Broadband speed check

Squire_Fulwood

Can I suggest that you all do a broadband speed check if you have not done it already. The reason is that I have three close relatives on the Internet and two of them have asked me about problems they are having.

In the case of one of them his broadband kept dropping out and it was every time someone in the house used the phone. His Skype image was awful as well. I suggested he did a speed test and it was 0.2Mb/s. The package was advertised as "up to 8Mb/s". After much arguing with his ISP and an appointment with an engineer the speed was turned up and everything is now fine.

The other one was in the process of buying a new computer because the old one was so slow. It was suggested she did a speed test and it was 0.12Mb/s. This one was also advertised as "up to 8Mb/s". She got a MAC number and is in the process of moving to another ISP.

I am writing this because two out of three suggests that there might be more out there.

Oblivion

I check mine daily as a matter of routine. My 8Mbit ADSL2+ service did fall to less than 1Mbit a few months back and after much argument with Virgin call centres I finally persuaded them to book a BT engineer visit.

He immediately traced the problem to a corroded terminal outside and replaced the telephone line from the junction box to my flat. It's been back at 8Mbit ever since.

robatwork

This is the one I use (won't work for cable but seems to work for unbundled broadband too in most cases)

http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/

wiogs

I trust your relatives are aware that they won't necessarily get the "up to speed"

Squire_Fulwood

wiogs wrote: »

I trust your relatives are aware that they won't necessarily get the "up to speed"

Yes they are and they used to get in the region of 5Mb/s so there has been a reduction.

RumRat

Daily check......62MB constant & steady...:):cool:

Squire_Fulwood

I am beginning to think I am missing some information here. I just checked my own speed and it is also 1M down from 5M. In my case I did not have any need to complain since I have not noticed any deterioration in service so far. Mind you I have not done anything heavy in terms of downloading for a while.

If anyone knows what is going on I would be grateful.

Quiet_Spark

8Mbps over what I'm supposed to get, that'll do for now I suppose

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

I've got one of these. It checks every few hours and gives me nice graphs.

kwikbreaks

Squire_Fulwood wrote: »

I am beginning to think I am missing some information here. I just checked my own speed and it is also 1M down from 5M...
.
.
If anyone knows what is going on I would be grateful.

Well you've missed giving some information...
Is your connection wired or wireless?
What speedtester did you use (some are useless)?
Have you checked your line stats?
How did you originally measure your speed as 5Mbps and how long ago?

System

Don't forget that if you are on ADSL then if you have dropouts your BRAS profile will drop until a stable connection can be achieved. This can take up to 10 days to recover to previous levels.