ADSL... General question
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Join Date: May 2004
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ADSL... General question
Using the simplest of simple explanations can someone please explain why my ADSL download speed varies so much across a 24 hour period...
The maximum speed I can expect in my rural area is around 4.5Mbps from a contracted 6Mbps. Typically however I get around 3Mbps and I'm reasonably happy with that.
Lately our ISP Telefonica Espana aka Movistar has been heavily promoting a TV service which I presume is also delivered over the phone line. We have not accepted this service since I can get all the TV I need via Terrestrial Digital.
Coincidental with this publicity has come a considerable fall off in ADSL speed which seems to coincide with what would be peak viewing time for TV ie., late afternoon and evening. I am currently downloading the latest update for Firefox, a mere 3.9Mb patch and so far the download has taken over an hour and still isnt complete!
Typical figures from speedtest.net today have been around 2.5Mbps down and 450Kbps up but once past 1pm local this fell to under 500Kbps and is now supposedly hovering at around 150kbps down and 400kbps up. Its so slow in fact that half the time download stall completely.
We live within 100 metres of the local switching centre. Ive done all the usual things like resetting the router, swapping out cables, and I've replaced the filter in the line from the splitter to the phone just to be able to say 'Yes Ive done that...'
My computer is hardwired to the router and we dont use the WiFi. A second computer produces the same results. The problem is definitely time of day related...
I suspect the problem lies either in the switching centre in the village or that the phone lines into the village is bandwidth(?) saturated and cannot cope with the demand. Is this a feasible situation?
Ive requested an investigation from Movistar's Customer Service Dept. who have done their usual job of passing the query on to their Technical dept. and I'm awaiting their response.
Any thoughts?
Thanks.
The maximum speed I can expect in my rural area is around 4.5Mbps from a contracted 6Mbps. Typically however I get around 3Mbps and I'm reasonably happy with that.
Lately our ISP Telefonica Espana aka Movistar has been heavily promoting a TV service which I presume is also delivered over the phone line. We have not accepted this service since I can get all the TV I need via Terrestrial Digital.
Coincidental with this publicity has come a considerable fall off in ADSL speed which seems to coincide with what would be peak viewing time for TV ie., late afternoon and evening. I am currently downloading the latest update for Firefox, a mere 3.9Mb patch and so far the download has taken over an hour and still isnt complete!
Typical figures from speedtest.net today have been around 2.5Mbps down and 450Kbps up but once past 1pm local this fell to under 500Kbps and is now supposedly hovering at around 150kbps down and 400kbps up. Its so slow in fact that half the time download stall completely.
We live within 100 metres of the local switching centre. Ive done all the usual things like resetting the router, swapping out cables, and I've replaced the filter in the line from the splitter to the phone just to be able to say 'Yes Ive done that...'
My computer is hardwired to the router and we dont use the WiFi. A second computer produces the same results. The problem is definitely time of day related...
I suspect the problem lies either in the switching centre in the village or that the phone lines into the village is bandwidth(?) saturated and cannot cope with the demand. Is this a feasible situation?
Ive requested an investigation from Movistar's Customer Service Dept. who have done their usual job of passing the query on to their Technical dept. and I'm awaiting their response.
Any thoughts?
Thanks.
It sounds like you've done all the basic things that might alleviate your problem, and I'd suggest that your diagnosis of the bandwidth being throttled to be the most likely. If you live in a village maybe when the kids get home from school and play online games there will be a drop off and the same for when adults finish work, but if there has been an uptake of the new TV service and lovely Movistar haven't upgrade their capacity locally, then things will start to fall apart quickly. Have you considered satellite internet ? I was looking at a UK based provider a while back who also covered Spain and some other european markets. Their prices weren't so unreasonable and the purported speeds both up and down fast.
SHJ
SHJ
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Phalconphixer,
I've said on here before....
Basically, pay peanuts, get monkeys.... if you've got a cheap ADSL connection with high headline bandwidth, then you're going to pay with the ISP wanting (or, more to the point, needing) to maximise yield on their pipes in order to maximise (or, more likely, to make any sort of modest) profit.
I suggest you go peruse the smaller end of the small-print on your contract....
I've said on here before....
With ADSL (from any provider) it's always the same old story...
It's always a mixture of :
(a) Location
(b) Contention
(c) Packet Shaping and Rate Limiting
It's always a mixture of :
(a) Location
(b) Contention
(c) Packet Shaping and Rate Limiting
Basically, pay peanuts, get monkeys.... if you've got a cheap ADSL connection with high headline bandwidth, then you're going to pay with the ISP wanting (or, more to the point, needing) to maximise yield on their pipes in order to maximise (or, more likely, to make any sort of modest) profit.
I suggest you go peruse the smaller end of the small-print on your contract....
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SHJ... thanks for that. We've had something of a love / hate relationship with T'fonica over the years and always over ADSL speeds. The last time I contacted them was about eighteen months ago when speeds dropped right off. The problem seems to stem from the quality of work carried out my their subcontracted telecoms engineers some of whom have a habit of signing off work done without actually having done anything; they have a daily quota of jobs allocated and the time involved in travelling between clients and switching centres and actually carrying out fault diagnosis and repair is marginal too say the least.
I 've looked into Satellite Internet on various occasions and have always rejected this option due to the amount of time I spend and the up/down traffic I generate. Most Sat and Wimax systems include 'Fair Usage' clauses in their contracts which cap and throttle at quite low traffic levels and the speeds that are invoked under these conditions are typically those of the ancient dial up speeds! (Cant do Wimax anyway because we dont have line of sight to the Tx/Rx station.)
Just to cap it all and as if to disprove my earlier thoughts about throttling and or bandwidth limitations I switched on about an hour ago (10 am local) and did a speedtest using speedtest.net and got a disappointingly low 200kbps down and 400 up. Considering it should be in the region of 3-4Mbps down / 512Kbps up its all a bit frustrating.
Gonna have to put up with it for the moment. T'fonica's normal response time is 48hrs. If nothing happens I'll go through the whole reporting thing again via a 'snottygram' direct to their Customers Services Management office.
I 've looked into Satellite Internet on various occasions and have always rejected this option due to the amount of time I spend and the up/down traffic I generate. Most Sat and Wimax systems include 'Fair Usage' clauses in their contracts which cap and throttle at quite low traffic levels and the speeds that are invoked under these conditions are typically those of the ancient dial up speeds! (Cant do Wimax anyway because we dont have line of sight to the Tx/Rx station.)
Just to cap it all and as if to disprove my earlier thoughts about throttling and or bandwidth limitations I switched on about an hour ago (10 am local) and did a speedtest using speedtest.net and got a disappointingly low 200kbps down and 400 up. Considering it should be in the region of 3-4Mbps down / 512Kbps up its all a bit frustrating.
Gonna have to put up with it for the moment. T'fonica's normal response time is 48hrs. If nothing happens I'll go through the whole reporting thing again via a 'snottygram' direct to their Customers Services Management office.
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Satellite will almost certainly suffer the same contention, if not worse. Reports of the '20Mbps' connection on some UK Satellite contracts say it drops to around 1 at kiddies play time.
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Been there. You get what you pay for, pretty much.
I knew when the children were home from school when I was in Essex and with my old provider, because the 4 meg download dropped to half a meg.
I changed provider. Got 6 meg that dropped to 4 meg.
Up here, I now get 7 meg and it's constant day and night - but I'm with a "premium" ISP because I got fed up with the awful service from the Indian helpdesk I had to use whenever it went wrong.
I knew when the children were home from school when I was in Essex and with my old provider, because the 4 meg download dropped to half a meg.
I changed provider. Got 6 meg that dropped to 4 meg.
Up here, I now get 7 meg and it's constant day and night - but I'm with a "premium" ISP because I got fed up with the awful service from the Indian helpdesk I had to use whenever it went wrong.
