o2 - Difference in Speed

cd02

Hi

I was just wondering why there seems to be a massive difference between the speed that my route is showing I'm connected at (16.6Mbs) and what speed tests are showing I'm getting (3.85Mbs).

Any ideas?

The first day I joined o2 (3 weeks ago), I was getting 15Mbs on speed test but the past week it has been real crap. I'm on the o2 Premium package and using their wireless box ii thingy lol

Thanks for any help/advice.

mk-donald

Have you checked their website to see if there is a temporary issue at your exchange ?
http://broadband.o2.co.uk/broadbandstatus/view/
though nothing leaps off those two tabs to account for that.

It's normal to get around 84% of synch as usable data bandwidth when Ethernet HARDWIRED to your modem/o2 box. Variations on a WiFi connection can vary for a whole host of reasons; so if noticing a massive drop off as you report I would first check WIRED and second check a variety of speedtest sites in case it is one site and/or Internet route that's poorly.

Then I'd get on to the 24x7 0800 support line and get their advice/help.

MKD

cd02

Erm think I'm going to and hide somewhere.. just ran the test using a wire and got 11Mbs... didn't realise that using wireless caused such a drop lol

Thanks for the advice

macman

It doesn't. Wireless (theoretically) runs at 54Mbps (far faster than your line speed), so most likely you have an issue with your wireless set up.
Start by changing the default channel in your router, and move your router around a bit to see if you can improve the signal strength.

mk-donald

Glad you're homing in on where the issue REALLY is
As Macman says you now need to turn your attention to the WiFi link.
If you are on Windows I find this freeware useful to help to identify if it's new neighbour's WLANs that have popped up and started causing interference with your own WLAN.
inSSIDer from metageek
http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider

At the very least make sure you have upgraded your WiFi security to WPA2 with PreSharedKey (to try to avoid YOUR lack of throughput being due to neighbours' kids using it for you!)

A fellow ThinkBroadband site o2 subscriber has put up a very useful site to help on some of these topics, with the o2 boxes:
http://www.o2help.co.uk/

MKD