download speed hits new low... why?

jax13

jax13

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my download speed has recently become very erratic. I'm with aol & despite their reputation with a lot of people they have always been pretty good for me, I very very rarely have any issues.

in the last half hour i have speed tested at anythign from .4 to 1.2 meg, most readings are .5 to .6 where they would normally be 1.5 - 1.7 (on a rural exchange so speeds aren't great.


i've checked my router stats & they are saying

down speed 2784kbps
up speed 352k
line attenuation (down) 52db & 15.5db (up)
noise margin (down) 8db & 6db (up)

surely I should be getting my usual speed.


I did have issues last night too, chrome was throwing up the DNS error page, xbox wouldn't connect to live, phones were connected to the network but no web access through the wifi.


can anyone shed any light on the situation please.

taa!
 
You have a shit phone line also. I know, I have two with stats like that :o

That speed (sync) is low for a 52db line. I have two 56-58db lines @ 3500-4500kbps. Your SNR is not that high either so I'd assume you probably suffer from random bursts of noise or just night time noise. Obviously you don't hear this noise on the actual phone but it could be causing packet loss which kills all speed in a flash.

Open a command prompt :

ping -n 60 www.bbc.co.uk

See if it drops any packets and paste the last few lines here.

eg.

Ping statistics for 212.58.244.70:
Packets: Sent = 17, Received = 17, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 19ms, Maximum = 25ms, Average = 20ms
 
ping stats
4 packets transmitted, 4 recieved, 0% packet loss
round trip 30/32.5/40ms (min/av/max)
 
Yea make sure you put the "-n 60" or something in there so you send a fair wadge of packets, 4 is not enough :D
 
ah, i just stuck bbc.co.uk's ip address into my routers test bit!

okey dokey... for the embarrassing bit

packets sent : 60, recieved: 55, lost: 5 8% loss
trip time
min 40ms max 1691ms average 160ms
 
just done another 2, both had 100% packet success & each threw 1 stupidly high result (1035ms & 768ms) everything else is sitting between 40ms & 46ms
 
Inconclusive but you should be able to run a ping for hours and barely lose a single packet. Packets arriving with very high (250ms+) latency are also going to have a bad effect.

For comparison my line for 600 pings :

Ping statistics for 212.58.246.92:
Packets: Sent = 600, Received = 600, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 19ms, Maximum = 129ms, Average = 20ms

Either AOL are broken / peak time slow or you line has an issue. If you have a line issue then swapping ISPs etc is not going to help, on the other hand if it is AOL's fault then you should move away.

The guess from me would be you have a mild line issue, mine are both pretty ropey in certain conditions, usually at night and when wet. It can show in bursts, everything great then a sudden loss for a while. During a dry morning both are much better. (8 years ongoing this issue)

I get around it by forcing my router to connect at a lower speed, giving me a greater SNR and more headroom for line noise etc. This isn't a solution but my ISPs were never able to help and I've been through four, and even had a second line installed which turned out as bad as the first.

Swap filters, remove extensions and SKY boxes, do everything you can inside your house to see if you can improve it..

Does your router status page show errors, CRC, FEC, things like this?
 
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