 1062 ms = 123420 Bytes/sec = approx 1027 kbits/sec
4th 128K took 1078 ms = 121588 Bytes/sec = approx 1012 kbits/secThats about average but it wobbles up and down each time.

Strangely I can torrent at about 170k but FF is crawling even with utorrent turned off.

I too am not willing to pay to tell them of their problem which is why I thought I'd check on here. If I have to ring them it will be to drop down to 2mb because I see little point paying for 4mb at the minute.


Just not good enough for 4mb is it.

Am I right in thinking if I drop to 2mb I'll be getting approx 400kb/s when it crawls so to get 4mb I need to pay for a 10mb connection?

[york]

just a test but try the london server on speedtest.net

for some strange and bizzare reason i get DL speed of almost 2MB to that server, yet im on a 1MB line

Either way its still jumping up and down, on BF2142 i get pings ranging from 50-200 every 2 secs or so.

I dont think a downgrade to 2Mb will make any difference.

[Sneck]

It would make £7 a month difference for something I'm not getting anyway.


I retried the derby one and its about the same as that now but not 4mb thats for sure.

[york]

true

I just retested and got this!



I have a 1Mb connection, im so positive of this as i have a tv+bb package unless NTL have upgraded me.
I did check with another speed test and it confirmed 1.5mb DL speed, same test provided results of 600kb and 750kb.

[Sneck]

So you're getting more than me now, how very NTL, lol

Mines up to 2.5 now so it must be crawling back up as people are sat eating their dinner.... until they finish.

On a side note, just noticed NTL have been charging me for line rental twice for the last 6 months gave them a ring and we are now in credit £70+

Life as an NTL user is never boring.

[york]

heh yeah, when i signed up i asked specifically for a bill, not direct debit, they even asked me for an upfront payment of £25 because i was doing it via a bill, 1 month later i get a bill and a thankyou for paying via direct debit.

And looks like the mass NTL customer base in Lincoln are returning from dinner.

1MB DL speed now althought it jumps around like crazy, sometimes was as low as 300kb when the test was being performed

[Sneck]

Well I think I'm going to keep checking my speeds over night and in the morning and if it stays around the 2mb mark I'll be downgrading tomorrow and if that doesn't go at good enough speeds it might be time to look into another ISP for me.

Can't see much of an option other that.

[york]

While im definatly not the quitest customer when NTL mess things up, i am also one of the happiest when they aint messing things up but like you i cant see any other options right now other than changing ISP's. (If it is network congestion)

Anyways gonna go watch a movie before ill hopefully get an hr on BF2142 later this evening.

Peace man.

[Sneck]

Yup I don't usually have any problems with NTL, well no more than anyone else and am usually happy with the series but this looks like it may be a problem that won't go away any time soon.

I wouldn't mind a slight drop during peak times if they didn't keep going on about the great speeds and 10mb and trials of more when they can't get the services they do have right.

Will have to have a word with them tomorrow.

Just done another test now that people have put their plates down...

Certainly not good enough.