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.