Broadband Speed Problems

[bainbrig]

Big hoo-ha in the news about broadband speeds/www connection failures.

Mine is fine - NW London, Virgin Media. Are we just lucky? What’s your experience?

BillB

[aelmpvw]

i'm in leicestershire with the much denigrated talktalk and i'm very happy with my broadband speed

[fender62]

talktalk 38mbps nr cardiff

[mikey4444]

Bainbrig....if you are on Virgin, then I presume that you must therefore have cable access, so I am not remotely surprised that you are finding it to be fine.

Most of us access the 'net via a telephone line, that is a wire, not a fibre-optic cable. If people have access to "Fibre to the Cabinet" than they should be getting a reasonable down-load speed. I have a BT line, and access to "Fibre to the Cabinet" and I get about 49 megapixies, which is quite fast enough.

People can use this to measure their current speed :::

http://www.speedtest.net/

[davegosling]

I'm also on VM Broadband, so no problems here.

Ignore the advice to use speedtest.net to test your speed - all ISPs configure their networks to give priority to such "tests" and, as such, it's little more than a scam. The funniest thing with it is that, almost without exception, everyone picks their NEAREST speedtest server to test with, because that's what the scam suggests by default. Little surprise that it gives false results! Not every website you connect to will be housed just round the corner from you. The one you're using now, e.g. is located in the States.

The only true way to get anything like an accurate speed test is to download several large files from various sites all over the place until you completely saturate your bandwidth and then add the results together.

[fender62]

as a side note this question should be in technology section, editor take note

[webbo3]

Just did a test on two different sites. 221 Mbps down load or there abouts on both, im with Virgin

[bainbrig]

Thanks Mikey, yes we are on cable. Hadn't realised it was so superior!

Fender - I put it in here as I'd first become aware of the 'problem' on BBC News...

[davegosling]

https://www.lifewire.com/rules-for-a-more-accurate-internet-speed-test-2617984

[Buenchico]

If you're using any service where the lines are owned by BT (irrespective of who your ISP is), the most accurate speed test available is the one provided by BT Wholesale:
http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/

I only get around 10Mbps but that's because I'm happy to stick with an 'ADSL 2+' service. (There's only me in the house so, unlike a house full of teenagers, there aren't lots of people all trying to stream video content simultaneously). I wouldn't really see much difference if I had a far faster download speed available to me.

I experience very few problems but that's possibly because I'm prepared to pay for a 'business' service in order to ensure that I get a favourable contention ratio and, on the rare occasions I might need support, phone calls answered by UK staff on the first ring.

[Old_Geezer]

My woman's broadband is always disconnecting. Drives me apoplectic. Blooming BT local loop. No point in complaining, they'll make out that they have been useless finding the fault in their network and charge you the Earth for having tried & failed.