Is this contention?

Hi
Have had BT Broadband option 3 MaxDSL for last 12 months and it usually
syncs at ~8000 with noise margin of 8.5dB and most of the time the
throughput is 5-6Mb. Yesterday, it still syncs at ~8000 and 8.5dB but now
the throughput is ~50Kb/s with gaps of about a second now and then where
there is nothing. BT support say it is just the number of users on-line but
it is the same at 7am so not too sure about their explanation. They said
unplug Sky box from phone line and wait another 7 days before they will
investigate.

I downloaded about 50Gb last month so have I been put on a 'bad boys' pipe?

Cannot get the speedtester.bt.com to work (keeps erroring) to see my
Profile. Exchange is Fair Oak.

Anyone else have this happen to them?

Thanks

Paul

Paul C wrote:

> Cannot get the speedtester.bt.com to work (keeps erroring) to see my
> Profile.

Nothing new there. It requires extreme persistence ! 3am it seems to be ok !

Graham

On 2 Aug, 08:57, "Paul C" <p...@notcoldmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
> Have had BT Broadband option 3 MaxDSL for last 12 months and it usually
> syncs at ~8000 with noise margin of 8.5dB and most of the time the
> throughput is 5-6Mb. Yesterday, it still syncs at ~8000 and 8.5dB but now
> the throughput is ~50Kb/s with gaps of about a second now and then where
> there is nothing. BT support say it is just the number of users on-line but
> it is the same at 7am so not too sure about their explanation. They said
> unplug Sky box from phone line and wait another 7 days before they will
> investigate.
>
> I downloaded about 50Gb last month so have I been put on a 'bad boys' pipe?
>
> Cannot get the speedtester.bt.com to work (keeps erroring) to see my
> Profile. Exchange is Fair Oak.
>
> Anyone else have this happen to them?
>
> Thanks
>
> Paul

I've got a very similar thing happening here...
It was running fine pulling down at "full speed", i.e. about 7Mb/s and
have also been hammering the connection with some big downloads in the
last few days.
So it first dropped down to 2.5Mb/s for a day or two and now, during
the day, i'm getting 13KB/s !!!!!!!! That's dialup speed!!!

NDWAD is my exchange and I'm using demon

What is happening here?

Cheers,
Rich.

CheeseAndJamSandwich wrote:
> On 2 Aug, 08:57, "Paul C" <p...@notcoldmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi
>> Have had BT Broadband option 3 MaxDSL for last 12 months and it usually
>> syncs at ~8000 with noise margin of 8.5dB and most of the time the
>> throughput is 5-6Mb. Yesterday, it still syncs at ~8000 and 8.5dB but now
>> the throughput is ~50Kb/s with gaps of about a second now and then where
>> there is nothing. BT support say it is just the number of users on-line but
>> it is the same at 7am so not too sure about their explanation. They said
>> unplug Sky box from phone line and wait another 7 days before they will
>> investigate.
>>
>> I downloaded about 50Gb last month so have I been put on a 'bad boys' pipe?
>>
>> Cannot get the speedtester.bt.com to work (keeps erroring) to see my
>> Profile. Exchange is Fair Oak.
>>
>> Anyone else have this happen to them?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Paul
>
> I've got a very similar thing happening here...
> It was running fine pulling down at "full speed", i.e. about 7Mb/s and
> have also been hammering the connection with some big downloads in the
> last few days.
> So it first dropped down to 2.5Mb/s for a day or two and now, during
> the day, i'm getting 13KB/s !!!!!!!! That's dialup speed!!!
>
> NDWAD is my exchange and I'm using demon
>
> What is happening here?
>
> Cheers,
> Rich.
>

It's not contention as such, you are being punished deliberately for
using your connection.

It seems BT Broadband have oversubscribed their centrals and to make
things worse launched BT vision which leaves even less bandwidth for
normal users.

See the BT Broadband forum on thinkbroadband.com and here -

http://www.dslzoneuk.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5453

Andy.

Eeyore wrote:
>
> Paul C wrote:
>
>> Cannot get the speedtester.bt.com to work (keeps erroring) to see my
>> Profile.
>
> Nothing new there. It requires extreme persistence ! 3am it seems to be ok !

Which, of course, means that the ISPs and BT Wholesale that use the
BT speedtester as an indicator of contention have a useless tool!!!

The test needs to work at the peak times when contention is at its
worst for it to help.

all the best,
Ian

if wrote:

> Eeyore wrote:
> > Paul C wrote:
> >
> >> Cannot get the speedtester.bt.com to work (keeps erroring) to see my
> >> Profile.
> >
> > Nothing new there. It requires extreme persistence ! 3am it seems to be ok !
>
> Which, of course, means that the ISPs and BT Wholesale that use the
> BT speedtester as an indicator of contention have a useless tool!!!

AFICT the site is just very busy.


> The test needs to work at the peak times when contention is at its
> worst for it to help.

Actually no. When you actually manage to get its attention it does reveal some
half useful info.

Graham