Beware upc is limiting your download speed

rosmoke · 04-03-2015 2:40pm #1

I am always checking my internet speed and I am constantly getting 250 Mbps using the lan cable.
For the last 2 days I was having 80Mbps, I felt something was wrong and I experienced the same issue with a different ISP in a different country.
The thing which is really funny is that always after contacting them and providing them with my account number, after 1 minute my speed was back to 250Mbps.

So be careful and don't let them charge you for half of what you're supposed to get.

Nollog · 04-03-2015 3:23pm

I think this is unlikely.

Slippin Jimmy · 04-03-2015 4:30pm

Is upc not up to 240mb only??

Cuddlesworth · 04-03-2015 4:47pm

Duffff-Man wrote: »

Is upc not up to 240mb only??

The cable run is contended to a point. I think you can get 24 Channels out of 3.0, with each house currently configured to use 8(440MB max), meaning it's unlikely to hit contention 99.9% of the time. I would be surprised if most cabs were not on a single 1 gig backbone too.

ArthurG · 05-03-2015 9:18am

I love these dramatic speed restriction/reduction threads. Bit of a service interruption and all of a sudden you have a conspiracy to slow down your gaming/torrenting/youtubing or whatever. The fact that there may have been a genuine problem that the caller highlighted to UPC (which they fixed) doesn't seem to have occurred to him of course..... that would be far to simple an explanation

rosmoke · 05-03-2015 10:19am

I wouldn't make this thread if I wasn't sure. I am monitoring my speed almost daily. My speed was down to 80Mbps the last two days and after I spoke with them on chat it took only 50 seconds to recover my full speed. And she said that she didn't do anything "maybe the problem resolved by itself". All this time I have tried with 3 different laptops. I know there are busy times usually in the evening when the internet is a bit slow sometimes but that's not the case now because I checked it in different times of the day.

ED E · 05-03-2015 11:03am

Did you check the line stats? Sounds like it'd bonded on some of the channels. That being the case a reset at the CMTS could restore it.

I have a whitebox monitoring my connection, as do several others here, if UPC were getting cheeky with things we'd see it straight off. Take off the tinfoil hat.

rosmoke · 05-03-2015 11:29am

ED E wrote: »

Did you check the line stats? Sounds like it'd bonded on some of the channels. That being the case a reset at the CMTS could restore it.

I have a whitebox monitoring my connection, as do several others here, if UPC were getting cheeky with things we'd see it straight off. Take off the tinfoil hat.

I was testing using lan connection so it has nothing to do with channels if you're reffering to wifi channels. Look if it was the first time when I would've heard about that I would be sceptical as well but this situation happend to me in the past and other people have experienced as well.

Of course I can't say that i'm 100% sure this is what happend because i'm not working at upc but it's just too strange that 2 days it's slow and after talking with them, it took a few seconds to recover my full speed. It's a bit too strange don't you think?

degsie · 05-03-2015 11:43am

rosmoke wrote: »

Of course I can't say that i'm 100% sure this is what happend because i'm not working at upc but it's just too strange that 2 days it's slow and after talking with them, it took a few seconds to recover my full speed. It's a bit too strange don't you think?

Welcome to the world of technology, where sometimes things go wrong and then get fixed. Nothing to see here.

ED E · 05-03-2015 11:51am

rosmoke wrote: »

I was testing using lan connection so it has nothing to do with channels if you're reffering to wifi channels. Look if it was the first time when I would've heard about that I would be sceptical as well but this situation happend to me in the past and other people have experienced as well.

Not wifi, DOCSIS. There are channels on the Co-AX too.

bk · 05-03-2015 11:59am

As ED E says many of us here on boards are using samknows boxes to constantly monitor our UPC connections all day long.

If there was any widespread limiting of peoples speeds by UPC, then we on this forum would certainly notice it and report it.

I'm certainly seeing nothing troublesome on my UPC connection per samknows, in fact it is looking fantastically reliable and stable.

That isn't to say there wasn't some issue with your equipment or your local area that was causing issues and which UPC were seemingly able to easily fix.

But it is complete hyperbole and factually incorrect to claim UPC are doing widespread limiting.

dbit · 05-03-2015 12:00pm

Your speed is determined via a docsis config file sent from the cmts backed tftp server. This would not take only 1 minute to change and would require a reboot of the modem. When your modem registers to the cmts at power up the mac address is cross checked with customer DB and if on the list tftp server sends your modem the config file based on your account sign up package entitlement. I can assure you that upon giving your account number that what you suspect is impossible.

dbit · 05-03-2015 12:03pm

IT is however possible that the CMTS had issues with some of the bonded Docsis channels at the time and the fact you gave your account number is just co-incidental in your observations.

grimm2005 · 05-03-2015 12:55pm

bk wrote: »

As ED E says many of us here on boards are using samknows boxes to constantly monitor our UPC connections all day long.

Not to mention UPC themselves have emailed customers asking to be involved with the samknows monitoring. They would hardly get involved with this if they were actively throttling connections.

rosmoke · 05-03-2015 1:23pm

dbit wrote: »

Your speed is determined via a docsis config file sent from the cmts backed tftp server. This would not take only 1 minute to change and would require a reboot of the modem. When your modem registers to the cmts at power up the mac address is cross checked with customer DB and if on the list tftp server sends your modem the config file based on your account sign up package entitlement. I can assure you that upon giving your account number that what you suspect is impossible.

That's actually a very good argument, it's just hard to understand why always i'm getting over 240Mbps, except 2 days when I was getting around 80Mbps and in the same time when I was chatting with them it solved by itself, the lady from support told me that there isn't any problem on my line and asked me to try again and voila .. it worked.

dbit · 05-03-2015 1:33pm

rosmoke wrote: »

That's actually a very good argument, it's just hard to understand why always i'm getting over 240Mbps, except 2 days when I was getting around 80Mbps and in the same time when I was chatting with them it solved by itself, the lady from support told me that there isn't any problem on my line and asked me to try again and voila .. it worked.

Pending the CMTs unit , they may be able to kick it in the pants if its evident its been dropping channels ? Im not suggesting they are doing it but they could also see low traffic users and set them as low priorty QOS for channel bonding >?

satguy · 06-03-2015 12:52pm

I am seeing a speed drop,, my UPC has gone to S**t lately...

ArthurG · 06-03-2015 12:54pm

satguy wrote: »

I am seeing a speed drop,, my UPC has gone to S**t lately...

Based on this one sample, UPC are obviously doing something suspicious. Time to call Joe.

dbit · 06-03-2015 1:07pm

You might as well get a water flow meter while your at it !!!!!

dbit · 06-03-2015 1:09pm

ArthurG wrote: »

Based on this one sample, UPC are obviously doing something suspicious. Time to call Joe.

dodgy Fconnectors , bad cabling , crossing cores? damdaged Coax, oxidising Coax ? Bad Tap ? I presume all this was checked first ?
Years ago you could see the operating parameters of the modems on the web page , have they locked all that out completly now ? ( Havent used UPC in over a year), then there are the test modems ........

Calibos · 06-03-2015 7:40pm

Moved the modem to another room once and made up a longer coax extension. Speed tested 20mb on our 120mbit connection. signal to noise ratio had jumped on most channels. Wiggled the cable and ran another test and got my full 120mb. Turned out to literally be an errant strand of shielding bridging the core.

tunney · 24-03-2015 10:27am

ED E wrote: »

Did you check the line stats? Sounds like it'd bonded on some of the channels. That being the case a reset at the CMTS could restore it.

I have a whitebox monitoring my connection, as do several others here, if UPC were getting cheeky with things we'd see it straight off. Take off the tinfoil hat.

http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~tunney/chart_1427189119.png

Screen shot from my samknows box, same thing all year. come 2pm down and down and down to min 9mb and then come 2am back up to 200mb.

Seems alot like either throttling or contention to me?

dbit · 24-03-2015 10:29am

tunney wrote: »

http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~tunney/chart_1427189119.png

Screen shot from my samknows box, same thing all year. come 2pm down and down and down to min 9mb and then come 2am back up to 200mb.

Seems alot like either throttling or contention to me?

What type of traffic samples are being monitored , I do know for sure UPc traffic shape and have used sandvine in the past ? is it a false positive or a hit ?

Cuddlesworth · 24-03-2015 10:41am

I would have said contention considering the times. A couple of your neighbours must be on the extreme end of torrenting.

Beware upc is limiting your download speed

Comments