Does anyone get a "yo-yo" effect?

[Lariol]

I live in Sheffield and recently changed my Blueyonder broadband service from 1mb (£25) to 4mb (£35) [and am looking forward to getting the 10mb soon once Telewest finish their upgrade work].

My problem is this: when using Usenet, on the 1mb service I was getting a pretty constant download speed of 120 kb/s all the time. Since I've changed to the "4mb" service my download speed jumps up and down like a yo-yo , from as low as 10kb/s up to 415 kb/s.

Has anyone else experiance this yo-yo effect? Because I certainly wouldnt call it 4mb!

Cheers for any replies.

[Stuart]

to the forum!

[Lariol]

Here's a graph to illustrate the "yo-yo" speed problem.
This graph shows my download speed over 10 minutes!

http://www.kygs.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/graph.jpg

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

to the forum!

...

Lariol that's not that uncommon from the people who are complaining here about some issues with Telewest.

A lot of it comes down to there not being enough capacity to go around, that's almost certainly what's going on in your case.

On the upside Telewest are currently doing upgrades on Yorkshire for the upgrades in speed so with a bit of luck when they've completed these upgrades your speeds should be back to normal, then you'll get your 10Mbit.

[Lariol]

Cheers for that. Yes, I had seen that Telewest were doing the Yorkshire upgrade work currently. I just thought it was odd that with the 1mb service the download speed was always constant; it never varied from 120 kb/s at all really.

[picapau]

guys. this is a bad joke. i've been with telewest for a few years now...
never had any problems !
but now... i can't even watch the bbc news clips using the bbc news player... for information, they all stream at 225 Kbps (bits, NOT Bytes !)...
i keep cheking my speed all the time with www.speakeasy.net/speedtest...
by the way, i live in london, and i'm in NW1 (Camden Town)...
most of the time, my max. download speed is now around 200 or 300 Kbps (Kilo bits per second)... often it's as low as 160 to 180 Kbps...
for your information, a few days ago i asked telewest to switch me from 4Mbps to 2Mbps, and the speed yo-yo's that i get now are no worse or no better than before...
in other words, if you live in any problem area like my one NW1 (Camden Town), and I've heard that there's a few in the UK, well it probably DON'T matter whether you're on 2Mbps, 4Mbps or 10Mbps...
those in my area are paying £17 more that me for 10 Mbps... and for what ? for NO reason !!!! because until telewest move their bums and get their act together all that any of us with get is not even 1 Mbps in NW1 !!!!!!
and i can't even switch to cable & wireless's bulldog, because 1) it's adsl and i'll have to pay £60 for a new netgear 54 Mbps wireless router with integrated adsl modem and micro-filter, 2) i'll have to also switch my landline to bulldog (when i'm very happy with my telewest one... there's NOTHING wrong with it !!! it's only telewest's internet that i'm having problems with !!), and 3) because we are cable customers and not BT customers, WE CANNOT KEEP OUR PHONE NUMBER !!!! yes, you heard (read !!) it right !!! bulldog don't mind giving us broadband, but they also want to take a landline that we don't need, even though this means that we'll have to have a new phone number !!! oh yeah. and another thing. i don't think it is because they are using traditional landline wires and a traditional landline socket that traditional landline signals have to flow through those wires. i don't see a reason why they can't just feed dsl internet signals in those wires and that's all, if we don't want telephone as well.

anyway... i think i can only do 2 things... and that's exactly what i'm gonna do !!!
1) write to telewest broadband and complain
and write to them again and complain
and again and again and again
until they SOLVE IT !!!
2) and speak to OFCOM about bulldog that should be forced to unbundle the 2 different services they provide, because forcing us to have to take the other one when subscribing to the first one is probably uncompetitive... and if OFCOM can do something aboout this, then i'll switch straightaway to bulldog, but internet only !!!

anyway, please all do like me... as i think that we're all having the same problem up and down the country !!!! and right now we're being short-changed and ripped off and taken for a bunch of idiots big time !!!! especially since, like others have found too, it's also very difficult to get telewest to admit to this very serious issue !!!!!
good luck !!!!

[skywave]

Originally Posted by Ignition

...

Lariol that's not that uncommon from the people who are complaining here about some issues with Telewest.

A lot of it comes down to there not being enough capacity to go around, that's almost certainly what's going on in your case.

On the upside Telewest are currently doing upgrades on Yorkshire for the upgrades in speed so with a bit of luck when they've completed these upgrades your speeds should be back to normal, then you'll get your 10Mbit.

A lot of this could also be down to websites, somtimes when I download stuff it only comes down at half the download speed, and on other sites it could download at my full 4 mbyte. Hower, I have found that DAP gets round this problem so I use that DL manager whenever possible as my normal download manager for some reason does not go the whole hog. I'm confused on that one.

[sturitch]

It exactly the same in bristol mate and I have composed my first Letter of complaint asking for a refund.
I believe the programme watchdog are pulling bulldog in for a grilling over stuff like this so it in vouge maybe worth emailing them too.
I wish you the best of british at getting it sorted out.

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by skywave

A lot of this could also be down to websites, somtimes when I download stuff it only comes down at half the download speed, and on other sites it could download at my full 4 mbyte. Hower, I have found that DAP gets round this problem so I use that DL manager whenever possible as my normal download manager for some reason does not go the whole hog. I'm confused on that one.

If the websites were throttling it'd remain at a constant speed though, not be all over the place as that chap's were.

[hoofner]

Originally Posted by sturitch

It exactly the same in bristol mate and I have composed my first Letter of complaint asking for a refund.
I believe the programme watchdog are pulling bulldog in for a grilling over stuff like this so it in vouge maybe worth emailing them too.
I wish you the best of british at getting it sorted out.

Living in Bristol also I've had it pretty bad for months; they've been refunding my bill in full each month but the problem appears to have been resolved - I've had decent 15-30 pings and full bandwidth availability for the last 3-4 weeks, which hopefully is to last.

The last time they did give me a refund though I spoke to someone fairly senior and he said they would not be able to continue refunding me, and the only choice would be to exit the agreement early (without cost) or pay the full fee. The guy explained that they'd been sending letters to some of their customers hoping to resolve some of the overuse of bandwidth - so maybe it's beginning to work...

[sturitch]

Hi thanks for your responce i checked my speed again today still nothing like a 4meg service.
I cant belive they are trying to blame this on the people who pay for unlimited use, thats the deal either they provide it or they refund they cannot change the terms of the contract half way through.
If they cannot supply a service it is their fault 100% no excuses you cannot blame it on people actually using the service you meant to have been supplying it is rediculious I cant belive people put up with nonsence like this.
It a bit like ordering a car then they deliver 4 wheels and tell you well we din't think everybody would really want a whole car so we only bought enough parts for half, i am sorry you only have wheels but it is because of those selfish users that insist on a car just because they paid for one.
On the other hand I am glad you got a refund it the very least you deserve and I dont see why you should leave the contact with no cost to you ,lol it them thats breaking the contract and them liable for all your costs.They arent doing you afavour letting you go early their saving them selves further costs lol.