BT Broadband useless during peak time (i.e. daytime)

SideB

macman wrote: »

200kBps is 0.2Mbps. A tenth of your previous speed.
You couldn't have got 20Mbps with O2-your line will only support about 7Mbps. You may well have been on an up to 20MB tariff-not the same thing.
If the speed drops only when you download or stream, then it sounds like you are being traffic shaped by BT, as bod suggested. Which broadband tariff are you on-all but the highest package is managed.
Without router stats no-one can tell you any more.

I don't understand because my downloads on O2 definitely were going at 2MB/s whereas with BT at a good time it's 200kb/s but usually more like 20-30kb/s. If my line only supports 7Mbps which is 0.875MB/s why was I able to download at considerably faster speeds with O2?

warehouse

Hi O.P. I have 20mb broadband from Virgin, so you would hope that your 20mb BT broadband would be similar.

Try this test and let's see how bad your speed actually is.

http://www.speedtest.net/

Once the page has loaded, click on "begin test". You are then able to share the result as I have below.

macman

SideB wrote: »

I don't understand because my downloads on O2 definitely were going at 2MB/s whereas with BT at a good time it's 200kb/s but usually more like 20-30kb/s. If my line only supports 7Mbps which is 0.875MB/s why was I able to download at considerably faster speeds with O2?

7MBps is 7Mbps-not 0.875Mbps!
You were downloading with 02 at up to 7Mbps unthrottled. With BT you are being throttled (possibly) to 0.2Mbps. So O2 were 35 x faster.
Router stats will reveal all.

SideB

This is the result I get:



I don't know about the figures, but what I know is that with O2 I could download at decent speeds and watch videos online without issue, with BT, I can't; despite them promising the same service.

SideB

macman wrote: »

7MBps is 7Mbps-not 0.875Mbps!
You were downloading with 02 at up to 7Mbps unthrottled. With BT you are being throttled (possibly) to 0.2Mbps. So O2 were 35 x faster.
Router stats will reveal all.

I have a BT Home Hub 2.0, it's not on the router stats page you linked to?

warehouse

SideB wrote: »

This is the result I get:



I don't know about the figures, but what I know is that with O2 I could download at decent speeds and watch videos online without issue, with BT, I can't; despite them promising the same service.

That's pretty good speed, about 8mb worth. You should have no problems downloading files and video clips should be easy to load without issues. Are you having issues right now?

SideB

warehouse wrote: »

That's pretty good speed, about 8mb worth. You should have no problems downloading files and video clips should be easy to load without issues. Are you having issues right now?

Yep I am; so BT limits any kind of activity other than normal web browsing as far as I can see!

SideB

I've spoken to customer support and they're able to do Infinity at the same price I'm paying; £28 a month for unlimited internet/calls (+£10 line rental). Is this a good deal?

It would involve extending my contract 18 months, but I'm happy with that if it's a good deal... My alternative would be to take out broadband with O2 which would come to a similar cost and hopefully I'd get the full speed. So... what would be better, BT Infinity or O2? Would they still limit downloads/videos on Infinity?

Thank you!

bod1467

BT is BT. Even with Infinity you'd still be connected to the same backbone network. (Although BT may be allowing Infinity customers more freedom, but I can't say for sure). The reason O2 were better was because they were using BE's network, which is entirely separate from BT's.

If you were downloading at 2MB/sec on O2 then you likely had a sync speed of 18mbps or better, probably nearer 20mbps. This means your property is likely fairly close to the exchange - line length about 1.5km at a guess.

Are you on ADSLMax with BT? (Up to 8 meg). Or is it an ADSL2+ connection (up to 20meg)? (The speed test you posted suggests ADSLMax).

macman

SideB wrote: »

I have a BT Home Hub 2.0, it's not on the router stats page you linked to?

Then try the HH1 info.
If not look on the BT BB help pagesfor HH2 and it wil tell you what the log in info is.