Advice needed about rubbishy internet

[callumacrae]

I've been testing my internet speeds recently, as I don't they're up to scratch.

I'm on "up to" 8mb internet from Tiscali, and on average over the last week (testing every half hour) I've been getting (on average) 0.4mb.

I'm locked into a twelve month contract, and I can't afford to have two ISPs. I would like to move to Virgin, is there any way of getting out of this contract?

I rang them about a month ago, and they persuaded me to upgrade to an equally priced contract which would give me "up to twice the speeds". It's worse.

Am I the only one that thinks this is wrong, and has anyone had similar experiences?

~Callum

[Smith6612]

Is this a DSL provider? You mentioned Virgin which I know is a cable company out in England. Well, when it comes down to it I need more information. When the speeds are slow, what time is it normally slow? Also, what do your DSL line statistics look like when the line is slow (the page will be at your modem's IP address and will show information such as attenuation, margin/SNR/SN Margin, speed, power level, line mode). Also provide me a trace route to a website from command prompt or Ping Plotter. Also give me a speed test result from a site you trust and use for speed testing. This will be all I need to help you out. I do suggest NDT servers for speed testing though, as flash can and does become inaccurate. NDT servers often times have 1Gbps of bandwidth on them, and all of them only test one PC at a time, as well as them using Java as the testing app.

Unfortunately since a lot of companies tend to hide behind a wall of text, which does state that they do not guarantee speeds (which means best effort), unless the CSR on the phone is willing to kill the contract for slow speeds without charging you for it, you're going to have to pay up for the ETF (aka the WTF charge).

[callumacrae]

I kind of understood half of that...

Basically, when I'm downloading a file I can't even have Pidgin open.

Speedtest.net, just got 0.6 MB/s download and 0.4MB/s upload.

Um, what did the rest mean?

~Callum

[ah-blabla]

0.4mbps? You're lucky, my Internet was sometimes at 0.3mbps with BT... (During the summer it was consistently at to 3mbps, in the winter it varied.) The problem with dsl connections in the UK is the telephone line quality is usually rubbish, meaning low speed. I would recommend Virgin since Cable is generally faster (newer cabling as well), but I don't know how you can get out of the contract, but maybe try complaining to them about your internet speed being *massively* below advertised speeds. 0.4mbps is really well below acceptable for a best effort service. It might even be something to go to Ofcom about... (See http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consumer/200...aints-guide-2/)

[Smith6612]

OK. Going down the list here is what each thing means.

1: The modem DSL/Transceiver statistics show the quality of your DSL line. It contains information such as how much the DSL signal is being degraded (attenuation) as it travels from your ISP's exchange to your modem. It also shows the Signal-to-noise ratio, which is obvious in it's name to what it does, measures the strength of the signal. It should also show sync rate, or the total speed in which your line is connected at. The line mode just shows what type of technology and what settings your line is using. The transmit power shows how strong of a signal the modem/the ISP equipment is having to output in order to keep the modem connected. If you Google up your modem model number with the terms DSL stats, you should be able to find a guide on how to get into it. You can also post it up here so I can help you.

2: A trace route is simply a test so to speak that will find out the route that your data is traveling. It will give the IP addresses of each Internet "router" it passes through as well as it's name if there is one, and it will also give the latency between your connection and that router. Trace route is a useful test for figuring out where problems may be in the network. You can run a trace route in command prompt using the following command:

tracert putsideaddresshere

Additionally, you can use the trial of PingPlotter Standard (found at http://www.pingplotter.com/)to perform a test. It's an easy to use program and shows the same results that command prompt shows.

3: You already used a speed test server at speedtest.net . If you're wondering about an NDT test, it's simply a test that runs off of the Java platform, and uses a server with a network aware operating system and a LOT of bandwidth available to perform tests. An NDT test will only test one PC at a time, and it can help determine where, if any a problem may be. Here's an example of a test server in London, England. http://ndt.iupui.lhr01.measurement-lab.org:7123/. Give it a shot

So if this helped any, then that's great.