artificial download speed cap with BT

GauchoMarx · 16-09-2009 9:24pm #1

hi there... well, I have started to become suspicious.
I am on BT 7.6Mb... fairly close to the Glenbrook exchange.

When I download a torrent from a members only site I will download at full speed with up to 750kB/s. But when I download anything else with FF, IE8 or just wish to watch a video stream, the fastest speed that I can get is about 130 kB/s. Unfortunately this isn't even enough to support a decent mid-quality video stream. Even internet radio streams run out of buffer from time to time.

the above stats are fairly typical.

Even if I download the test files provided by my ISP -which according to the tech support I should be able to download with full line speed - I only get about 140 kB/s max.

Could they somehow be limiting the usual ports that are used for internet and multimedia protocols? like I said, my torrent client downs with full speed...

To test that theory, I want to route all traffic that usually use port 80 & 1935 through higher ports to mask that traffic. How could I accomplish that? any help or ideas are welcome

PogMoThoin · 16-09-2009 10:38pm

Download this, pick Ireland Heanet, tell us what speed Your getting after a few mins

Router stats are needed also to see the quality of Your line

GauchoMarx · 16-09-2009 11:15pm

well, I selected the mentioned download connection after 10 minutes speed levels in at approx 85 kB/s. Not too good...

Here are my stats...

stats look good as far as I am informed. Also I am about 900 meters from my exchange...

DECEiFER · 16-09-2009 11:20pm

GauchoMarx wrote: »

well, I selected the mentioned download connection after 10 minutes speed levels in at approx 85 kB/s. Not too good...

Here are my stats...

stats look good as far as I am informed. Also I am about 900 meters from my exchange...

Did you forget something?

GauchoMarx · 16-09-2009 11:26pm

DECEiFER wrote: »

Did you forget something?

öhm... did I forget something?

DECEiFER · 16-09-2009 11:29pm

GauchoMarx wrote: »

öhm... did I forget something?

You know, this is my bad. My Internet, for the first time all week, is under performing again down at ~100Kbps. The ****in' image didn't load up at all and I hadn't even seen a partial load in the 30 or so seconds I had been idle on the page.

EircoN, scumbags.

Now, onto your stats. They are grand, can't see any problems with line noise and signal. You should ask your ISP to lower your Interleaving Profile (two settings are available, High and Low), and you seem to be on high one.

My stats are even better than that as I'm only a mere 100m or so away from my exchange, and my net can and often does get iffy during the evening time up until midnight-ish. Your line stats are not the cause. The likely cause is the load in the exchange, or similar. It's most likely an Eircom problem, since they manage the lines and the exchanges. Good luck getting it resolved. Posting here about your woes, gets you into the club of dissatisfied ADSL customers in Ireland, which there are many - and they ain't getting any more satisfied as the months and years progress onward.

PogMoThoin · 16-09-2009 11:35pm

Nothing wrong with Your line, would they be throttling You for overuse of bandwidth? Have You asked them?

GauchoMarx · 16-09-2009 11:43pm

hm, I have only been with BT for 2 weeks, just moved in here

overuse of bandwidth could not be the issue as I wasn't able to upload more than 10GB and I have their "unlimited" package. And of course my torrents downs with full speed :cool:

oh and the tech sounded very riddled too... he said I should be able to absolutely max out that line...

I will give them a call tomorrow about that interleaving profile, see if they can change that... what is that thing good for anyway?

Thanks for your help guys, much appreciated...

DECEiFER · 16-09-2009 11:50pm

GauchoMarx wrote: »

hm, I have only been with BT for 2 weeks, just moved in here
overuse of bandwidth could not be the issue as I wasn't able to upload more than 10GB and I have their "unlimited" package. And of course my torrents downs with full speed :cool:

I will give them a call tomorrow about that interleaving profile, see if they can change that... what is that thing good for anyway?

Thanks for your help guys, much appreciated...

The Interleaving on your connection is just the method that your packets are sent out (they are interleaved). It's more reliable than not having it on where ADSL is concerned, but at the cost of increased time in delivery. In short, your ping is greatly affected, which isn't good if you intend on playing games on your PC or Console. While they won't turn it off, they can set it to a lower profile for you. Also, it minorly affects your browsing, but not so much your downloads. It's just something worth taking advantage of, if I'm to be honest, but it won't solve your problem. Sorry I can't be of more help, but a lot of us have been looking for solutions to this sort of problem for a long time.

I would call BT TS and whilst asking them about the Interleaving issue, ask them to sort out your speeds. They'll blame you, ask you to check your phone points to make sure your router is hooked up correctly, and they'll blame your PC for probably being infected, they'll do everything everything but own up and take the blame themselves, but you might get lucky and they'll just blame Eircom instead (rightly so, as it probably is their fault, but BT have a responsibility to deal with them on your behalf - as Eircom won't deal with you directly). Just cut in through them when they pull this crap and don't give in. Threaten to report this issue to ComReg if they refuse to help you out properly.

GauchoMarx · 17-09-2009 12:02am

^^ I will see what I can do... just will have to keep my fingers crossed I guess

don't want no slow connection... thanks mate

DECEiFER · 17-09-2009 12:05am

GauchoMarx wrote: »

^^ I will see what I can do... just will have to keep my fingers crossed I guess

don't want no slow connection... thanks mate

Sure, and please keep us posted.

GauchoMarx · 17-09-2009 12:16am

DECEiFER wrote: »

Sure, and please keep us posted.

sure thing

PogMoThoin · 17-09-2009 8:38am

GauchoMarx wrote: »

..............and I have their "unlimited" package.

Not unlimited, they falsly advertise as unlimited but there have been threads about them throttling people when they exceed a certain amount, I think its 150GB. Use the search function here.

Although after 2 weeks this is not Your issue. Ring them and complain bout speeds, don't mention maxing with torrents, that will only confuse the matter. just tell them Your download speeds are poor

GauchoMarx · 27-09-2009 11:54pm

well, no news so far... speed has continued to get slower and slower... "Yes, we will inform Eircom about this issue" blabla...

Bohrio · 28-09-2009 7:25am

GauchoMarx wrote: »

well, no news so far... speed has continued to get slower and slower... "Yes, we will inform Eircom about this issue" blabla...

if you draw a line between dublin and galway will you be anywhere above 50 km of that line? approximately?

Have an idea of what this is... and you are not the only one. And no, BT do not traffic shape neither you are being throttled.

Please let me know

BlackWizard · 28-09-2009 9:07am

If it's not traffic shaping or trottling, what are you thinking it might be?

Bohrio · 28-09-2009 9:56am

BlackWizard wrote: »

If it's not traffic shaping or trottling, what are you thinking it might be?

If they are on bitstream I am thinking that the cause might be Eircom's Mullingar BAS and the interconnect to citywest.

I have a feeling that Mullingar is back into production.

GauchoMarx · 28-09-2009 8:10pm

Bohrio wrote: »

if you draw a line between dublin and galway will you be anywhere above 50 km of that line? approximately?

Have an idea of what this is... and you are not the only one. And no, BT do not traffic shape neither you are being throttled.

Please let me know

well, I am about as far down as it is possible from that line... so that is good or bad? judging by the speeds I get it is definitively baaad...

http://maps.google.de/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=de&geocode=&q=passage+west,+ireland&sll=52.61639,-8.009033&sspn=3.218614,4.724121&ie=UTF8&ll=52.908902,-8.129883&spn=3.197079,4.724121&z=8&iwloc=A

GauchoMarx · 28-09-2009 8:11pm

Bohrio wrote: »

If they are on bitstream I am thinking that the cause might be Eircom's Mullingar BAS and the interconnect to citywest.

I have a feeling that Mullingar is back into production.

say what?

just moved to Ireland two months ago, no clue what you are talking about

Bohrio · 29-09-2009 7:38am

GauchoMarx wrote: »

well, I am about as far down as it is possible from that line... so that is good or bad? judging by the speeds I get it is definitively baaad...

http://maps.google.de/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=de&geocode=&q=passage+west,+ireland&sll=52.61639,-8.009033&sspn=3.218614,4.724121&ie=UTF8&ll=52.908902,-8.129883&spn=3.197079,4.724121&z=8&iwloc=A

There is another similar BAS (Broadband Access Server) down south too but I dont remember the name now. Of course you could be having a completely different issue too! But judging from your line stats and unless the problem comes from your PC (like spyware or p2p software, NIC issues) I doubt it.

Bitstream is DSL that Eircom re-sells to other ISPs. Most people in Ireland whose broadband go through the telephone line will have bitstream.

This type of congestion will manifest randomly, most likely 24/7 but also during mornings, evening, night time... not at a particular time (unlike an overcongested exchange which always shows symptoms at peak hours).

If none of these is the cause, it could be a faulty card or trib at the exchange, but more people from your area would be affected. There are ways to spot this but only BT, in your case, and obviously Eircom, can tell.

Bohrio · 29-09-2009 7:57am

GauchoMarx wrote: »

say what? just moved to Ireland two months ago, no clue what you are talking about

Have they tried downgrading you a bit? Ask them to bring your line down to 6 mb for example and see how it goes. From your stats I think interleave is set a bit high

29-09-2009 8:58am

Sorry if i missed this in earlier posts but do you have any sky boxes or alarms on the same phone line?

Duiske · 29-09-2009 3:39pm

Hi Guys, having a problem with my BT 3mb connection since last Sat, and every speedtest has come back largely similar to the one below.

I've been on to tech support and went through the obvious with them, ie, removing phones from the line, connecting the router (voyager 2110) with and without filters on both phone points in the house. Theres nothing else on the line, alarm, sky box etc. No joy.

Line Mode G.DMT Line State Show Time
Latency Type Interleave Line Up Time 00:05:42:26
Line Coding Trellis On Line Up Count 2

Statistics Downstream Upstream
Line Rate 3072 Kbps 384 Kbps
Noise Margin 30.2 dB 15.0 dB
Line Attenuation 2.0 dB 3.0 dB
Output Power 2.3 dBm -3.9 dBm
K (number of bytes in DMT frame) 97 13
R (number of check bytes in RS code word) 0 0
S (RS code word size in DMT frame) 1 1
D (interleaver depth) 1 1
Super Frames 1208555 1208599
Super Frame Errors 0 1
RS Words 0 0
RS Correctable Errors 0 0
RS Uncorrectable Errors 0 0
HEC Errors 0 0
OCD Errors 0 0
LCD Errors 0 0
ES Errors 0 0

I don't know anything about the stats, although the guy I spoke to in tech support mentioned that the noise margin was quite high.
Anyone ever come across something similar, and maybe have an answer ?

A friend is dropping over his laptop and a router in a few minites. I just want to rule out equipment problems before I get back onto BT.

Oh, and I'm about 30/40m from the exchange.

Any help/advice greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Bohrio · 29-09-2009 4:07pm

Duiske wrote: »

Hi Guys, having a problem with my BT 3mb connection since last Sat, and every speedtest has come back largely similar to the one below.

I've been on to tech support and went through the obvious with them, ie, removing phones from the line, connecting the router (voyager 2110) with and without filters on both phone points in the house. Theres nothing else on the line, alarm, sky box etc. No joy.

I don't know anything about the stats, although the guy I spoke to in tech support mentioned that the noise margin was quite high.
Anyone ever come across something similar, and maybe have an answer ?

A friend is dropping over his laptop and a router in a few minites. I just want to rule out equipment problems before I get back onto BT.

Oh, and I'm about 30/40m from the exchange.

Any help/advice greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I dont think many people in this countrt have a better line than yours.

Perfect is the word. Noise margin too high is not bad, on the contrary, the higher the better.

Where abouts are you?

hellboy99 · 29-09-2009 4:27pm

Duiske wrote: »

Hi Guys, having a problem with my BT 3mb connection since last Sat, and every speedtest has come back largely similar to the one below.

I've been on to tech support and went through the obvious with them, ie, removing phones from the line, connecting the router (voyager 2110) with and without filters on both phone points in the house. Theres nothing else on the line, alarm, sky box etc. No joy.

I'm in the same boat for over a week now. I have been onto BT Tech support myself (again they have been more than helpful

) and the issue with mine is currently still been looked into.

I'm on BT 7.6MB (Dundalk, Co.Louth), speeds and webpage load times have been all over the place for just over a week now, speeds from below 1MB to under 3MB, webpage load times fine one minute then crawling the next. From Sunday to now speeds are ranging from below 1MB to 6.5MB, and now today my pings are all over the place too.

My mates Eircom 3MB up the road from me and my parents Eircom 3MB (they're in Carrickmacross, Co.Monaghan) are just as bad, so it's not just BT customers that are having problems, no doubt Eircom have messed up something as usual :rolleyes:

Duiske · 29-09-2009 4:40pm

Bohrio wrote: »

I dont think many people in this countrt have a better line than yours.

Perfect is the word. Noise margin too high is not bad, on the contrary, the higher the better.

Where abouts are you?

Borris, Co Carlow. Yea, they did mention that the line attenuation was particularly good. Anyway, just off the phone to them and they have logged a fault. Have to say, even though they have not managed to figure out the problem yet, BT tech support are a pleasure to deal with.

TheDeficit · 29-09-2009 5:28pm

it says alot about the state of broadband in this country that we even know about stuff like attenuation and interleaving.

GauchoMarx · 05-11-2009 4:54pm

howdy again... sorry for the late feedback...

In the meantime I have received a replacement router from BT, no changes at all...
now they have switched my line rate from 7.6 to a 3 mbit profile. The speeds I am able to get did not change at all, still as crappy as before.
BT has now booked another line fault with Eirecom while on the 3mbit profile... see what they come up with. The first line fault they booked came back absolutely clear. :mad:
IF all fails, I suppose it could only be an internal wiring issue? Who would I have to contact to look after such an issue with internal wiring?

artificial download speed cap with BT

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