[palmermcfc]

ok, first post here
I live in Manchester, UK and have a broadband connection with BT. 1 or 2 weeks in a month my internet is fine, I am far away from my exchange so usually look at around a 1Mb connection, speed test giving 700-800Kb download with 300-400 upload. Then the rest of the month it looks like this:

this leads to me believing that bt is purposely cutting my download speed. This isn't a computer related problem, speed test runs similar results on all 3 computers in the house, no bandwith hogging software like torrents are being used.

So basically what i am wondering is, is am i right that the problem is that the ISP's end? also I don't seem to be able to get cable connection through virgin media so if i went to another ISP which went through my BT line such as sky, would the problems persist?

Many thanks in advance

[Hybr!d]

It should be the opposite, download much, much more than upload.

I would contact BT.

[thingie2]

Do you download alot and have a download limit in your subscription? If so, this might be the cause, otherwise, like Dave said, call BT.

[MJM]

All you can really do is call BT since that's who should have the answers.

I'd also recommend staying away from Virgin Media, but that may just be because I hate them for the very bad service I get on my supposedly 20meg line.

[Mike0001]

Well, I got as low as 3k/sec on downloads with PlusNet's Premium service, so I can top that! I stayed with them only 2 months then when I returned to BT the service was fine!

[thingie2]

Originally Posted by MJM

All you can really do is call BT since that's who should have the answers.

I'd also recommend staying away from Virgin Media, but that may just be because I hate them for the very bad service I get on my supposedly 20meg line.

I don't have a problem with mine, I don't get upto 20meg ever, but you won't do on anything other than a dedicated line, and I can usually get a few meg on servers that have fast enough connections (see profile pic)

[Hybr!d]

Originally Posted by MJM

I'd also recommend staying away from Virgin Media, but that may just be because I hate them for the very bad service I get on my supposedly 20meg line.

My Virgin line is constantly clamped, for example the other day I download a few 4GB Linux distros, bang... clamped till the end of the month to 2MB, it's a joke, anything above browsing a few websites gets you clamped. I still wonder what the point of having 10MB is, when I really need it for a big file it gets throttled, then I continue to suffer till the end of the month.

[MJM]

Exactly. Write them a letter and refer them to Ofcom. Or just write a letter and add the CC with ofcom's address... it's a magic trick.

[philthomas]

How are you guys measuring speeds ?
Never rely solely on on-line websites, because their servers can get congested too and give spurious results.

I have Virgin 20mb connection and I mange to get on average between 1500 - and 2390kB/s.
I measure this when downl;oading a large file from a Server that I know is good or sometimes Newsgroups.

At the time of writing I am downloading a 1.5gb file at 2380kB/s, but if I go to speedtest.net, it will show me something like 1100kB/s, so not really that accurate I find.

[MJM]

Dude, I run servers that could easily burn my line and I cannot get the speed from them... Ping is also always horrible.

I should note here that I live in a student area and a lot of people use Virgin purely because when you are five people or more in a house you need a speedy line and the most BT offers is like 5 megs or something.
But because it's stupid cable internet (hello inferior technology) and there's not enough bandwidth assigned to the area, we are constantly slowed down.

Also note that Virgin is very well aware of this fact and does nothing about it and thus should kill itself.