Is BT playing games?

[wellmiffed]

Hi Guys,

 

I know you don't deal with such issues as such, but i'm just looking for non-biased opinions

 

I started with a new ISP in July, all was good except for phone which was sorted out very quickly.

 

I seem to be having slight problems with my internet (downloads and uploads), i've asked my ISP if there are problems at their end and they assure me that there are none, BT engineer has been out and they say all is good (which is their normal solution), does anyone know if BT are up to their old tricks again?, by old tricks i mean interfering, i have tried to look for links to where i read about them (purposely) causing problems to gain back lost customers, i'm hoping that maybe someone here can remember such issues and help out with a link.

 

Thanks in Advance.

[locutus]

So, you switched ISP from BT to another one on the same line and your speed seems to have plummeted?

 

Your Broadband for the 1st 10 days with many providers goes into a "training" period, where it starts off at a slow speed, and checks for disconnections and raises or lowers your profile acording to how many disconnections there have been. Have you reset your router much? This can fool their systems into thinking you are having lots of disconnections and slowing your profile accordingly.

 

Who are you with out of interest?

[rebel11]

Here are some links:-

 

http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/internet-service/speed_check

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2010/07/broadband-speeds-2/

[wellmiffed]

Thanks locutus, i did try your methods before contacting the ISP (plusnet),but it always came back that everything was fine.

 

Thanks rebel11.

[locutus]

That is strange then, AFAIK plus.net is just re-branded BT. Plus.net do have a rep on CAG, so I'll message him to pop in

[wellmiffed]

Thanks locutus

[Guest Bob Pullen. Plusnet Customer Support]

Hi there,

 

Sorry to hear you're having problems. There's no foul play though I can assure you of that. It wouldn't make commercial sense considering who we're actually owned by!

 

The fact that you've moved from BT to us makes it a little easier as the underlying infrastructure is likely to be the same. Having said that, it isn't outside the realms of possibility for a physical line fault to suddenly rear it's head and our core network is completely separate to BT's.

 

What problems are you having with your downloads/uploads? Does the problem only affect certain types of traffic or does it affect everything? Have you switched from using a BT router to ours and if so are you connecting wirelessly or using an ethernet cable?

 

If you can provide a little more background and some means of me identifying your account (username or recent support ticket reference) then I'll happily take a look to see if there's anything I can do to help?

 

Best regards,

[wellmiffed]

Hi Bob, I have been on the (PN) forum with the problem before, If i'm d/l'ing then i'll struggle to go on the net/surfing to do anything else, with other ISP's i never had this problem and was running 2 and 3 computers at a time even with the worse provider (TT), when i was with BT there wasn't an issue, i'm not knocking PN as i'd heard a lot of good about PN, that's why i asked on here if BT were purposely interfering as they had done in the past, i was under the impresion that although PN was a subsidary of BT they were independant even though they still have to go through their network.

 

PN's user name coolbr33ze, i think the last ticket was about September when the engineer came out and done all the checks and said everything was good, i'm about 1/3 mile from the exchange as the wiring runs/crow flies,i'm about 50m from the street box.If you need anything else let me know, so long as it's layman.

 

I use a Netgear DGN2200 router which is new after thinking that DG834GT was playing up.

Edited March 6, 2012 by wellmiffed

[Guest Bob Pullen. Plusnet Customer Support]

Hi Bob, I have been on the (PN) forum with the problem before, If i'm d/l'ing then i'll struggle to go on the net/surfing to do anything else, with other ISP's i never had this problem and was running 2 and 3 computers at a time even with the worse provider (TT), when i was with BT there wasn't an issue, i'm not knocking PN as i'd heard a lot of good about PN, that's why i asked on here if BT were purposely interfering as they had done in the past, i was under the impresion that although PN was a subsidary of BT they were independant even though they still have to go through their network.

 

Thanks, your connection's pretty stable and your line profile is 10Mbps+ so that's not the problem/ What does seem to be causing issues is the fact that you're saturating your upload link. There are times when all of your upload is being used which is affecting your download speeds as it strangles the ack packets your machine needs to send when browsing etc.

 

From what I can see this traffic is primarily coming from a P2P client.

 

Few suggestions:

 

1. I can uncap your upload which should roughly double your available upstream bandwidth (won't cost you anything). Let me know if you'd like me to do this.

 

2. Configure your P2P client so that it can't use all of your available upstream bandwidth. Most of them will have an option that allows you to specify the maximum upload speed. Try setting this to 256kb/s or 32kB/s.

 

3. Pause your P2P downloads when browsing.

 

We're doing all the traffic management we can on the downstream to ensure that your browsing isn't affected by things like torrent downloads. Unfortunately there's not a great deal we can do about the upload side of things (as it's your side of our edge routers).

 

Best regards,

[Bang!]

As BT own Plusnet you need to look for other causes.

[locutus]

Look at your bandwith like a water pipe... if you fully open a tap, the pressure (or bandwith) to other taps gets reduced. It seems you are downloading something that is taking up 100% of your bandwith. Sort that to 75% of your maximum speed and you'll cure this problem instantly. If it is torrents, let us know what program you use and I'll tell you what option to lower your maximum download thrugh that to 75%

[wellmiffed]

Thanks Bob, If you think uncapping it will improve things then yes go for it,my upload speed is set at 73.72kbit/s, the upload limit is set at 9.0kb/s.

 

Thanks locutus, i use utorrent.

[locutus]

Do a speed check at http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/speedtest Write down the numbers.

 

Open utorrent, press and hold CTRL and tap P

 

Multiply your numbers by 80 (as translating between mega bits and killa bytes that equates to about 75%) and fill in the figures... your downloads will slow a little, but not exessivly and you still reserve enough bandwith for surfing

[wellmiffed]

Thanks locutus,D/L 9.7Mb U/L 0.4Mb, so i've set the D/L rate at 776. the speed test result is with nothing else running.

[locutus]

So, has that sorted it?

[wellmiffed]

Just doing a D/L to check, appears to be good atm, could be if PN has uncapped it might be doing something, i'll see how it goes over the next few days.

 

Thanks locutus.

[locutus]

Happy surfing I hope it was just utorrent sapping all your bandwith, if so that should be an end to your problems

[wellmiffed]

Thanks, lets hope so.

[Guest Bob Pullen. Plusnet Customer Support]

Thanks Bob, If you think uncapping it will improve things then yes go for it,my upload speed is set at 73.72kbit/s, the upload limit is set at 9.0kb/s.

 

I've placed an order to have the upload uncapped. It will complete on Monday at some point.

 

Best regards,

[wellmiffed]

Thanks Bob