BT turning speed down and latency up ??

wapicho

Hi All & Happy new year

Wanted to see if anyone else has seen the same issues as I have.

Right 4 ISP's in the last 18 mths.

1. Zen internet - perfect but expensive, 7mb down speed.
2. Newcall (resold Tiscali ie TalkTalk) awful, ever degrading service, speed, latency and "locking/freezing" where had to reboot router to reinitialise connection to exchange.
3. Idnet - perfect, 7mb again, issues disappeared the moment I switched.
4. BT - same as TalkTalk - same old nightmare, and BT are not helping, denying any issues. (speed down to 3mb, latency v. high, rebooting router 3 to 5 times a day).


In the above sequence nothing changed in terms of hardware or line. Did testing with faceplate off - 3 different routers - all same results.

Changed to BT to save money, but it's been a bad move.
I can only conclude that TalkTalk and BT actually restrict access and speed. If a third party can deliver superior service on all BT kit something is seriously off - it does not seem likely to be accidental.


Any thoughts guys ?
(Currently trying to get contract canceled as service not fit for purpose, (click and wait 2 mins, or click and nothing happens, reboot router and it's ok again for a little while, but speed way down).

How do I get out of the contract and get back to a competent ISP ?

Any thoughts or contacts gratefully received.


(Apologies if broke any rules - first post).

kwikbreaks

You say no hardware changed. Does that include the router as most ISPs will supply one and some at least of your problems relate to having to reboot yours.

wapicho

HI Kwikbreaks

Same router, same settings apart from login details - used same old netgear for each ISP.
Also tested 2 other routers.
I know rebooting drops speed, but only reboot router when connection "freezes".
Get exactly the same behaviour with another model netgear and a draytek.

I suspect if I change ISP back to idnet or Zen the issue will go away, (as it did when I changed from TalkTalk to idnet .... no change of HW - went from lots of issues to none).
Just wondered if anyone else had ever had a similar experience.
Thank you

rgds

mark

WTFH

Did you try the router BT sent out?
Are you using torrent sites?

kwikbreaks

What I find strange is that the BT connection is having issues because I'm guessing that Idnet are just a BTw reseller the same as BT retail so the only change when switching to them would have been a keyboard job to alter the BTw routing of your connection to the correct datacentre.

It would be useful if the next time you get a "freeze" you check the router stats. If you can't access the router then that is the cause of your issues. If you can check to see if you still have sync - if you don't then that can't be ISP related either. The only way the ISP can be involved is if your session with them has dropped while the physical connection is still up and running. It could sometimes look that way before the ISP connection gets re-established after losing sync but that shouldn't take long at all.

To see that number of issues a day I'm guessing they happen while you are actually actively using the connection. What were you doing at those times? Downloading? Just surfing? Streaming?

wapicho

Thanks kwikbreaks

Yes it is odd (hence me posting - v. confused).
Router is AOK - (all three of them give same results when tested).

"locking" occurs when browsing, using email, remote sessions, streaming, anything at all really.

At all times router is accessible and home network (wired and wireless is fully functional)
Connection shows as between 3 and 4 mb and shows no issue, BUT there is no connectivity in that nothing responds (latency is so high that there is no response at all).
We then login to router web page and reboot to reinitialise the connection to the exchange.

Once rebooted we are working again (though speed drops) and still with latency issues.

The really odd thing is BT and TalkTalk give same issues while zen and idnet do not.
They are reselling BT services I guess, but provide 7mb down, 0.5mb up and no latency with no need to reboot router.

It appears as if BT and TalkTalk are somehow degrading the service.

Very confused, but confident a change of ISP would fix - really want to understand what BT are doing to make things so bad.

thanks again
rgds

Mark

WTFH

Can you answer these two:

WTFH wrote: »

Did you try the router BT sent out?
Are you using torrent sites?

Also what BT package are you signed up to?

wapicho

Hi WTFH

Have used torrents, but use is v. infrequent.
99% of the time, there is no torrent traffic.

Did not try BT router, did not get one sent out.
Tried 2 x netgear routers and 1 draytek, all behave in same manner.
(All is fine with router - issue appears to be at exchange or beyond).
Note: issue is limited to BT and TalkTalk.

When I switched from TalkTalk to idnet I only changed user name and pwd on router, service went from 3mb and huge latency issues to 7mb and no latency.

Now I've switched to BT I'm in the same situation I was in with TalkTalk.

Am confident if I can switch to Zen or idnet issues will disappear, but what are BT are TalkTalk doing different ?

thank you for your help

regards

Mark

WTFH

Just going through ideas...
Filters?
Have you checked SamKnows to see what connection you are using and what speed you should be getting?
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

wapicho

Thanks WTFH - tried 3 different filters too - behaviour unchanged.

Could it possibly have anything to do with the way SNR/DSLAM/profiles are handled ?
(Don't understand this yet, but read somewhere of issues with latency if SNR profile is at 3mb).

thank you

regards

Mark

kwikbreaks

Did the problems start the moment after yu changed the idnet user/pass to the bt one? If so then it certainly is a mystery. What are the router stats showing now? Even the maximum target margin of 15dB wouldn't result in a drop from 7Mbps to 3Mbps sfaik.