How can I increase broadband band width?

sparkiemalarkie

Hello, I am confused between internet bandwidth and download speed.
We have a lot of devices that connect to the internet..

2 wired computers
4 mobiles
1 wireless laptop
1 youview box


Not everything is connected all the time.
However, when my son gets home from work with his iphone , ipod and PC turned on everything slows down considerably.

Is this due to the router? The internet provider ? The download speed or being too greedy?

My Talktalk contract is finishing soon and I was looking at new packages that would give us the best speeds/width for our requirements.

We have fibre and constantly getting speeds between 28-32 mb
We have the Talktalk router with open reach fibre box

What do I need to do/look for to improve the slow down please?


many thanks


sparkie

Fightsback

Spend more money, you are probably on TT's fibre medium which is 38mb down and 1mb up. Go fibre large at 76mb down and 20mb up.

PS If your contract is up then it's a good time to put the screw on TT and negotiate directly with them and see what they offer.

Nilrem

What devices are showing the slow down?

By the looks of it at least 5 if not 6 of them are wireless, in which case the issue may not be the connection to the internet (28-32mb is fairly good unless you're all watching streaming TV or someone is downloading), but it could be that there is an issue with the wireless network, such as too many other people within range using the same channel, or just that the signal is too weak where you are using it (as wifi bandwidth is shared, so if you're only getting say a 10mb signal where you sit, it could easily be a problem if someone is streaming TV).

Download and run inssider on the laptop, or wifi analyzer (if one of the mobiles is an android device) and check the signal level and how many access points are on the same channels.

Once you've done that if need be change your router's radio channel (you'll need to log into the router and look in the wireless settings - the manual should give full details).
Then go round the house where your devices are normally used and note the signal strength.

With luck simply changing the wifi channel may improve things, but there is no guarantee that changing provider or router will (it could be if it is a wireless issue that you may need to add a second access point, or a booster to cover an area of weak signal).

Basically what I'm saying is rule out possible issues relating to the wireless first, then if it's definitely not the wireless look at moving up to a higher speed package (there is zero point in moving to a more expensive package if the problem is down to the wireless setup, as you'll still have the problem)

bod1467

Unless he's got torrents running, video streaming, downloading stuff, playing games ... all at the same time ... 28 mbps should be more than fine. (Although - what is the Upload speed on TT fibre medium? If that is low - 1 or 2 mbps - then that could be the problem, especially if significant upload bandwidth is being used - such as with torrents. If it is 5 mbps or more then it should still be fine).

Fightsback

bod1467 wrote: »

Unless he's got torrents running, video streaming, downloading stuff, playing games ... all at the same time ... 28 mbps should be more than fine. (Although - what is the Upload speed on TT fibre medium? If that is low - 1 or 2 mbps - then that could be the problem, especially if significant upload bandwidth is being used - such as with torrents. If it is 5 mbps or more then it should still be fine).

Yes it is 1mb upload on TT's medium (something they keep quiet) but if they negotiate hard with TT you can get the large package for a decent price, they offered to me at £10/pm extra but still waiting for BT to pull their finger out and put the street cabinet in, exchange is live.

Strider590

sparkiemalarkie wrote: »

However, when my son gets home from work with his iphone , ipod and PC turned on everything slows down considerably.

I think you mean "when everyone in the area gets home from work and turns on their on demand TV box".

ISPs also restrict bandwidth for certain services at certain "peak" times.

GunJack

Fightsback wrote: »

Yes it is 1mb upload on TT's medium (something they keep quiet) but if they negotiate hard with TT you can get the large package for a decent price, they offered to me at £10/pm extra but still waiting for BT to pull their finger out and put the street cabinet in, exchange is live.

No, it's 2meg upload on the smaller package (I'm on it), however on fttc it still depends on your distance from the dslam cabinet, so achievable upload may be a meg (mine is 1.86 on a full 2 meg sync).

However, as has been mentioned, all fttc goes through bt OR kit, so at peak times congestion is a more likely reason for the slowdown...

Fightsback

GunJack wrote: »

No, it's 2meg upload on the smaller package (I'm on it), however on fttc it still depends on your distance from the dslam cabinet, so achievable upload may be a meg (mine is 1.86 on a full 2 meg sync).

However, as has been mentioned, all fttc goes through bt OR kit, so at peak times congestion is a more likely reason for the slowdown...

Curious though when son gets home things suddenly slow down, could be all those educational films he's getting hold of

PS GJ, thanks for the correction on upload, did remember it was pap though compared to a 40/10 or 80/20

onomatopoeia99

Find out what your son is doing on his PC. If the answer includes "bit torrent" or similar, there's the reason. Being peer to peer, the large number of individual TCP connections it establishes to every peer means that other connections get a very small share of the available bandwidth.

audigex

I'd agree with most of what's on the thread - you need to see what your son is doing.

tbh even if he was watching educational biology films, they shouldn't take up 28Mb of bandwidth - that's comfortably enough to watch 4 films at once and still have bandwidth to spare.

I'm a very heavy internet user and find 40/10 fibre is absolutely flawless even when gaming, downloading and watching several videos at the same time. My suspicion would be one of three things:

1) BitTorrent or other Peer2Peer downloading tool, as these will simply saturate however much bandwidth you have, there's no maximum

2) His phone/tablet or similar is trying to upload to iCloud or OneDrive or similar when on WiFi and plugged in. My gaming goes to crap when I plug my iPad in because it saturates the upload portion of my connection

3) That 1Mbps upload speed throttling you. Possibly in combination with one of the above. TalkTalk's 40/1 package is pathetic and is complete marketing !!!!!!!! - advertise the download speed and ignore the useless upload speed which is slower than my 6/2 standard broadband connection! It's fine if you only watch videos, but quickly becomes saturated if you do anything which involves uploading

My advice: find out what your son is doing and switch to a proper fibre package, at least a 40/10, 80/20 if you can justify it.

sparkiemalarkie

Thanks for the help.
My son did have a Torrent running some weeks back but we disabled it and it made a difference...maybe he has enabled it again. Worth looking at.
I will check the wifi channels
Hadn't thought about 'everyone' in the street affecting our wifi when my son arrives home. It's almost immediate once he turns on his wired PC... (sounds like a Torrent to me). He has an ipod in one hand, iphone in the other watching music videos (so he says)..
The upload speed is 1,81 at the moment...


I was wondering if a duel band/better router would improve things


sparkie