Broadband - Campaign for real English
 

After years of happily subscribing to BT Total Broadband and, due to living within sight of the exchange, getting a steady download speed of between 6.8-7.4 Mbps, I've been a bit disgruntled to find that in the last week this performance has dropped to around 1.2-1.4 Mbps. This morning, it's down to 234 Kbps :eek: ....slower than the dial-up line I had 10 years ago.

So, after using speedtest.net to a few servers I logged on to BT's own speedtest site and ran a test. Got a bunch of figures about best efort and stuff, and wasn't quite sure what they were banging on about, so I clicked on the link to visit the FAQ to explain what this all meant.

This is what I got:

• Download Speed is 450 Kbps. This is the actual rate achieved during the Performance Test. This rate will never reach the IP profile rate and this is normal.
• Acceptable range of speeds is 288-500 Kbps. If your download speed lies in this range, then there is no fault on your line and your Broadband service is deemed to be working fine.
• DSL Upstream connection rate is 500 Kbps. This is the upstream DSL line rate, and is the same rate that will be shown on the EU CPE or its associated software.
• DSL connection rate - Downstream is 1000 Kbps. This is the End User downstream DSL line rate, and is the same rate as shown on the EU CPE. This is the maximum raw data that can be transported across your line. Your actual throughput will always be less than this rate and this is due to overheads taken up by the higher layer protocols, retransmissions etc. and this is normal.
• The EU IP profile rate is 500 Kbps - This is the IP rate set on the BT Wholesale BRAS that the End User is connected to. The EU IP profile rate will be less than the DSL downstream connection rate due to the overheads of the IP service and this is normal.
• Assured Rate IP Profile* is 500 Kbps - This is the IP rate for the QoS session, set on the BT Wholesale BRAS that the End User is connected to.
• Assured Rate - download speed* is 450 Kbps - This is the actual assured rate achieved during the Performance Test. This rate will never reach the Assured Rate IP profile rate and this is normal.
• The throughput of Best Effort (BE) classes* achieved during the test is - 5:20:75 (SBE:NBE:PBE)- These figures represent the percentage ratio while sententiously passing Sub BE, Normal BE, and Priority BE marked traffic through the network. Total download speed achieved during the Best Effort test is sum of these three types of Best Effort traffic that were passed through the network for your broadband connection.

Al right, hands up....who knows what the phrase "These figures represent the percentage ratio while sententiously passing Sub BE, Normal BE, and Priority BE marked traffic through the network" actually means!!!

I didn't have a clue myself so Googled it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_effort_delivery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_shaping

HTH.

most systems get clogged up and slow down as the number of users increase, especially DSL lines. i have fiber optic rated at 100 mbps, but which have a best performance of about 82-84 with little overhead on a tester (not when connected to my computer). My real time performance is somewhere about 52 to 56 mbps and the good thing about the system I am on, there are only eight parties allowed on one line, reducing the potential reductions in speed. Anyway, my wireless system in the home will generally run between 54 and 36 mbps, which is generally fast enough when I am fiddling about on my notebook PC. I used to have ADSL, with all the problems you alluded to (11 pm was always a big drop in performance!), but moving to fiber optic has been pretty rewarding. Course, this is the land of high tech, so they say.

I understand it, and wish I didn't. I had several years in IT, data comms, and worked for an ISP and telecomms provider. Unfortunately you need something approaching that kind of background to make much sense of what they are saying.
The bottom line is that they are not providing the level of speed advertised. Most ISPs aren't. It's a bit of a con really. I tested my line one evening and found I was getting 1.5 mbps. I'm paying for 8. I tested it again about 2 in the morning and got about 4 mbps. I've since dropped my subscribed line speed down to 2 mbps with Tiscali as I can't see the point in paying a premium for something which they cannot deliver.
We should all do the same thing. If we impact the ISPs revenue streams then maybe they will take the issue seriously.

I did the same with NTL-I am on cable-when they put the price up-didn't see I needed 8mbps for a bit of email and web brousing, and since I don't download music or watch streaming vidio I dropped the speed. Since then Virgin have upped the speed back to 10mbps without any cost increase-when I tested it the other day I was getting 9.2mbps. It still takes ages to dwonload a page sometimes but I guess that is probably a problem at the other end rather than my connection.

John

Everything takes longer at your age Monty:lol:

WeeJohnyB

In some ways that might be a good thing mate. ;)

John

DSL systems are effected by a variety of factors including distance from base station, number of users on the line, your own overhead, etc. Advertised speeds are best speeds, not what we peons would ever expect to get. Kind of like gas mileage figures, especially among this crowd....LOL