Switched fibre ISP - speed went up by 50%

kangoora

Just recently (yesterday) got a new basic fibre contract with Now TV broadband on a special offer.

After getting decent speeds with Plusnet originally 18 months ago (low to mid 20's Mbps), after a while, and I can't say exactly when, it dropped down to mid teens but my predicted speed on Plusnet appeared to say "up to 18 Mbps" when I checked. My original estimated speed was 19 - 27 Mbps (original 'welcome to Plusnet' email). I let it ride as I exepcted I'd be on a hiding to nothing getting them to do anything and I could cope with mid-teens speed. I am a fair distance away from the local DSLAM cabinet, another reason to accept what I had.

However, I swapped out the Plusnet router yesterday for the Now TV one and ran a couple of speed tests from different speedtest sites just to see if it had any effect. To my surprise, over the last 2 days, my download speed has jumped up to 25 Mbps. Thats getting on for a 50% increase in download speed, interestingly the latency has stayed about the same (circa mid 30's ping). I've tested it at least 4 times including peak hours Friday night.

I only swapped out the router, I even left it on the old cable as I couldn't be bothered routing in the new cable.

So, I'm wondering what reason there could for such a dramatic change of speed and came up with a few ideas:

• Have Plusnet been throttling my connection down to mid teens?
• Is the Plusnet backhaul just generally !!!! compared to the Now TV (which I believe uses Sky) backhaul?
• The plusnet router was just useless compared to the Now TV one.
• Was the plusnet contention ratio pathetic?

I'm struggling to think of any other reasons why. Anyone ever have anything similar happen to them and find out why?

[Deleted User]

Yes, no ,maybe to all of your questions.

The only one I'd say (probably) no to is regarding the quality of the respective routers but this is presuming you're using a wired connection to test rather than WiFi.

[Deleted User]

Were the tests via WiFi?

If so then the change of router could be the reason.

Did you every look at the connection speeds that the router shows on its internal web page? That is the speed that the estimates are based on, not the speed you see on a particular device.

But Plusnet could have congestion at your exchange. It isn't uncommon among any ISP but should be monitored and corrected over time without consumer input.

And yes Now TV is Sky, it's their answer to BT's use of 3 brands (BT, EE, Plusnet). So it uses the Sky LLU equipment in the exchanges and the Sky back haul so all that has changed as a result of your move.

kangoora

It's a wired connection to the test PC, 2m ethernet cable (same one as before).

The internal connection speed on the new router is showing 27 MBps but, from memory, whenever I looked at the old router it was within the bounds of the speedtester results, circa mid teens Mbps.

Just tried the BT Wholesale tester as well. I stopped using that one because it seemed to give garbage results (or would just hang) compared to two other sites. The speed on BTW has also increased dramatically, gone from anything from 8 - 15 MBps, depending how it felt on the day (well under reported connection rate on other sites) to almost 22 MBps on BTW, although it is reporting 110msec latency instead of the other 2 sites reporting circa 35 mSec latency. 35 mSec ties in to the ping I experience in games with ping counters (normally). I don't really trust the BTW speedtester due to these issues.

I did a manual check on download speeds also previously, Steam has a download speed meter and, on large game downloads, I would get a consistent 2 MB/s and peaking at 2.2 Mb/s (their reading) on Plusnet, yes, I'm geeky that way. Multiply by 8 and you get 16 - 17.6 Mb/s. I've just started a game download from Steam on Now TV broadband I haven't played in a while, it's been running for 20 minutes at a consistent 3.0 Mb/s, peaking at 3.2 Mb/s DL rate, equating to approx 24 - 25.6 Mbps DL rate.

So, ignoring BTW results, 2 different speedtest sites and a huge game supplier are all confirming a large (50%) increase in speed after leaving Plusnet.

What is particularly annoying is that I remember these sorts of DL speeds when I initially signed up to Plusnet and being excited about jumping from circa 8 Mbps on my old broadband (Plusnet was my first ISP after the local exchange was upgraded to fibre) to mid 20's Mbps.

I think I can safely say that I won't be bothering to sign back up to Plusnet again when this Now TV special offer ends

[Deleted User]

@Kangoora
Sounds like Now TV is better for you currently. I record my speed test results in a spreadsheet so can spot if things are wrong.

Hope you manage to get a final bill out of Plusnet as they are currently melting down under the implementation of a new billing system.

And, yes, the BTW speed test is a load of rubbish. Even the new non flash version they have released has major issues with the most popular browsers (Chrome/Firefox/Safari).

[Deleted User]

Just use https://www.speedtest.net for testing speed, sign up (it's free) and it'll keep your results forever. I've got them going back to 2013.

[Deleted User]

kangoora wrote: »

I did a manual check on download speeds also previously, Steam has a download speed meter and, on large game downloads, I would get a consistent 2 MB/s and peaking at 2.2 Mb/s (their reading) on Plusnet, yes, I'm geeky that way. Multiply by 8 and you get 16 - 17.6 Mb/s. I've just started a game download from Steam on Now TV broadband I haven't played in a while, it's been running for 20 minutes at a consistent 3.0 Mb/s, peaking at 3.2 Mb/s DL rate, equating to approx 24 - 25.6 Mbps DL rate.

I'd have sworn blind that Steam was limited but you're right, I'm getting 4.7MB/s on a NowTV 37Mb/s connection. This is downloading a 5.5GB update for GTA5.

kangoora

Colin_Maybe wrote: »

I'd have sworn blind that Steam was limited but you're right, I'm getting 4.7MB/s on a NowTV 37Mb/s connection. This is downloading a 5.5GB update for GTA5.

You can manually set the DL lmit on Steam if, for example, your game download is messing with streamed TV. It's in the menu steam/settings/downloads.

I suppose it is possible you were bandwidth capped at some point, I guess if they have a heavy load on their bandwidth like a new mega release day, it's possible they may cap the DL rate.

prowla

It could be that the newer supplier's kit is sized to a support a higher workload than it's currently experiencing and/or the old one's kit is pending an upgrade.

[Deleted User]

kangoora wrote: »

You can manually set the DL lmit on Steam if, for example, your game download is messing with streamed TV. It's in the menu steam/settings/downloads.

I suppose it is possible you were bandwidth capped at some point, I guess if they have a heavy load on their bandwidth like a new mega release day, it's possible they may cap the DL rate.

Ahh, no, you helped me remember that I'd set a limit on the sons computer as he was hogging the bandwidth when we were on ADSL. Not that I told him mind but then I'm paying for it