Broadband speed, is it me just suffering

[adrian29uk]

Last few evenings broadband has been really slow. I'm with BT. Anyone else noticed this? This does not look good for the future.

 

[itszamora]

My BT connection has been utterly shite the last couple of weeks too.

 

[adrian29uk]

I am honestly starting to wonder if the network has reached capacity. Last night was like having a bloody 56k modem.

 

[skipper734]

My BT has dropped a bit 5 Mps at the Mo. Just done a speed test, it's usualy around 6 Mps.
I am about a mile from the exchange and about 200 Mtrs from the cabinet.
I live in a rural area, though there are probably quite a number of businesses firing up their computers at this time of the morning that are on the same exchange/cabinet.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Mmmmmm, I'm with BT (although I have a business package) and I was thinking the same a couple of days ago. I might give them a call.

 

[Zed Seagull]

My BT has dropped a bit 5 Mps at the Mo. Just done a speed test, it's usualy around 6 Mps.
I am about a mile from the exchange and about 200 Mtrs from the cabinet.
I live in a rural area, though there are probably quite a number of businesses firing up their computers at this time of the morning that are on the same exchange/cabinet.

Excuse my ignorance but how do you do one of those? Speed test that is.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Excuse my ignorance but how do you do one of those? Speed test that is.

just type 'broadband speed check' into google and take your pick. Make sure you have closed all applications before you do the check....otherwise you might not get an accurate reading.

 

[Zed Seagull]

Ta very muckle.

 

[Zed Seagull]

I'm with Onetel. Download speed 0.55MB and upload says 0.23MB. Is that good

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

speedtest.net is the best site I've found..

I'm on Virgin though.. So I'm like, banging in 800kb per sec.. Innit

 

[adrian29uk]

Mmmmmm, I'm with BT (although I have a business package) and I was thinking the same a couple of days ago. I might give them a call.

I would give them a call, but I'm not a business customer so I suspect I will be put through to India, only to have to go through YES, NO answers :US:

 

[skipper734]

I use Think Broadband. You can get a downloadometer and all sorts of goodies on their site.
Plus the speed test of course.

 

[Uter]

I'm in Hove and I've had several spells where my BT broadband has not been working over the last week. To be fair this is a rarity and it seems to be ok now.

There is a freephone number you can ring that will give a recorded message with up to date information about all the known BT broadband problems:

0800 169 0199

When I rang it a couple of days ago they said they were working on problems in Horsham and Hove, but they are not in the message anymore so presumably these problems have been fixed.

 

[NMH]

I've not been sure if it was the connection, or the browser - but it has been going through bizarre spells between fast, and really slow and basically 'stuck'.

I keep closing Firefox and running Crapcleaner, then opening the browser again and it's not making a difference.
A bit of a clue though, is that my antivirus has updated definitions a lot more lately - one day even loading new updates 3 times inside 1 day.

It makes me think that the internet is growing thick with viruses all of a sudden.

 

[skipper734]

It's dropped even more now all the office workers are on their chat sites.

 

[gripper stebson]

Me too. BT really slow and in fact has cut out completely on a few occasions. Anyone had any response from BT?

 

[adrian29uk]

It just goes to prove that the current network cannot cope at certain times of the day.

Its only in the last 2-3 years we have seen sites like you youtube, facebook and other streaming media properly used. And all this data needs to get pushed around the network.

Even if they upgraded users to 20MB download speeds, the same thing will eventually happen again and again.

Then what, well BT will need to replace the cabling would they not, with something that could handle 1000MB download speeds for customers.

 

[beorhthelm]

its not really the amount of data so much as the number of people. broadband is really cheap (yes really it is, ask for 1Mb lease line or other business rate products) mainly because you are sharing an upstream pipe from the exchange with 50 or in best case 20 other people. if you are in an area with high usage, you will suffer at peak times. Add to that the infrastructure from exchange to house isnt really upto it. You don't really need 5, 10, 20Mb even for streaming, but everyone wants the big numbers so the infrastructure is strained more.