Issues with slow connections

[Stephen Coates]

As some of you may know, I have a very cheap internet connection, which is limited to a rather small 10GB per month. After you use up the 10GB, the connection slows down to about 150kbps.

This keeps causing problems. I can set off a file to download, and it will start at, say 15kB/s, but then after a few minutes it will slow down to less than 1kB/s and then stall indefinitely. On some servers it will time out instead. The same issue happens with some websites, where it will download part of the page, then stop. In fact, the post new topic page wouldn't fully load, so I had to switch to the mobile view.

Is this likely to be an issue with servers? Or is it more likely to be an issue with the ISP? I don't transfer a lot of data, and can put up with a slow connection for a few days of the month, but I would like it to at least be reliable.

Any suggestions are welcome.

[Harrison]

Is this only happening once you hit the monthly cap, or at any time?

I really don't see why any ISPs need to impose data limits on broadband these days. Just proves some are trying to run their business on the cheap by running limited lines at each exchange, then over subscribing them and throttling everyone to attempt to manage the limited physical data bandwidth they have available.

It doesn't matter how fast you're connection reported from your house to the exchange, if the connection from the exchange to the isp is worse.

What ISP are you with and how much are you paying? You can get unlimited broadband for under 6 a month these days.

I must admit though that the difference since switching from adsl to fibre is amazing. My ADSL was unlimited and about 6mbps, but suffered connection stutter and download issues sometimes, common with most ADSL connections. But with bt infinity I've not really had any of these issues and it's really smooth using it. Downloads have in fact been getting faster, with Usenet yesterday achieving over 80mbps!, meaning over 10MB/s. That is amazing.

Anyway, back to your issue. I don't think I could put up with even 150kbps download speed. That's really show in this day and age. Only just faster than dial-up. You really could do much better with another isp.

The other main issues causing bad data packet loss could be noise on the line. Have you tried a quiet line test? Or a faulty router. I've had so many issues over the years with bad routers. If they start playing up they can start syncing at really low speeds, and a reboot with often see then up back up to the true line's bandwidth until the router warns up, then it starts to drop again.

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[Stephen Coates]

These problems only occur when I hit the monthly cap. It is fine at all other times. Therefore, I'm quite sure it is not a problem with my modem. I'll reset it though just be sure. I'm satisfied that there is no noise on the line.

I have thought about fibre, but its a bit too expensive at the moment, and my ADSL speeds are normally pretty good. I had my line upgraded to ADSL2+, so can achieve pretty good speeds with that. My current modem can only support upto 8Mbps, but I have had it faster with a proper ADSL2+ modem.

Currently, we pay about £6.50/month with PlusNet. Data transfer is unlimited during the night, so I do most of it then. I probably manage about 20GB per month for free during the night, and just over 10GB per month of daytime usage. I agree that the 150kbps restriction is slow by todays standards, but I'd be happy with it for a few days if it meant a good price saving. However, I do still expect it to be reliable :D.

[Kin Hell]

So un-cap yourself & have an un-limited service. :thumbs:

I pay £10 a month for 38Mb Fibre with Sky Unlimited. - .....but you have to subscribe your line rental with them & not BT.

I'd only be guessing you're with TalkTalk for that kind of wallet damage & TalkTalk is a really really crap service, period. ;)

[Stephen Coates]

Don't worry, I'm not with TalkTalk. I'm with Plusnet (aka Force 9).

We are planning to change the telephone service to Plusnet's own. That and an uncapped connection will still be cheaper than what we pay now.

[Harrison]

You know the Plus.net is owned by BT?

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[Stephen Coates]

Yes, but Plusnet line rental is still cheaper than BT.

[Harrison]

That depends. How much are they charging? I'm with BT and only pay £10 a month (because I pay it yearly in one go).

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[Stephen Coates]

We pay roughly £88 per quarter for the BT line rental, calls, and Plusnet capped ADSL.
If we had a combined package of Plusnet's telephone line and uncapped ADSL, it would cost about £74 per quarter (inc some calls). That is a bit cheaper, plus I would no longer have to put up with the 10GB cap.

[DonAmiga]

I take it you don't get access to free wifi with plusnet?

[Kin Hell]

Good to hear you're not with TalkTalk. They should re-name thier business to LaggLagg ffs! :lol:

However, Harrison is right: PlusNet is owned by BT so you get screwed by BT's standars which isn't pretty. Anything to do with BT will throttle you silly from 4pm onwards. Torrent files fdor example will simply CRAWL. - Sky however is un-throttled & afaiac, it Rox. Got a 1.2Mb/sec DL happeninng atm with a 21.5GB version of "The Heat" movie. - Started an hour ago...only 4hrs to go @ current speed. :D

[Stephen Coates]

Kin, have you used TalkTalk before? They've never really appealed to me, but I'm sure I've heard bad things about them.

I'm not bothered if it slows down a bit in the evening, as I still download most large stuff over night. Given that I would only download around 30GB per month on average anyway, it is easy to do overnight.

Don, no idea about free Wi-Fi. Do you mean like on other people's premises? Because I have my own private 802.11b network here for use with wireless devices.

[Kin Hell]

@ SC

Not personally, but I know of several friends who have. Having seen it performing personally, it's a very very poor service, believe me.

[DonAmiga]

As Im a bt customer I get unlimited free wifi from bt fon, openzone, hotspot, etc. So just wondering if plusnet offered it? I know a couple of people with talk talk and they don't rate their customer service.

[Harrison]

Good to hear you're not with TalkTalk. They should re-name thier business to LaggLagg ffs! :lol:

However, Harrison is right: PlusNet is owned by BT so you get screwed by BT's standars which isn't pretty. Anything to do with BT will throttle you silly from 4pm onwards. Torrent files fdor example will simply CRAWL. - Sky however is un-throttled & afaiac, it Rox. Got a 1.2Mb/sec DL happeninng atm with a 21.5GB version of "The Heat" movie. - Started an hour ago...only 4hrs to go @ current speed. :D

Really? Where did you get that info? As you know I'm on BT Infinity and haven't had any issues with torrents at any time of the day. I mostly use it for retro and emulation these days though.. and the last big download was for a MAME update, which downloaded at about 4MB/s. And the limit there was the tracker and seeders.

Sounds like your connection is slow Kin? 1.2Mb/s or MB/s? If it's just torrents how do you have it setup? What port are you using? And are you using PeerBlock and encrypted torrents?

I tend to use Usenet these days for most stuff and that maxes my connection for most downloads. Yesterday it was a steady 10MB/s (79Mb/s). Downloaded a 10GB film in about 18 minutes. ;)

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[Stephen Coates]

I pleased to say that the connection has been quite reliable over the last day. On Thursday it was hopelessly unreliable.

[Kin Hell]

@ H

Start another thread if u like. My speeds have nothing to do with SC's issues.

[Harrison]

I'm not strict about how thread discussions progress Kin, as long as it's not completely off topic. We often have a thread starting about something and progressing on to something related. It's how real conversations happen after all. If you however want to start another thread to discuss your exact download issues please do. :)

[DonAmiga]

BT's TV advertising claims not to slow down internet speed! ;)

[Harrison]

From my personal experience they don't, but I have also read on some forums that they have been known to throttle torrent traffic on some people's connections. I'm wondering if this is mainly ADSL connections though, where the bandwidth does matter more and can affect others on the same exchange contention (although ISPs claim these days that contention doesn't exist, it does).

[Kin Hell]

@ H

There are so many conditions that can be affecting SC's connection, I feel it best not to complicate things with my issues, as these realms might send SC in the wrong direction and/or cause unnecessary worries. ;)

Personally, I'd also like to "not go on" about it..... - The record has a groove in it, ....deeper than the Grand Canyon. :eyebrow:

[Stephen Coates]

I'm pleased to say we are getting an uncapped connection from the start of next month :).

I also ought to buy a new ADSL modem as my line has been ADSL2+ for some time now, but my modem only supports MaxDSL, so I can probably squeeze an extra couple of Mbps out of it.

[Harrison]

I highly recommend Billion routers. Well worth it. If you want a feature picked one get the 7800n, but if it's features are not needed then their lower priced ones like the 5200 are great.. I got my parents one of these and they never had an issue.

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[Stephen Coates]

I was pondering getting a DrayTek modem. They do a dedicated modem which ought to work fine with my existing router (of which I am thinking about changing the software on), but I'll definitely keep Billion in mind. I've known of the company for some time, but haven't really considered them before.

[Harrison]

Draytek are also good.

Whatever you get try to get one that supports both ADSL and a direct WAN connection (used for cable and fibre). This is a useful inclusion because if you later upgrade to fibre you can use the same router.

[Stephen Coates]

I've ordered a DrayTek Vigor 120. Its a dedicated modem, so should work reliably, and be compatible with most routers. Ordered it from Dabs. Funnily enough, I've known of Dabs for many years, but never actually bought anything from them till now.

I expect I will be using ADSL for a good few years, so if and when I do get fibre, I'll just get dedicated fibre hardware then. Although fibre does look tempting, realistically, I don't have much use for the extra speed and because of that it isn't worth the extra money.

[Harrison]

Faster downloads are great, but for me the huge bandwidth difference with fibre finally allows the internet to work as it should. Fluidly. No horrible pauses or buffering, or waiting hours for a Windows updates or a game to download or update. Just a few minutes for anything.

Something else it also finally allows is on demand services. With ADSL it was a bit ofa joke trying to stream even YouTube, but with fibre I can access Sky OnDemand on HD in real-time, stream hd YouTube and any other video services. It makes the need to own films and music less important as you can just select and play it when you want.



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[Kin Hell]

Faster downloads are great, but for me the huge bandwidth difference with fibre finally allows the internet to work as it should. Fluidly. No horrible pauses or buffering, or waiting hours for a Windows updates or a game to download or update. Just a few minutes for anything.

Something else it also finally allows is on demand services. With ADSL it was a bit ofa joke trying to stream even YouTube, but with fibre I can access Sky OnDemand on HD in real-time, stream hd YouTube and any other video services. It makes the need to own films and music less important as you can just select and play it when you want.



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No Fluidity here on Fibre. Hell, ..... I even get CHOKE on a 38Mb connection with interleaving off. -Total pi$$ take H. - Nothing registers so you end up firing blanks from ur AK47. - Dick Head BT muppets ffs..... :mad:

Meh!....record again..... :dry:

[Stephen Coates]

My current 8mbps connection is fine for streaming video. Well, it manages 720 line video fine. 1080 lines is pushing it a bit. I still prefer downloading videos to the HDD though where possible just for reliability, as sites such as YouTube can be a pain in the backside, regardless of connection speed.

Harrison, how long do your Windows updates take? I just updated my entire Debian OS and it took well under an hour to download.

[Harrison]

Depends how large the download is. I normally get over 8MB/s for Microsoft downloads. For Steam it always maxxes the connection, which is normally 9-10MB/s, so a 8GB game downloads in under 16 mins.

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[Stephen Coates]

The DrayTek modem arrived the other day. Unfortunately it hasn't been any faster, despite having faster sync speeds.

It was nice and easy to set up. Unfortunately though its telnet/http configuration sites can't be accessed when the modem is connected to the router. They can only be accessed when the modem is connected directly to a PC. This seems strange, but apparently, it is normal behavior.

[Harrison]

You purchased a separate modem? Why not a combined one? What router are you using with it? That could affect the overall performance.

So, from what you are saying you can only manage the modem when connecting it directly to a PC to configure the connection and see what current download/upload speed it is connected it? That's quite limiting if that's right.

[Stephen Coates]

You purchased a separate modem? Why not a combined one? What router are you using with it? That could affect the overall performance.

So, from what you are saying you can only manage the modem when connecting it directly to a PC to configure the connection and see what current download/upload speed it is connected it? That's quite limiting if that's right.

Yes, its a separate modem, like my old one. I'm using my old Buffalo WBR2-G54 router. It doesn't seem to make any difference to the speed.

It does indeed seem peculiar that you cannot access the modem's stats when it is connected to a router. But you aren't missing out on any configuration, as there hardly is any.

[Stephen Coates]

It finally speeded up. I thought it would if I gave the telephone line a while to adjust to the new modem.

I went on speedtest.net and got 14.15Mbps download and 0.41Mbps upload :). I've been downloading some YouTube videos and got about 1.4MBps. Not bad for DSL.

[Harrison]

That's not bad at all for ADSL, and actually a very useful bandwidth. You should be able to watching streaming HD video with that.

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