Variable download speed
 

My ISP is a national cable TV supplier and my download speeds are generally consistently good. However, today I have started to download some files (around 100mb in size each) using Scrubbu software.

The peculiar aspect to all of this is that the indicated speed starts at around 400kb/s - and then over a period of 10 seconds reduces until it reaches zero. It pauses for a second and then repeats the pattern again and again.

Any ideas as to why?

If it's Virgin you are with, try here :- Cable Forum - Virgin Media customer support and community forum

I'm no expert, but...

As I understand it, the commonest problem is contention ratio - the cable comes down the street with a fixed capacity & the teenager next door starts downloading an enormous porno file & the next thing you know your download speed disappears down the plughole.

Repeat after me :

You get what you pay for. Speeds and reliability of residential broadband service (whatever technology) are NOT guaranteed.

Time after time I see people get awestruck by the marketing bull only to be surprised by the reality.

The reasons why speed is not guaranteed are numerous and too complex to list on PPRuNE. These include but are not limited to :

- Contention (deliberate or natural) anywhere on the ISP network or "internet"

-Rate limiting / traffic shaping

etc. etc. the list goes on.


If you want a slightly more consistent service, cough up business broadband prices. :ok:

(apologies for the slight rant by the way !)

I'm having a similar problem where My daytime speed is around 7 Megs but drops down to around dial up speeds sometimes in the evening, I sent a complaint E-Mail to BT on Wednesday had a couple of calls about it on Friday, and an engineer appeared today who did shed loads of tests which proved the line was fine, installed a broadband kit for free (special master skt and cat five to the router) When he eventually left he said he would get them to monitor the exchange loading in the evenings for a week or two, so we will see. He was not impressed with his diagnostics that said the line length to the exchange was 4 kilometres, it's only about 500mtrs. :ugh::ugh:

Maybe a clue here, Watson! I have two lines to the Jim hovel. The first existed when I came here; the second is the 'family line'. The new line is measurably faster than the original: they are (according to BT diags) 1 km and 3 km from the exchange. (As the fly crows, 1km is not far off.) Engineer's comment when he visited: 'Ah, one goes by the old route, the new one goes direct'

Hmm.

I'd never heard of this Scrubbu before, so I looked it up. It doesn't look good e.g. this and this.

If any of those allegations are true, they are going to end up on a watch list and/or throttled by ISPs. You haven't given them any money, have you?