Fast broadband?!

dylanuk

Son just kept saying it was AOl!

It still could be. Not all broadband connections from different providers are going to be the same - even if it technically is still broadband over the same cables.

How providers deal with your traffic at the exchange varies, how many people share the same line (the contention) and whether or not the provider uses traffic shaping or speed throttling.

The differences between how AOL manage traffic and how BE manage traffic are vastly different. So it's not just a case of, 'you wouldn't get a faster service even if you went with Be so there's no point'. Chances are - you would, in fact, get a faster service with BE - because of a number of factors.

It might not be the difference between 3.5Mb and 10Mb - but it might be the difference between an effective 1Mb and actually getting 3.5Mb.

If you are gaming a lot in the evening - AOL is probably throttling you or you're just experiencing poor contention (too many people sharing) on AOL's service.

Be don't squeeze as many people onto the same line and don't have problems with high contention. They also don't throttle your speeds if you're a heavy user.

Another point - AOL don't prioritise gaming traffic, it's treated the same as anything else. Whereas, even if you went with Plusnet (who's just a standard BT wholesale provider) you'd still get a faster service because they prioritise gaming traffic (so it doesn't get slowed down by people downloading movies or large files).

Additionally, unless you went for Virgin's 50Mb service - if you're gaming in the evening, or afternoon you're likely going to be throttled by 75% on Virgin, so you'd still probably end up with a slower effective speed.

jem16

annie12 wrote: »

It's from about 5-9pm that we have the problem, so it may not be any better?

It may or may not be.

I have Virgin BB, currently 10Mb at the moment. During the day I get around 10Mb. Hiowever after 8pm approximately this drops to less than 2Mb, sometimes less than 1Mb. Up until a few weekas ago I had the 20Mb service and the same thing happened. I have had an engineer out and it has been called utilisation spikes - in other words too many people using it! However I am in an ex_NTL area with old equipment that really needs upgrading.

My son lives about 5 minutes away and has Virgin 20Mb service and always gets that speed no matter what time of day - he must be on newer equipment with less people.

You could always go for the flagship 50Mb service.

I also have O2 BB as I intended leaving Virgin until they offered me a can't leave it deal. O2's estimate was 7Mb - my router syncs at 6.1Mb and I always get around 5.5Mb at all times.

jem16

dylanuk wrote: »

It might not be the difference between 3.5Mb and 10Mb - but it might be the difference between an effective 1Mb and actually getting 3.5Mb.

She did say she was getting an actual 3.5Mb according to the speedtest she provided. Granted it was during the day.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/710951215.png

annie12

An update!!
Son has said that the download/upload speed varies every 10 minutes.
He says it usually is download speed 1.2 & upload speed 0.05

jem16

annie12 wrote: »

An update!!
Son has said that the download/upload speed varies every 10 minutes.
He says it usually is download speed 1.2 & upload speed 0.05

Perhaps monitor the speeds at different times of day and see if there is a pattern.

Does it always go down in the evening?

If he uses it during the day is the speed alright then for his gaming?

If so as dylan has suggested you may benefit from a move to the likes of O2 who have no throttling.

annie12

jem16 wrote: »

Perhaps monitor the speeds at different times of day and see if there is a pattern.

Does it always go down in the evening?

If he uses it during the day is the speed alright then for his gaming?

If so as dylan has suggested you may benefit from a move to the likes of O2 who have no throttling.

I will monitor it, thanks.

It doesn't normally, he said 1-2 days a month, but it has been bad since saturday.

annie12

Not tied in to a contract with AOL, so could move

luci

If you use the speed tester at ThinkBroadband HERE and register on the site, it will log your speed tests so you don't have to keep taking a note of them.

jem16

luci wrote: »

If you use the speed tester at ThinkBroadband HERE and register on the site, it will log your speed tests so you don't have to keep taking a note of them.

https://www.speedtest.net also logs all your speed tests - you just click on My Results. No need to register either.

Gemsgalore

I am with Virgin BB on 10MB and our speed was 3-5MB during the day and around 2MB evenings. Yesterday, on the advice of a Virgin engineer on the phone helpline, we took our connection off the Netgear firewall we are using and put it straight on to our BB connection......the speed went up to 10MB without the firewall!! So, assuming the firewall was obviously slowing down our speeds considerably, we got a new one and put it on last night. Result is we now have 10MB speed during the day and in the evening. :beer:

So anyone having speed problems, it may well be worth checking your firewall as ours seemed to be functioning well otherwise and we had no clue it was causing this. My son games all night every night and has no problems with Virgin BB