I want to complain to my ISP but...

LucianH

... I want to build up the evidence as to the poor performance I'm getting before I do.

My problem is with streaming video which, in the evening, is usually impossible (during off-peak, have quite happily watched whole streamed Lovefilm movies without any buffering glitches (oh joy), but during the evening it's not worth trying)

What I want is a broadband speed tester that can regularly sample (say every half hour) what broadband streaming speed I'm achieving. I've installed JackDinn's Auto Speed Tester (which can build up a log at what ever time interval you want) but it doesn't give results which reflect my actual streaming broadband performance.

For example, it's now around 10pm and I can't even stream some YouTube videos (buffers every fifteen seconds). When I run JD's speed test with default settings it gives a result of nearly 6Mb/s. However, when I run the BBC iPlayer connection speed test it gives the following results:

Download speed: 2075 kbps
Streaming speed (1): 516 kbps
Streaming speed (2): 1 kbps
Streaming speed (3): 258 kbps

...which is only good for radio streaming.

Does anybody know how to change the default settings of JD's speed tester to reflect streaming performance or know of a better streaming performance checker?

Alternatively, does anybody know how to automate running of the BBC iPlayer speed tester so I can log how my broadband connection performs throughout the day? (For VB techies out there, I've tried running the iPlayer test in an IE control in Excel VBA and looking at the underlying source for the page but the tester is a Flash app and so I can't control/read it).

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Mr_Toad

It look like it isn't a fault, it looks like it's by design.

Your comment about it being fine off peak and bad during the evening is a definite indicator that you are seeing the effects of traffic shaping by your ISP. It isn't normally required during the day as most people are either at work or school but in the evening you get loads of people on-line causing contention.

Many/most ISPs throttle or delay certain data packets depending on what they contain and what levels of contention they are seeing. Video streaming/downloading is a prime candidate and is designed to stop small numbers of people hogging the bandwith with data hungry applications like video or P2P file sharing. It's used to ensure everyone gets a reasonable browsing experience.

It would also explain why your speed tester isn't giving the result you expect. It's showing you that your connection is capable of 6mb/s but that will be because the test is done with random non video data which doesn't get throttled. Your own testing of streaming video lend weight to the shaping argument.

yangptangkipperbang

I spent months trying to accurately document the state of my download speeds. I had the same problems as you report except I couldn't even listen to BBC Radio 4 - without it stopping.
The one thing that I did become aware of is that there is a huge variation in the reported download speeds given by the umpteen testers that are available !

Jack Dinn's was the only automated one that I found. After doing lots of trials I think that JD's was probably the most reliable and generally accurate.
I found the BBC iPlayer and Speedtest.net to be very erratic; the BE one seemed to read about 30% lower than any other tester.
I even had a Samknows Whitebox monitoring the performance - this did pick up large variations in speed but, of course, it never ran a test at the exact instant when my download speeds dropped to zero !!
The problem is that all testers just give you an average speed over a period of time - the average of zero and 5mbs is 2.5mbs - which doesn't sound too bad :mad: (Just like if you have one foot in a bucket of boiling water and one on a block of ice - then on "average" you are comfortable)

There are several sites from which you can download files of varying size and, with a bit of simple maths, you work out your own speeds. I used these to ascertain which of the speed test sites available was the most accurate - JD came out well.

The one thing I did discover, for sure, is that my ISP (O2) didn't really give a damn'. I sent them huge amounts of data, which was just ignored. This seems to be the attitude of many of the ISPs who seem to work on the principle that if a thousand customers leave them, then they will pick up a thousand with other customers who have had the same appalling "service" from their ISPs.

I voted with my feet as soon as BT "fibred" my town; now on Infinity 2 with constant 75mbs downloads. No problems with BT - so far.....:D:D:D

Mr_Toad

It's not that they don't care.

Internet use has changed so much so quickly that the infrastructure struggles to keep up.

If everyone was an average user, a bit of browsing, email, on-line shopping and downloading a few updates and watching something on iPlayer every now and again it wouldn't be a problem.

As soon as people like the BBC and others started streaming video that bandwidth became a big problem, in particular how to ensure the few who stream constantly don't hog all the resources. Add to this the hoards of people downloading pirated films, games and music and the problem just gets worse.

Video streaming is what largely killed off the "Unlimited data" mobile contract where a very small percentage of users were constantly streaming video to their phone.

I once sat opposite someone on a train for 4 hours and for the whole journey all they did was watch YouTube.

And so traffic shaping was born to even things out.

Things won't improve until the whole network is fibre and even then I wonder if it will be enough. Sky must be very worried about all the IP TV stuff that's just starting to proliferate. Why go to the trouble of having a satellite dish and box installed if you can get your TV and films on-line.

What are the odds that on-line TV becomes the norm and even the fibre network starts to struggle. Google certainly believe this is the case, they are currently offering 1Gb/sec fibre to one area in the USA.

I too am on BT Infinity starting next week, I fully expect the it to slow down over time.

I have four friends who have recently bought new TVs and three of them have signed up for either LoveFilm or Netflix because they were available on their new TV complete with free trial.

yangptangkipperbang

Mr_Toad wrote: »

It's not that they don't care.

I must disagree with you there - the company doesn't care, the staff are poorly trained (if at all !) and are just incapable of dealing with even the most basic of of customer queries.
When I phoned to ask for a MAC I was told that my "problem" had been resolved 10 months previously and there was no record of my numerous ongoing complaints/reports of poor service in that period !

Mr_Toad wrote: »

Internet use has changed so much so quickly that the infrastructure struggles to keep up.

Agree there !

Mr_Toad wrote: »

I too am on BT Infinity starting next week, I fully expect the it to slow down over time.

It probably will - but hopefully later, rather than sooner !

adamc260

At peak times my 30mb connection struggles to load videos on youtube even if I change the quality so it looks like it was recorded by a calculator.

It's just the ISP's throttling it so 'everyone can get online' even if the experience is less than perfect.

Not ideal but.. that's life =/